california, day one: jenner

After Brett and I made a trip to Sonoma, Napa, and San Francisco a year ago, I "made" Brett promise me that we could go back someday, even if it wasn't for another 10-20 years because I so thoroughly enjoyed wine country and all the fun experiences we had had. Little did I know we would be returning to the area one year later! With as many as 400 wineries, wine country is something that can be explored for years and years, for sure. This time, since we had already done all the San Francisco tourist things, we decided to maximize our time in Sonoma and Napa, and even explore some towns along the coast.

Last Thursday, we arrived in San Francisco early afternoon and, after picking up our car (and being persuaded quite easily to upgrade to a convertible), we made our way up to Vintner's Inn in Santa Rosa, which proved to be a great central location for all the places we visited. Of course we had to stop in at In-N-Out (when in Rome...) on the way up since we hadn't eaten yet).

I never tire of the spectacular sight that is the Golden Gate bridge! It's a symbol to me that our vacation is just getting started!

Once we got to Vintner's, we freshened up, and then headed out on a beautiful drive alongside the Russian River and through breathtakingly beautiful forests to our dinner reservation at a charming seaside restaurant called River's End (which Brett happened to stumble upon doing an internet search for places to eat).

Pre-convertible ride

During

If you know Brett, you know he loves cars. He watches Top Gear (or at least he used to when they had the good hosts) and subscribes to Car and Driver magazine. He really wanted to rent a Mustang for our trip this year since we knew we would be driving around a lot more this time than last year. We weren't necessarily planning on getting a convertible, but we decided to go for it once we were there and we were so glad we did! Brett was having so much fun driving something sporty through all the winding fun-to-drive roads.

We started with some oysters!

Salad time! I had a beet, goat cheese, and macademia nuts. Brett's involved orzo and butternut squash. I had fish and he had pork for the entree and, we somehow managed to share a berry trifle dessert, too. 

This is the view from the restaurant's deck. In the bottom right of the shot, you can see houses and/or cottages that are available to rent.

This is where the Russian River flows into the Pacific, thus the name River's End. 

We got back in the car and backtracked back down to park in a lot by the beach. What a beautiful night!

I love a good pile of driftwood. It's just begging to be instagramed. :)

Is that a model? 

Gah, it was so stunning--the waves crashing and the sunset peeking through the stormy clouds. 

We stopped to find rocks for Stella's rock collection

We hiked up all these cool hills that were everywhere. They provided magnificent viewing points, too. 

Our vacation was off to a beautiful start!