Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Great Weekend in San Francisco Day 3: Redwoods and Beer

Redwoods and Beer, Redwoods and Beer, Redwoods and Beer

Redwoods in the lightning, redwoods in the lightning, redwoods in the rain


Ok, moving on. Our third day was just as much fun as the first two. We rented a car and headed north. It was still foggy and pretty quiet as we headed towards the Muir Woods.

The Muir Woods are supposed to be crazy this time of year so we got on the road early. At 10am all of the parking was full but we did find a spot on the road.
The redwoods are like no other place we have been. The trees are huge and all of the other plants are ancient underneath. All of the light green in the pictures is new growth, clearly they were happy trees.

There are lots of good hiding spots.

We parked right next to the Dipsea trail, on the morning of the Dipsea trail race. We even saw some runners on the trail. The Dipsea is the oldest trail race in the country and one of the hardest to get into.

I was there too. We did run 30 feet on the trail and now can say we ran the Dipsea.

And from the Muir Woods we headed to the Lagunitas brewery in Petaluma. Lagunitas is an especially magical beer that we have recently started enjoying in Kansas City. Since we were close there was no better time to visit. When I contact them about a tour the answer was "sure stop by when you are in town, we will be drinking on the patio." Hmmm, maybe our kind of place.

Their clubhouse overlooking the loading floor looks like every college basement.

Let's get this started.


I have been on a few brewery tours and this one was the most "behind the scenes." Lagunitas is getting ready for a couple week shutdown for and expansion. So they are running full time trying to build up a back supply and it was a little crazy for a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, that is a red homemade dress on backwards. Just say the people there were very interesting.

Brewing a batch of IPA.

This is a brewery that has grown in popularity very quickly. They have equipment everywhere.

Next to the brewery is the taproom and small restaurant. We got a few samplers and ended up tasting everything.

Mmmm beer chili nachos.

The locals come out on Sunday afternoons to hang out on the patio and drink beer, my kind of town.

Because, Sunday afternoons they have live music. This was a great end to the trip sitting in the California sun drinking beer and listening to music.

In Sonoma county even the view from the parking lot is great.

Last but not least, our friend Jenn flew in from Hawaii. We stopped by her parent's house on the way back to the city. Jenn and her husband Ian left Kansas City about a year ago. It was great to catch up.

Three great days in California. It has taken much longer recover and finally get the pictures posted.

1 comment:

LD said...

You're in my backyard (Sonoma Co.) in my home state! Just looking at the pics makes me miss home. Have fun!