Red Barn, Geyserville

The choice today seemed to be between getting out and stretching my legs or going crazy. I chose the former.We went to a regional park with a flat, paved trail and Blake and I worked on not bolting toward other dogs and jumping up on benches and off again, while OilMan and Ozzie took the upper hiking trail.

We dropped Blake off at school with Dana and drove to Diavola in Geyserville to meet friends driving down from Sea Ranch to Berkeley for lunch. Just what the doctor ordered…a long leisurely lunch with good friends, wonderful food, and excellent service from a young woman who remembered us from many previous visits. The thin, thin, handmade breadsticks baked in their wood fired are beyond wonderful.

Geyserville consists of about a block of very old, very picturesque buildings which I have never photographed because of the parked cars and the myriad power poles and massive wires. The smaller the place, the more ever-present these wires seem to be. (I have inexpertly removed the pole from my red barn blip, because it was right in front of the barn) There is a nice view across the valley to Geyser Peak, home of the largest geothermal field in the country. 

You would never know it from the bucolic view, but twenty two different power generating plants are housed  around the Geysers in the Mayacamas Mountains above Geyserville, which supply 60% of the power on the West Coast from the Bay Area to Oregon.

There is also a casino up there, built by a local Native American tribe, but it is not only unobtrusive, it is downright ugly. But I will save the story of the Indian casinos for another day….