Amalía Does San Francisco & Wine Country, Part Two

On the second day of her San Francisco visit, Amalía, eight-month-old fashionista, headed for the wineries of the Russian River Valley with Tia Marina at the wheel and Yiayia Joanie and Mommy Eleni completing her posse.

Amalía visited three wineries in all:  first Copain in Healdsburg, noted for its Syrahs and Pinot Noirs and the view of the Russian River Valley.

Because Amalía is too young to drink, she enjoyed the crackers that came with the tasting wines.
And she met a dog named Max.

The next day she visited the Korbel Champagne Cellars in Guerneville, noted for their, uh, champagnes, and had a delicious lunch.

The third winery was the DeLoach vineyards in Santa Rosa, noted for its Pinot Noirs.  It was so crowded with tasters that Amalía could hardly make it up to the bar.

They stayed in one of the western-themed cottages at Fern Grove in Guerneville, a quaint small town where Amalía saw her first five and ten cent store.

But walking across the historic Guernevillae bridge proved exhausting-- perhaps she had partied too late the night before.

Best of all was the Amalía's first sight of the Redwoods in the Armstrong Redwood Park--now part of the state park systems.  She was awed by the trees--so tall,

with such big roots

and so ancient that some are more than 1,400 years old.

On the way back to San Francisco they stopped at a house party at the home of a college friend of her Mommy's.  There, in the back yard, Amalía got a chance to practice her walking and her crawling while wearing her psychedelic dress and the retro-hippie headband that she'd packed specially for San Francisco.

Amalía was very sad saying good-bye to Tia Marina before she and her posse left for JFK on the red-eye, but she managed to sleep the whole way back, which is a lot more sleep than her Mommy did, and Mommy  had to go to work as soon as the plane landed.