October 23-24, 2017

The next day, we drove to Fort Bragg to visit the glass beach there. At this particular beach, broken up pieces of glass from the sea are washed ashore after being polished and smoothed by the waves and the sand. As a result, you can find many different colors and sizes along the beach. We walked along the cliffs and down on the shore of the beach and collected the sea glass. We saw many sea lions in the water.

Driving on, our next destination was wine country. Along the beautiful drive there, Lauren found an awesome hotel (Ledson Hotel) in Sonoma for a ridiculously good price. We soon found out that this was because we were arriving shortly after the forest fires had gone through the area. The hotel was right in the downtown area within easy walking distance of many restaurants and tasting rooms. Our room was one of seven rooms in the building and was located on the second floor with a balcony overlooking the area. We ended up being the only visitors staying in the hotel that night.

After settling in to our hotel room, we decided we were pretty hungry so we set out looking for a place to grab an early dinner. We soon found out that none of the restaurants served dinner until 5:00 and since it was only 4:30, we decided to go back to our hotel for a complimentary wine tasting while we waited. This might’ve been a mistake. Let’s just say they were very generous on their tasting sizing. Lauren, bless her heart, is way too polite for her own good. Even though California wine is not her type at all (not sweet enough), she still downed every one of the tastings that was offered to her (usually like a shot when the waiter’s back was turned). On an empty stomach, she was already toasted halfway through the tasting. The last couple glasses, she made Myles help her out with it (once again when the waiter’s back was turned). By the time we finished, it was almost 5:00 so we stumbled (okay we weren’t that bad) to an Irish Pub nearby where we, guess what?, ordered more drinks. The bartender was very friendly and made Lauren a sweet drink that she liked. Myles made her wait until she got some food in her stomach before she drank it all. The food at the restaurant was mediocre; however, it did the job. Feeling refreshed and almost sober, we went to Victor Hill for one more wine tasting. We went back to our room and were out by 8:30.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at Sunflower Cafe before going back to our room to do some trip planning. We stayed in the awesome room right until checkout, at which point we left and drove to Oakhearst where we stayed at Sierra Sky Ranch just south of Yosemite National Park. 

End Days 62-63.