On The Road Again~Sonoma County

We headed out this morning for Sonoma county which is north of San Francisco about an hour. Jim went to school up there while getting his BA at Sonoma State University. We haven't been up to Petaluma and Sebastapol for a long time so decided that might be a fun destination. We forgot to plan head, weather wise, and it was very foggy this morning. We didn't care it was nice and toasty in the car. Petaluma is a little rural town, kind of a sleepy place really. We never paid much attention to it the olden days so thought it would be fun to get a grown up perspective.

Our first stop was a bakery, the tradition is well established now. We picked this one from the Internet list; we like the name...Della Fattoria. We lucked out it was really a good one. In fact, remember all those tiny things we have been sharing on our Day Trips? Well, we each got something today and split it. It was smaller than it actually looks in this photo.

A scrumptious Danish and a lemon tort.
All the offering are made on the premises.

It was a charming place if you are ever
in Petaluma and want something fun.

We had chocolate soup too!

Jim had ordered hot chocolate for us to share as we were freezing. This is what they brought us. Hello! A soup bowl with at least 3 cups worth of hot chocolate. Here he is is trying to cajole me as I had just spilled hot chocolate on my white shirt trying to eat it with a spoon since there is no handle on this bowl to pick it up. I am such a klutz so I had to zip up my vest to cover up the evidence. I hate it when I do that, especially five minutes into the day!

Seriously people, this is a ridiculous
presentation of Hot Chocolate~
But that aside it was very good.

So it is now 11:00 am and I have managed to consume every WW point for the day I am pretty sure without counting. So this is exactly the day the 49 points they give you per week is made for. It helps you to enjoy life and deviate from the program when you are not living a normal daily routine. It's called making a treat a treat, not a routine. I am totally fine with it.

It was so gray today it did cast a dreary pall over the river walk area. No color in sight really. Like strolling along in a old black and white photo.

Walking the downtown area and the river walk one could not help noticing that Petaluma is a tired little place in need of a face lift. Some repairs to the sidewalks and railroad tracks, and some fresh paint would do it wonders.


Then on a park bench I found this beautiful orchid just sitting there waiting for me! It was pretty and had been left behind by someone.

Some neglected old building on the main drag.

They are still even having Christmas in Petaluma
if you are not over it yet!

I am totally over it, but took some photos
of their window displays.

Here is a little mermaid, as close to a
fairy as I could find for you, Marie!

And here is their Precepe, Laura,
a little piece of Italy wherever you go.

The main errand we are here for is try to buy Jim some slacks to wear when we are serving at the Genealogy Library on Tuesdays. When at home I cannot drag this guy shopping, he is "in hate" with it. He is so bad he wanted me to take his old suit to the store a few months ago and have them give him a new one just like it.

Are you kidding me, he doesn't want a new color, a new cut, a new fabric, exactly like the old one and the one before that will do just fine. I said, "Ahh, NO WAY, they need to tailor it!" It took another couple of months to get him down there for that new suit. He is too funny. So I figured if we went out of town and and made an adventure out of buying some Dockers or whatever, it would maybe work. So we headed to the outlets in Petaluma.

So we stumbled into Tommy Hilfiger, the very first store we saw when we entered into the Outlet mall. He was griping all the while that he did not want to go in because it was a girl store. When he saw the boy manikins he reluctantly entered. The sales clerk helped him find two pair of pants right away. While he was trying them on I went outside for a couple of minutes to check the outlet directory. Five minutes later he is out and at the cashier. What? They fit fine and he wanted me to run and get a belt and some brown socks and we were done. The whole thing took about 11 minutes and a good part of that time was him asking where a good place for lunch could be found.

Woohoo~pants!
No more shopping for him for another five years.

Heading to Sebastapol for a late lunch.

We found another cool restaurant here.
It really was a fine dining experience, not just lunch!

We started home @ 3:30pm and took the back roads
that we use to travel a lot when we were kids.

This is the Old Lakeville Road and the exact place
I fell in love with Eucalyptus Trees back in the late 60s.

The closer we got to home the more foggy it got.
We are just zooming by here in the car but the white
thing in the foreground is a beautiful, tall crane.
We don't live that far from here I just
have never seen these in our area.

It was a lovely get away day with mission accomplished
~pants for the Hubster!~
Hope you enjoyed coming along!