Sonoma California

Above and Below: The wineries through this region of Sonoma are spectacular and all are free to visit. Tasting are cheap and you can eat at all of them in sweet outdoor picnic areas they have set up for you.

This is a real nice way to have great time in a typically high brow atmosphere without feeling stuffy or like you are going to get ripped off. Everything here is affordable and worth the price when they do charge for a tasting.

We pulled over at Sonoma's wine tasting visitor center. This place is definitely a great place to stop. There must be six plus acres of outdoor and indoor art works, sculptures, paintings, and other artifacts. Everything from special fences, sculptures, pots, to activities for the while family, dinner, foods, wine tasting, olive oil tasting, and maps of the entire area including wineries. There is a place to eat lunch outside surrounded by great artworks and artifacts from renovations where they have renovated homes and salvaged the door way, the boat that was in the yard, the fence that was around an ancient Tibetan temple or something. So check this place out, it is extremely interesting.

We are at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds at our first live horserace. They race a month out of the year here. Admission was free and parking was free. We are going to see some big horses run and will get some video of it. It is a typical fair grounds where they have the carnival set up, live animals to look at, different times of the year. They walk the horses around so you can see them. You can bet on the horses here. It is a lot of fun and easy to get to. Everyone here is in a good mood. The weather is fantastic. There are stalls that sell food from $3 - sandwiches and burritos, snacks, and drinks.