Since this is the eve of New Years Eve, and I am back in Atlanta, I thought this would be a good time to wrap up my Christmas trip. Bottom line up front – I had a great time! Now, the details.
I’ve mentioned before that I have fallen in to a travel group. I don’t do all my travels with them – Just some. And Christmas is turning in to one of those times. So far we’ve gone to Blue Ridge GA together. This year, we spent Christmas in Bodega Bay. And it looks like next year we may be in Colorado.
Everyone in the group, so far, went to Duke together except me. I’m included because the main organizers are my cousin and her husband. We all get along well. We picked California for *last* year, but being 2020 it did not happen. So we carried through with the California plan, and then just randomly settled on Bodega Bay because we found a house that looked nice. Here is the house.
We found the house using the app VRBO. We’ve all used it before, and have had relatively decent results. This ran us around $743 / night. It was completely stocked with just about anything you could even imagine you would need. Not kidding. The kitchen had everything. There was a gas grill in the back. And there was a hot tub. That said, it looked like the place had not been cleaned, so that was a big complaint for us. I wont harp on that here because overall the tone of the trip was positive.
We got there after dark on the 23rd, and it was with a steady rain, and a rather dense fog. So I was not able to see the main reason we wanted this house – The view. Thankfully the weather cleared by morning and this is what we saw:
The first full day in Bodega Bay was Christmas Eve. We spent the day exploring the neighboring town of Sebastopol. We had stopped there on the way out the night before to collect some of our provisions. The groceries we got via Whole Foods, and that is a nationally standardized thing so I don’t really need to mention it here, EXCEPT for the fact that it really had a small over-stocked country store vibe to it. One place I will mention, though is Victorian Farmstead Meat Company. We got out steaks for Christmas Dinner from there and they were quite tasty.
We made multiple stops in Sebastopol. We started at Spirit Works Distillery with a tasting. Said tasting lead to multiple purchases, and this group selfie:
Recognizing it was not too wise to continue on empty stomachs, we grabbed a bite at The Farmers Wife, where I had perhaps the most delicious sandwich ever. So, of course I am going to post pics now of my sandwich. (For those in the know, “have I ever told you about the doughnut I had that time in Vegas?” 😉)
We then went to Crooked Goat Brewing for a couple pints (since I don’t drink I am the permanent designated driver – So I occupy my time taking pics):
By this point it was getting to be mid-afternoon and things were closing. It was Christmas Eve, after all. But we did make it to a cheese shop that was outrageously delicious. The name of the place is William Cofield Cheese. We purchased blocks of both the Bodega Blue, which is not a creamy cheese but hard and crumbly, and the McKinley Extra Aged Cheddar. I can strongly recommend both!
After that, we went back to the house and started a game of Cards Against Humanity. I was able to capture this beautiful sunset:
Dinner was cioppino:
And here is the obligatory Christmas Eve Dinner group selfie:
Christmas day was a whole lot of hanging out. We started the day, as tradition dictates, with cocktails and Cards Against Humanity:
We did eventually play another game, and it was new to all of us. It’s a crime solving game called Unsolved Case Files.
I’m going to recommend this game – It was so much fun that we’ve already made plans to include it in next years trip.
Most of the day Christmas was spent mixing up various new cocktails, nibbling and noshing, and a nap. Let me plug this one product though, since we did enjoy copious amounts of pork products from them, Nueske’s:
We also slowly motivated ourselves to make Christmas Dinner:
Boxing Day was spent on a wine tour, ending with dinner at Baci Cafe and Wine Bar in the cute-as-duck town of Healdsburg. It was a fun day, really. But this is how the weather looked:
And this is how I looked:
We mainly lounged about on Monday. Since we’ve always requested a hot tub at the houses we rent, we made an effort to actually get in it this time. It was OK. We also solidified the plans for getting back to the airport the next day. Then we spent the night watching the Netflix movie, Don’t Look Up.
The only thing of note about going back on Tuesday is that I finally got to not only see the Golden Gate Bridge, but I drove us across it. It is such an iconic structure! Too bad the weather was not so great:
This is a long post, sorry about that. But that is the entirety of my Christmas Trip to Bodega Bay, California. I had an amazing time!
How was your Christmas?
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Will's GenX Adventure 