Glen Ellen
Sonoma Valley Regional Park -
Located right on Sonoma Highway 12, this is a favorite location for family picnics, and to enjoy wildflowers in spring. Plenty of picnic tables and benches, easy trails through hillside meadows and trees.
In spring, take the Woodland Star Trail to see bright blue lupine, pink shooting star flowers, Cougar Trail for white milkmaid, yellow buttercups.
Valley of the Moon Trail is paved, okay for strollers, other trails are dirt.
Tip: Poison oak does grow along the trails, low to the ground.
Red Barn Store - Stop into Oak Hill Farm to buy flowers and just picked vegetables, and see fields where they're grown. Last year we bought "Long Island cheese pumpkins" for our Thanksgiving pumpkin pies.
Red Barn Store is open on Saturday, May to December, 15101 Sonoma Highway 12.
Benziger Family Winery -
The setting of this vineyard is just about perfect and wine tasting is family-friendly. Nestled in the hills, covered with vines, wooden frame buildings evoke the Sonoma Valley of earlier decades.
Take the 45 min. vineyard tram tour (discounted price for kids, since they won't be wine tasting), which goes through the fields, and stops at the caves, grape crusher, and in the vineyard itself.
Go on a self-guided walk through a garden designed to attract insects, and display exhibits that explain traditional estate farming (composting, care of soil, providing houses for birds owls and bats to keep out gophers and finches that attack the vines). And listen for the sounds of birds.
