The Superbowl may have been a San Francisco shitshow, but the weather played very very nice this weekend. I’m going to do a two-part recap of our adventures, because we really killed it on the weekend-in-Sonoma front.

First up: a lovely dinner party with friends in Sebastopol on Friday night – I made a gooey chocolate cake that I promise to post about soon – then a stay overnight at the Inn at Occidental (thanks to a Travelzoo voucher). This place is charming as hell: the innkeepers are lovely, tasty breakfast is included, and there’s free wine every evening. Our room was a bit kitschy (the Folk Art room, not my style) but comfortable, and the bath tubs are huge – and come with rubber duckies! Our balcony looked out over Occidental, a tiny town tucked into the redwoods like a little upscale-hippie jewel. (more…)