West Coast Road Trip: Day 1

Okay - so Cate is going to be giving you your fill of wedding planning details...and I'm going to go back and talk you through all the details of our West Coast Road Trip that we took last June!

I've been thinking about how to break up our trip on the blog, and I decided I'm going to do it by day.  That means there will be quite a few of them.....but I'm hoping that allows me to relive every delicious moment, and talk you through our plans... how they worked or changed along the way!  I'll also go back and do a planning post at some point, because we get a LOT of questions about our trip, asking how on earth we came up with the idea, and then planned it all!  and if I'm being honest, we had so much fun planning it, I could talk for days!

Day 1:  We found AMAZING flights out of Boston.  With our multi city flight - Boston to San Francisco, then Seattle to Boston, we were able to get nonstop flights for around $350 each.  No - not joking. $700 TOTAL got us to the west coast and home.  with no layovers! {!!!}

My sister was sweet enough to ride along at the crack of dawn to then drive Ant's car back to my parent's house, saving us the major $$ you have to cough up to park at the airport.  Our nonstop flight got us into San Francisco at about 12:30pm on Thursday, easy peasy.

Things we had planned in advance:  Pick up our rental car, drive to Sonoma, check into our airbnb.  That was the extent of our plans - we knew we would want to try to get to a vineyard or two, but hadn't picked any in particular - and we knew we wanted a good dinner after a long travel day.

Things we planned on the fly:  Pun TOTALLY intended here!  We literally took full advantage of wifi to start scoping out vineyards on the flight to San Francisco.  I started by google mapping the drive from the airport to our airbnb, and searched vineyards along the route.  Ram's Gate jumped out as the first vineyard you hit on the road to Sonoma.  I looked up their trip advisor (we live and die by TripAdvisor usually) and it had 4.5 stars - but required reservations!  So I emailed, from the plane, to see if they had anything available that afternoon.  I successfully made 2:00 reservations!  I then also researched Cline Cellars and Jacuzzi Winery.  For both of those, reservations were NOT required, and tastings were free! {FREE!} - so we decided we would start at Ram's Gate and see how far we got.

The process of picking up our luggage, getting to the rental car center, and getting our rental car took longer than expected - so we ended up pushing our reservations back until 2:30.  We had thought ahead and packed a change of clothes in our carry ons so we had easy access to clean clothes, and changed in the garage at the rental center.  We hit the road and headed straight for Sonoma!

Ram's Gate Winery was right off the main road, you couldn't miss it!  We pulled up and checked in - they DO say reservations required, but that afternoon we were essentially the only people there, and the woman did comment that when they are that slow they will accept walk ins, so it's always worth a shot!  We did two different wine tastings, which allowed us to try the most variety and split a delicious cheese plate.

While we were there, we spent a lot of time chatting with the sommelier who was serving us.  We asked him for his recommendation for places to try - and with ZERO hesitation he said "Hanzell - but you probably needed to make reservations yesterday."  I immediately went outside and called to see if they had anything available, and was able to make reservations for early afternoon on Friday!

We enjoyed our wine at Ram's Gate, and decided to splurge on a bottle to bring home.  We then enjoyed the grounds a bit, and hit the road.  In retrospect, Ram's Gate was easily one of the more expensive vineyards we visited, and we probably wouldn't go back if we went back to Sonoma, knowing what we know now about some of the other vineyards....BUT!  We certainly enjoyed our visit there.

Jacuzzi Family Vineyards was literally just a few minutes down the road, so we stopped there next.  Jacuzzi was a very different set up - tastings are free and you stand at a tasting bar where there were quite a few servers working.  It was definitely busier, and a less personalized experience, but we enjoyed the wine and bought a bottle (or two) to take with us.  We quickly learned that this was going to become a dangerous trend of ours! :)  In the back on the grounds at Jacuzzi they were setting up for the most adorable wedding reception right in the middle of the vineyard!  I died.

We only had a day and a half in Sonoma, so we decided to push our luck when we left Jacuzzi and try to sneak in a final tasting at Cline Cellars.  Cline was similar in set up to Jacuzzi - free tasting at the bar, but they also offered an upgraded tasting for a fee.  Ant & I each did the free one, and split the upgraded one!  When in Rome, right?  The gentleman (I use the term loosely....he was barely 21) was an absolute sweetheart.  Grew up in Sonoma and knew the family who ran the vineyard, and just had the goofiest, friendliest personality!  We enjoyed our wine there and stayed until they closed up for the day.

At that point, we went and checked into our AirBnb.  What a start to the trip!  First - it had my favorite kind of check in.  The "key is under the mat no real check in necessary" kind.  Don't get me wrong, I love meeting new people which is one unique aspect of airbnb...but after a long day of travel it was exactly the quick and painless process we needed.

Once we unpacked we prepped for dinner, and headed off to downtown Sonoma.  We spent some time exploring the green before our dinner reservations.  I LOVED Sonoma.  I kept telling Ant it reminded me of our town at home...it was the Guilford of California, and in wine country!  Whats not to love.

We had made reservations at the girl and the fig, a restaurant that came recommended by a number of people.  Dinner was delicious, but the long day of flying and wine tasting caught up to us and by the time we were done eating I was falling asleep at the table!  We joked that we must have seemed like such stereotypical impatient New Englanders because we skipped dessert and quickly asked for the bill to get the heck out of there and back to our room!  Friday was our only full day in Sonoma, so we wanted to be able to get an early start the next morning.

Day 1 maps:
Day one was an easy driving day - I put some maps below so you can see what our route looked like!

Next up I'll be talking about Friday, our full day in Sonoma!  Have you been there before?  Did you love it as much as we did??

xoxo

other West Coast posts...
Renting a Car