Recently, we won a FREE trip to the Sonoma wine country. Yeah, that IS cool! It was a free night at the Vintner’s Inn in Santa Rosa (see picture), along with tasting passes at three nearby wineries, a small bottle of wine in our room, a $100 credit at the high-end restaurant, and a breakfast. We went earlier this month.

The hotel was really nice, including cookies in the room at bedtime, a fireplace in the room, large-screen TV, nice big tub, balcony, cushy bed, and more.But on the way there we stopped in Petaluma for a vegan lunch at The Sunflower Center that was pretty good even though it was in an office building. You never know, do you? Then, after checking in at the hotel, we headed to one of the wineries that we had passes for, Kendall Jackson. The wines were very good and the woman at the tasting bar was interesting and friendly. We had some time left before dinner so we stopped in at The Last Record Store. We found a few things in their “3 for $10” bin. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. This is a fancy and expensive place so we even dressed up a little.

The restaurant, John Ash & Co, was mostly foie gras, duck, beef, and lots of upscale meat stuff that we would never eat ever. We asked about vegan and vegetarian options and they promised the chef could whip up something vegan for us, so we took them up on that. And I have to say it was delicious! The dinner with wine came to just over $101, and remember we had a gift certificate for $100. You can do that math but that is sweet! There was tax and tip but we got a delicious gourmet meal for next to nothing.

The next morning I picked at the breakfast a little but mainly there was hardly anything for us, so we went to a nearby Sebastopol restaurant instead, one with pages of vegetarian and vegan options in abundance called Slice of Life. It was delicious. Then we went up to Healdsburg to the Ferrari-Carano winery and sampled some there. We both liked the Pinot Noir and picked up a couple bottles to take home. Then we went to the central area of Healdsburg. It started to rain  but we still made it to the third winery that we had passes to, the Seasons of the Vineyard. We sampled there, but did not buy. Then we walked to a nearby health food restaurant and bought some vegan chocolate and a couple other items. And then down the street to Flying Goat Coffee, where we had a refreshing beverage and kicked back for a while.

Time to head back home, we started out and stopped in a nearby town on the way back, at a record store there. We found a bunch of stuff, including some bootleg CDs that we had never seen by Prince, Elvis Costello, and Tom Waits. We left when the store closed and continued the journey back. But we had one more stop top make, in Vacaville, because we had found out about a pizza place there that offered options for vegan pizza. And we were hankering for some pizza! We went to Amici’s and got a large pizza and ate most of it. The rest came home. They subbed vegan “cheese” for real cheese and it was very good.  Apparently this is a bay area small chain, and we really liked it. We’ll be back there, since it’s only 45 minutes from our house ! Woo-hoo!

Then we were back at home. It was just an overnight trip but we made the most of it. And much of it was free, so overall it was a cheap getaway but a lot of fun. I’ll get some pictures posted soon…

In the meantime, feel free to leave me a comment, ask me a question, of tell me a joke below…