Catch in the park, Sonoma, and Lagunitas Brewing Co

It’s been unusually cold in California this winter, but it’s been warming up over the past couple of weeks. Last weekend Nick and I went and played catch in the park on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, and had to wear sweaters. Even though it was only 55F/13C, an ice cream truck drove by! We went and played catch again today, and it was about 68F/20C. No sweaters today! We wore tshirts. But also no ice cream truck.

The locals are telling us that it is most certainly still winter here, but we feel like this is spring weather (and it seems like so do a lot of people – there were tons of people wearing shorts and tshirts today).

On Sunday, a friend of ours flew in from Ottawa, and we picked her up in San Francisco and drove off to spend the afternoon wine-tasting in Sonoma. I had to drive, but luckily she got some neat pictures of the drive over the Golden Gate bridge and through a rainbow tunnel:

We visited the Cline, Ravenswood, and Viansa wineries. I liked Cline the best, but my opinion was probably skewed by the fact that we arrived just in time for a tour. We got to see the grounds of the winery, as well as a whole lot of wine in barrels (there was a whole warehouse full of these barrels).

We were even lucky enough to taste a pinot grigio that wasn’t quite ready – in fact it was still cloudy because the sediment hadn’t been filtered out yet.

Here are a couple more shots of the grounds, as well as one of Nick & I, again all courtesy of our visiting friend:

After we’d had our fill of wine tasting we headed over to the Lagunitas Brewing Co in Petaluma. We’d heard a lot of good things about this place and it didn’t disappoint. There was live music playing inside, and a huge heated patio. The food was pretty good and you just can’t beat a 16-beer sampler (5oz each) for $21!!

We even managed to put the top down on the car for about 10 minutes before we got too cold…all in all it was a fantastic Sunday, and we’re very much looking forward to visiting more new places with any friends who come to visit 🙂