by Scott Hocker

 

Photographs by Jen Siska

Sebastopol, among the orchards and vineyards of Western Sonoma County north of San Francisco, is a favorite stopover for people heading west toward the Russian River or beyond that to the coast. But if you’ve only seen this quaint town from State 116, a cruise up into the less-traveled hills around town gives you new reasons to love the place.

Our favorite scenic drive is a 14-mile route that starts at Florence Avenue, which acts as a neighborhood-wide outdoor gallery of the madcap sculptures fashioned by local artists Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent out of bits of junk. Outside town, you’ll climb up, up, up, then plunge into a pastoral valley and pass over trickling Atascadero Creek.

Follow these directions from State 116 and click here for a Google map of the route:

Start at the corner of Healdsburg Ave. and Florence Ave.
Head down Florence Ave. to see the sculptures.
At street’s end, turn right on Bodega Hwy.
After .8 miles, turn left on Pleasant Hill Rd.
After 1.5 miles, turn right toward Watertrough Rd., then left on Sanders Rd. The road comes down the hill, veers right, and becomes Barnett Valley Rd.
After 4 miles on Barnett Valley Rd., turn right on Bodega Hwy.
After 1.7 miles, turn left on Grandview Rd.
After 1.3 miles, turn right on Cherry Ridge Rd., then right on Mill Station Rd.
Follow Mill Station Rd. until you return to State 116.

Eating cheese in Petaluma

By Rachel Levin, Sunset senior editor

Calling all hard (and soft) core cheese fans, the California Artisan Cheese Festival is this weekend--so pop your lactose pill and head on up to Petaluma where our favorite cheese whizzes from around the state have gathered for four days of presentations, pairings, lunches, and gala dinners. Okay, I know, why didn’t we post this earlier as most of the events are already SOLD OUT. Cheese and wine pairing with Quince chef Michael Tusk? Sold out. Learning to navigate your way around a cheese counter with Laura Werlin? Sorry. Best of blue cheese and beer? I know, I’m pissed, too.

Still, you can visit the festival web site to see what is still open to the public--like cheesemaking demos and tastings at the Artisan Cheese Marketplace and talks on cheese trends by legends Sue Conley and Peggy Smith of Cowgirl Creamery.

Cowgirl Creamery's Mt. Tam (yum)

Or, skip the crowds and plan your own cheese course. Many of the all-stars from the festival offer tours, classes, and tastings throughout the year, too:

Cheese School of San Francisco Tons of classes ongoing. One fun one upcoming: Cooking for cheese lovers ($95)

Cooking School at Cavallo Point in Sausalito, Cheese Tasting Intensive, April 9 ($75)

Cowgirl Creamery Thursday 11:30 a.m. tours ($30) at their new Petaluma Creamery, Friday 11 a.m. tours ($3) in Pt Reyes

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

Where in the world are these toes to nowhere? Anyone?

Hint #1: it’s gorgeous, windy, and surrounded by beaches.

Hint #2: One of the beaches nearby has the inglorious name Stump.

Hint #2: This one (above), whose name I won't divulge—that's for you to guess—is full of sandstone rocks that were once quarried and used in the streets of San Francisco.

But that’s too easy for an expert like you. How about this: What excellent campground is near here?

Anyone know the answers? Post them in a comment below. Get it right and I’ll give you a tip on the best campsite to reserve there...

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

There are so many reasons to love western Sonoma County it’s a little ridiculous. Take, for instance, the Inn at Occidental with its folk-art–filled rooms. Or Osmosis day spa with its Japanese-style cedar enzyme baths and calming tea garden. Or Wild Flour Bread, with its wood-fired oven and incredible pear, fig, and ginger hard-crusted loaves. Or the Sonoma Coast beaches. The sun seems a little more golden out here, and everyone seems laid back and creative.

So I wasn’t at all surprised when, as I was suiting up for a bike ride (yep, that's me up there!) from the teensy town of Valley Ford to Salt Point Campground, south of Jenner (where we were planning to take the kids for their first real camping trip beyond our backyard), my husband urged me to step into a little shop called West County Design. Which turned out to be the kind of place I’d like to have as my own home.

I mean, look at this swimmer! I want her in my front entryway. “She’s so naive looking, isn’t she?” said Sharon Eager, the shop’s owner, whose name I adore. (I mean, I’d marry a man whose last name was Eager, just for the name. Instead, I married a Wolf.)

I lusted after the tables too, all handcrafted by Craig Collins, Eager’s husband. (Collins is a fine name but I don’t blame Eager for not changing her name.)

But mostly I loved the small stuff, like these colorful Chilewich "plynyl" floor mats. We bought an orange one and took it with us camping. You never know when you might need an orange floor mat.

In case you’re wondering how the camping trip went, check back with me next week. In the meantime, tell me: what’s your favorite small-town design shop?

