Skipping Town

With our departure approaching fast, we loaded up the car this weekend for a whirlwind goodbye tour of some of our favorite places in California. We set out late Friday afternoon and drove up through Clear Lake, a down-at-the-heels community full of trailer parks, diners, RVs, and a huge, gorgeous lake, which always seems to us like a place you’d go if you were in the witness protection program—in the middle of nowhere, an easy place to disappear. Our destination was Ukiah, a small town we stumbled upon on one of our very first road trips three years ago. There isn’t much in Ukiah except a great restaurant, the Ukiah Brewing Company; a cute bakery; and a farmer’s market. But there’s something peaceful about the place, and School Street, the main shopping street, is full of cute shops. Dinner Friday night, breakfast at the bakery Saturday morning, and a stroll through the farmer’s market kicked off our weekend tour. Next stop, Saturday afternoon: a market in Boonville for sandwiches, an...

I can’t complain about Husch Vineyards, a small winery in Philo, California. We discovered this winery on our first wine country expedition shortly after we moved West, and we were instantly smitten, by its small wooden tasting room as much as by the outstanding chardonnay—it made converts of us both. We’re members now, with a shipment coming twice a year and a picnic in the summer, where this picture was taken.