A Day Out in Healdsburg

A couple weeks ago, my mom, younger sister and I all headed out to Healdsburg, California for the day. The backstory here is that my grandma passed away 11 years ago on August 1st and she used to spend her summers in Healdsburg as a kid. Her parents had a cabin there and she and her mother would go up for the summer and her dad would work in the city during the week and hit the cabin on the weekends. Anyway, long story short, we headed out there for the day as a nice thing to do to remember her on a not so fun day. 

We left earlier and still managed to hit a ton of traffic on the way because of the construction on 80, but once we got there, the afternoon couldn't have been more pleasant. It was about 85 degrees there (and 108 at home, so we were definitely not complaining) with a great breeze blowing the whole time we were walking around. 

By the time we arrived, it was lunchtime and the three of us were starving so we went to The Wurst restaurant, which had great reviews on Yelp and was right off the main square where we were planning to spend the day. It has a great...rustic atmosphere...kind of like Low Brau in Sacramento. I really liked my food, the other two weren't necessarily thrilled but they don't get as excited as I do for new food experiences. I ordered the Spanish Harlem Choriso with sweet peppers and caramelized onions. I LOVE chorizo so any time it's on the menu, I order it and I was not disappointed by the choriso at The Wurst.

YUMMMMM!

Next, we walked around the corner and hit a kitschy little shop and I bought the cutest sunglasses (to replace my knockoff club masters that met an unfortunate end in a port-a-potty on the Fourth of July) and proceeded to wear them around for the rest of the day. Somehow, I managed to not notice that they were red in real life, but I really haven't cared and have worn them pretty much every day since. 

I was SOOOO excited to go!!

Our next stop was Moustache Baked Goods which I was STOKED about. I watch a LOT of the Cooking Channel and most especially Unique Sweets, which is where I heard about Moustache Baked Goods. I got The Mistress (meyer lemon olive oil cake with blackberry sage jam filling and blackberry cream frosting) and my mom got the Out of Towner (chocolate cake with coconut and macadamia). My sister got four of their macarons, which she really liked. I loved my cupcake, Mom on the other hand, not so impressed. 

Awkward photo fails. I was trying to get a group picture and my little sister looks into the camera and says, "Mom, are you smiling? Aren't you having a good time? Do you even LOVE us?!" and we all lost it laughing so I snapped a picture and put them together. 

We stopped to eat  in the town square and it was beautiful. Nice and shady, with lots of little families doing the exact same thing we were doing, just hanging out and snacking. 

After that, we wandered for another half hour or so, in and out of shops until we had seen everything we wanted to see. After that, we headed to the river where my grandma used to hang out and spent a little bit of time there before heading to Santa Rosa where we wanted to hit up the Charles M. Schulz Museum. 

My grandma also lived in Santa Rosa when I was a kid and we went to the ice show that Charles M. Schulz organized every year a few times at the ice rink there. However, we had not been back since my grandma moved out to Sacramento in the late 90's. So to our shock, this beautiful museum has been put up and we had a great time exploring, reading the different comic strips and taking in the different exhibits. It was really interesting and the place is gorgeous. We want to take my dad back in a few months once they've gotten their new exhibits in.

Outside the museum, they have little props for visitors to take photos with. Sooo, I posed. 

This was out in the courtyard with a few other exhibits. I thought it was so cute!

This is a little shadow box wall that his wife put in during the museum's construction. Story goes, she exchanged these little shadow box pictures for years with a friend via post and saved them all to be used in the museum. It's hiding out under the stairs so I was glad I found it for us to look at. 

The museum closed at 5 so we headed across the street to the original museum and ice rink complex. Not too much to see and unfortunately, both the ice rink and the Warm Puppy restaurant inside are showing their age, but it was nice to go in and take a peek.

The sun is ridiculous, but this is me with "ice skating pimp Snoopy" as I named him.

Finally, we went to the Vacaville outlets on the way home and scored some major deals at the J. Crew Outlet before having the worst dinner ever at the Tahoe Joe's there (we have dubbed it Outlet Joe's due to the service and quality discounts that seem to be going on there).

A final selfie with Charlie Brown before heading home.

All in all, it was a long, exhausting, but really fun day for us girls before my sister heads back to school later this week.