After a restful sleep at the Jack London Lodge, we awoke to a beautiful morning and went to a delightful french bakery, Les Pascales Cafe, for breakfast. Their pastries are out of this world.

After breakfast, we drove up London Ranch Road to the Jack London Historic Park. We probably talked about this in last year’s travels, but it is such a wonderful place that it’s worth bragging about all over again. In addition to Jack London’s cottage, gardens and farm, we visited the museum created by his wife Charmian after his untimely death at the age of 40. In addition to being a gifted writer (more than 50 books). he was an inveterate adventurer. His passion for, and promotion of, sustainable farming contributed to a growing awareness of sustainable farming practices and helped establish California as a leader in organic agriculture. The park now serves as a lasting reminder of his pioneering work in agriculture. Anyone visiting the Napa-Sonoma region would be well advised to visit this park. 

Following our visit to the park, we drove (halfway) down the hill to Benziger Winery. Being members of their wine club, we make it a must stop on our annual pilgrimages to the west coast. Fortunately, it was a very slow day (being Thursday) so we were nearly alone and could spend the rest of the afternoon listening to the stories told by our sommelier and enjoying the fine wines, sunshine and beautiful gardens. It was really tough duty, but someone had to do it.

In the evening, we had planned on getting a seat at the local pub, which is next door to our lodge, for a live country music band. Unfortunately we got there too late to get a table. So we went across the street to the local market, bought ourselves a picnic dinner and went to our room in the lodge where we could hear the band without the crowd. It turned out to be a great evening. The band played until about 9PM after which we read our stories and tucked in for the night.