Visiting California's Central Coast with children? Make sure to check out these great family-friendly wineries in Paso Robles! After my nomad family and I made our way south down the east coast and lived in several cities heading west to San Diego, we moved about five hours north to the lovely wine country area of Paso Robles. I had been to Paso Robles several times before, and it's one of my favorite California road trip spots for a variety of reasons: The wine is amazing, and I find that the atmosphere tends to be more laidback than other California wine country regions. It features beautiful California country scenery and small town vibes, while also having a lot of restaurants, shopping, a cute downtown, hot springs, hiking trails... and more! However, this was my ... [Read More]
California wineries
California Wine Country ’16 Trip: My Favorite Sonoma & Napa Wineries
Hi friends! How was your weekend? I flew to Las Vegas yesterday for a work trip and will be in Sin City for the week. But today, I want to back it up a few weeks to my vacation road trip up to Sonoma wine country. I already recapped my favorite eats and reviewed my Sonoma hotel, so today I’m chatting about my favorite wineries of the trip! Whenever I visit a wine region, I like to do my research to find wineries that I want to visit beforehand. During this trip we did a nice combo of tasting at smaller establishments and larger productions. It’s always kind of fun to compare and contrast, and I tend to gravitate towards smaller wineries. While I love wine and obviously appreciate the wine itself, what I also love is meeting the people behind the wine. I’m the same way with food: ... [Read More]
A Perfect Autumn Day
To me, October marks the beginning of the holiday season. From now through the end of the year, I feel like there's so much festivity going on -- and I love it! A big part of my afternoon yesterday was spent attending a festive October event at the nearby Uesugi Farms. I was covering their 23rd Annual Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off for the newspaper, and it was the first time I've seen pumpkins of that size in real life. Some of the pumpkins were not very attractive looking... ...while others were pretty: But all of them were definitely GIANT! I got the chance to speak with the grower of the pumpkin below, a Napa farmer who told me that he has a severely disabled daughter who watches him tend to his pumpkins on a daily basis. The sweetness of him talking about her totally made me root ... [Read More]