Goofy Things We Do in Sonoma County

Stuff happens here in Sonoma County wine country (and probably Napa, too) that you might find weird if you're from other parts of the country or even farther away.

Oh, sorry, didn't see you, yah dang hippy

Locals talk up green living, but drive an F150 or Silverado full-size pickup that won't fit in their garage--the one with solar panels on the roof. It's the ying and the yang -- most vehicles on the road seem to be either pickups or Prius' (Prii, Priuses, whatever the plural is).

We might open a $50 bottle of wine for grilled burgers. Well, if it's the cheap Safeway meat maybe only a $35 bottle. We'll open an expensive bottle for pizza night, too. It might even be a frozen pizza. Because life's too short to drink bad wine. So, I guess I'm saying we take premium wine for granted.

Tacos and wine? Why not?    image from vcellars.com

We also take redwood trees for granted -- like the ones in my neighbor's yard. You can zip line through redwoods over by the town of Occidental.

I might spend all day around wine, but can't wait to get done with the day and have a cold beer. A craft beer, of course. IPAs and sours rule. I'm a big fan of IPAs, but sours and brett beers, no. When it comes to wine those are flaws so why would I pay for and drink flawed beverages?

We might go to the beach in the summer as a lot of people do. The difference? Our beaches are lucky to have an air temp of 65 degrees, a water temp of 58, and most beaches have unsafe surf for swimming anyway. So going to the beach here means dressing differently than most other places as it's likely to be very chilly. But it is beautiful any time of the year.

My neighborhood is about to get a cannabis dispensary near a tap room and a preschool. Yeah, the folks from the beer joint complained. LOL

There are some unusual events in the county like the Lagunitas Beer Circus, Occidental Fool's Day Parade, the World Championship Grape Stomp at the Harvest Fair, Cow Chip Throwing Contest, Ugly Dog Contest, and the Mr. Healdsburg Pageant. Then there's the Pliny the Younger beer release where people stand outside the Russian River Brewery for hours waiting to get a beer. It's a pretty fabulous beer, but still.

The town of Sebastopol is a nuclear free zone.

You'd think their sister city would be Sevastopol in the Crimea