Goud Wine

Ben and Alison come to Sonoma!

As the fog lifted, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and entered the sunshine of the North Bay. It was an essential getaway for our guests to really see the landscape surrounding San Francisco, but it turned out to be an escape for us as well. We broke bread, cut cheese with a plastic knife, and filled our spirits with spirits (some felt the effects more than others…). We visited Landmark Winery, Gundlach Bunschu Winery, Scribe Winery, and Buena Vista Winery. We had dinner with a bottle of wine, and we grabbed a couple more bottles on our way home for poolside shenanigans. As the moon shone above us, we dipped our relaxed toes into the hot tub, floated on our backs, and spent the evening conversing under beautiful palm trees. We were tourists, all of us, without much of an agenda but being present with each other. When I think on it, that is always how my friendship with Ben has been, and I felt filled with the joy of having him and Alison still so much a part of our lives. Nothing truly does change with such friendships, I am happy to observe!

As we dried off, and sleep started to itch behind our eyes, we naturally enjoyed a Christmas playlist of Sia, Beiber, Chicago, and Bowie. Naturally, Nightmare Before Christmas chimed in as well, and with that, we wrapped up our Sonoma Excursion with a festive bow. While the remainder of their visit included breweries, a stroll around AT&T Park, a hike around Lands End and the Sutro Baths, a stop in Chinatown, an exhilarating and mildly terrifying Scoot ride to Dolores Park, as well as deep dish Little Star pizza, Sonoma was a perfect pulse to reconnect after all these years.