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

I recently (once again) proved my ignorance on all things garden related, during a meeting with the Sunset garden editor and a few others, “Do people still like roses, anyway? I thought they were sort of passé.” My question was met with incredulous looks. Then laughter. I didn’t open my mouth again during that meeting.

Just back from a visit to Valley Garden Ranch, a 10-acre rose garden outside Petaluma, I’m here to say that I take it back. Roses will never be passé. Just look at this place.

Picture 7,000 roses, none of them sprayed with any pesticides. Then picture them smack in the middle of a scene out of The Secret Garden, and you’ll start to get what I’m talking about. A 75-foot pond stocked with something called shubunkin goldfish (worth seeing just you can bandy around the word “shubunkin”) and freshwater smelt. Wild strawberries for the picking. Apple trees everywhere. Baby chicks trailing their mother hen.

My 4-year-old daughter and her 4-year-old friend Connor announced that they were going to get married at the ranch. (Good news: the ranch does weddings, and we figure booking a wedding 24 or so years out will give us good odds of getting the weekend of our choice.)

In the meantime I’m going to come back to this place, maybe even spend a night in the charming little guest cottage, bring my husband and a bottle of rosé, and indulge my new love affair with roses.

By Rachel Levin, Sunset senior editor

Last month, I was up in Glen Ellen, California for a friend's wedding and stumbled upon one of my new favorite stops in Wine Country: Jack London Village. A low-key little row of all that's good in this world:
Cheese. Chocolate. Olive oil. Wine. All within steps of each other.

Like, I'm talking, literally two steps apart you've got:

Raymond Cheese Mongers: A nothing-fancy closet-sized shop filled with glorious, artisanal cheese made from cow's, goat's, and sheep's milk. Can't get there—don't worry, you can shop online!

Figone Olive Oil: Next, sample Mission-Manzanillo, Tuscan blend, and citrus olive oils produced right here in Glen Ellen. Got 500 lbs of your own olives? You're invited to press 'em at their village mill in November and December. (For more on making your own olive oil, see our One-block Diet blog. I'm a proud member of Sunset's Team Olive.)

Wine Country Chocolates: Then move on to chocolate. Handmade truffles infused with everything from cabernet sauvignon and port to apricot and fresh orange.

Eric Ross Winery A red barn-of-a-tasting room across the road with a rooster logo and crisp viogniers and rich pinot noirs.

And don't forget lunch: Olive and Vine makes some damn fine sandwiches—which you can enjoy on a shady picnic table, out back by the creek. I had a simple, but outstanding, house-roasted turkey served on toasted wholewheat spread with a zingy citrus-habenero mustard, topped with bacon and one of the juiciest tomatoes I've ever had—trucked in from the farm mere minutes before slicing.

Olive and Vine just so happened to cater that wedding, too. Yum.

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

My family never did the reunion thing, and I sort of feel like I got gypped. I always envy the families who all get together for weeks on end of days at the beach, big group dinners al fresco, parents lounging by the bonfire with cocktails in hand while the kids tromp around content to be with their cousins. I barely even knew who my cousins were, let alone spent frivolous weeks away with them.

Now that I have my own kids, not to mention 13 neices and nephews, I'm dying to plan a reunion someday. The good news is that I recently stumbled upon the absolute perfect place to do it.

Westerbeke Ranch, in Sonoma Valley, minutes from dowtown Sonoma, is a rustic, family-run retreat that bills itself as a conference center but welcomes groups of any kind: 16 people minimum on weekdays, 21 people minimum weekends, 52 people total. Rates are on a sliding scale (cheapest for bigger groups), starting at $141 per person per night, including THREE meals a day! The food is supposedly excellent, featuring produce grown on the grounds, and the ranch kitchen is very inviting, with al fresco seating by a pool. Just think of all the money you save not eating out. And you don’t even have to cook, let alone walk more than 10 paces from your cabin.

The five redwood cabins have single beds only, but they’re plenty comfy in a summer-camp way, with country-style furnishings and porch swings outside. The place exudes summertime laziness, which might explain why I snoozed the whole afternoon away in one of those cabins recently.

I felt like I was entering the Sunset Magazine headquarters as I walked around the Spanish Mission–style property with its lushly landscaped gardens, oak-dotted hillsides, adobe buildings with Taco Bell–syle roofs, even a few cacti here and there. It’s an appropriate likeness, since the ranch is steeped in western heritage, having been built by a western couple in 1935 and occupied by four different generations of that same family since then.

Members of the family still live on the grounds, tending their vegetable gardens, driving cool old trucks around dirt roads, and living the western life we all like to dream of living someday. The same family also owns the very lovely looking El Rito Canyon Retreat in northern New Mexico; Oak Hill Farm in Sonoma County’s Mayacamas Mountains, which sells its produce and flowers at the San Francisco Ferry Builing Ferry Farmers Market; and Bucklin Winery, which produces an excellent zinfandel.

Like I said, I wish I had that kind of family. But at least the rest of us can go stay at the ranch, eat the produce, drink the wine, and dream.