West Coast Fun Part 2

I left the Sacramento area and headed west towards Santa Rosa.  On the way I planned to stop at what could only be described as a true life drive-in, "Taylor's Automatic Refresher" in the Napa Valley town of St. Helena.  The drive is quite scenic taking California Route 29 through the Napa Valley passing Vineyards and Wineries seemingly every 500 feet, most of them world famous.  As I reached Taylor's I puled into a place that was very busy.  They feature everything from full meals to burgers and their signature sandwich, the Ahi Tuna burger.  It might be one of the few drive-ins that features a full wine selection.  I chose a Bleu Burger and it was very good.  While there the Napa Valley Wine Train stopped across the street at it's St. Helena Station.  After leaving Taylor's I headed to my cousin Ralph's in Santa Rosa.  Ralph and I have alot in common, a love of aviation as he is a retired Captain from Fed Ex.  He is the oldest son of my dad's brother.  I had not seen Ralph in many years so it was a really great reunion.  When I called him as I was planning the trip he was excited to join me and had been to just about all of the Santa Rosa DDD places, in fact he had met Guy once, before Guy had become famous.  After arriving at Ralph's we headed out  and first went to visit the Charles Schultz Museum.  The creator of the Peanuts cartoon called Santa Rosa home and the museum is full of many of his rare early cartoons.  Mr. Schultz was also an avid ice skating fan and at his museum is the Charles Schultz Ice Arena, where many of the local hockey teams train and play.  For dinner we went to "Willie Birds".  Willi Bird's is all about turkey!  The owner owns a turkey farm a few miles away and the restaurant is turkey, turkey and more turkey.  Both of us got the classic Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.  Really good food there.  The next morning we went for breakfast at "Hanks Creekside Restaurant".  This cafe is family owned and run and is a particular favorite of Guy's.  This is where Guy had one of his "hash-a-listic" experiences with corned beef hash, so I had to have the same.  I usually am not a fan of hash (too many of those canned hash meals) but it is awesome at Hank's.  As we were leaving a couple stopped us when they saw my book, they, too were on a DDD trip and headed to San Francisco top try a place there.  During the day  Ralph and I headed to several places including the Sonoma County Airport where some of the flying scenes from the classic movie "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" were filmed including the hangar where Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett flew the Beech 18.  Later we headed to a few vineyards including Kendall-Jackson.  For dinner we headed to Guy's first restaurant "Johnny Garlic's California Pasta Grill".  Johnny's is a bit quieter and more placid than Tex Wasabis but yhe food was excellent!  I was hoping that Guy would be there but he is so busy that he probably doesn't spend too much time at his restaurants as he would like.  I found out the next morning that he was in the area filming the Christmas episode of "Dinner Impossible" with it's host Robert Irvine.  The funny thing about it is that it was the Christmas episode but on that day it was over 100 degrees in Santa Rosa!

After an all too brief visit with Ralph I headed back to Sacramento, stopping along the way in Fairfield to take the Jelly Belly Jellybean factory.  After having a farewell dinner with Stacy I was off  to Seattle.....