We rented a car this morning, and headed north from San Francisco into wine country. I suppose, to be more precise,I should say that we picked up the car we rented several weeks ago. Good thing too. If we had tried to rent a car today, we would have been out of luck. It’s because of Superbowl. Still 10 days to go before the big event, and already there is a shortage of hotel rooms and rental cars. Restaurants are still okay, but I’m sure that will change soon enough. Fortunately we escaped from the bustle of the city to the quiet of Sonoma, and just in time. Funny how you only notice the noise of the city when you leave it behind.

You see vineyards everywhere, but we are noticing that Sonoma is known for more than just wine. It appears there is a growing olive oil industry as well, though clearly nothing like the scale of the wine industry. Still…

And of course, flowers. Oh so many flowers. We have to enjoy every one of them because we know that another two months of snow awaits us at home.

The last several days have been clear and dry, but today we saw fog and light drizzle for most of the afternoon. I’m not complaining though, because it makes the vineyards and the hills more intense, not to mention the plants.

And of course, the damp encourages the moss, in this case on the Eucalyptus trees.

But we mustn’t forget that the main reason we are here is for the vines. (Well, technically for the wines, but they tend to go together.) I have seen vines described as “gnarly” and it doesn’t take long to figure out why.

For today’s post, special thanks goes to Jan who wandered around taking most of these photos while I was busy tasting wines. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.