A Wonderful Mid-Winter Day (Sluglife)

I said in a different post, it’s been a hell of a January. To many big things to mention, and half of them made the month feel like a year long. Today we closed out January with a fantastic day in West Sonoma County. We’ve made a resolution to try to go to a new place we haven’t been before once a week. Between New Orleans and Anna’s gallbladder, we haven’t had much of a chance to keep up with that resolution. Today, however, we got in three new places.
	First stop, the Grove of the Old Trees. Haven’t heard of it? Neither had we until we spotted it in a recent newspaper article. Despite the recent press, on this gorgeous Saturday the place was deserted – and it’s pretty obvious why. It’s in the middle of nowhere, which is part of the reason it’s such an amazingly peaceful place.
	Once inside the park, the grandeur of the place takes over. Having grown up visiting redwood forests my whole life, this place surprisingly was able to take my breath away.
	Proof we were there.
	Just off one of the trails we came across a burned-out tree. Redwood bark is remarkably fireproof, however any chink in the bark allows the fire inside to smolder, which is exactly what happened here. However, despite the fire damage this giant still looks to be in great shape. That’s me, for a little scale.
	The moss inside the burn made for a pretty shot.
	Speaking of pretty shots, who’s that cutie in the tree?
	Looking at the pictures again, one thing difficult to convey is the incredible peacefulness of the place. Among these massive trees, all you hear is the wind and birds. Quite a fantastic place to let go of the month.

	As you can see by the little compass thingie in the upper left, this isn’t our photo – no, because I left the camera in the car I resorted to ganking a rather good shot from Google Street View. Not bad! This is Village Bakery in Sebastopol where we stopped in to share a grilled turkey and pepper jack sandwich for lunch. Wonderful. We will be going back (with the camera, I promise).
	Our final stop for the day took us down to Cotati to a local cupcakery called Sift. Anna had been craving a cupcake all week, and I’d heard of the place, so… It’s the cutest little place. If you have a sweet tooth and you find yourself on 101 near the Cotati grade, make the stop. It’s worth it.
	Same picture as above, just cropped differently to show the unfortunate coincidence of sitting behind the logo in the window.
	Our two tastes of Sift were, on the left, Peanut Butter Ripple (chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting) and an Irish Car Bomb (Guinness chocolate cake with Irish cream frosting) on the right. Divine! We will be visiting again!