Fun and games for all at Creekside Inn and Resort in Guerneville

Most people think of New England when they think of beautiful fall colors, but West Sonoma County has plenty of fall colors on display. Where in New England the colors change mostly on the trees, here it is the grape vines as well that turn lovely combinations of gold, orange, plum and brown.  Check out the article in the local paper by clicking  on this link http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20081112/NEWS/811120278/1349?Title=Who_needs_New_England_ 

Some of our favorite fall drives:

·        River Road out to the coast at Jenner (you follow the Russian River) bucolic pictures of cows and sheep on the hills and peeks of the Russian River in between our glorious redwoods

·        Westside Road past wineries and vineyards in full fall color to lunch in Healdsburg

·        Bohemian Highway is a wonderful 10-mile drive through towering redwoods, gorgeous pastures, rocky ravines, and three charming towns Freestone, Occidental and Monte Rio.

Wineries having Open Houses Thanksgiving Weekend:

·        Paradise Ridge is offering wine for sale and holiday snacks.

·        Acorn Winery will have festive snacks and wine tasting.

·        Alexander Valley Wineries are seven wineries open after Thanksgiving for a Holiday Party. Visit Fieldstone, Hanna, Alexander Valley Vineyards, Johnson’s Alexander Valley, Sausal, White Oak, and Stryker Sonoma for award winning wines, discounts, and festive fare. Visit all wineries for a chance to win a gift basket. Fee: $5.00 per person, includes a glass

·        Kendall-Jackson Holiday Open House 
Holiday, Celebration: Reception, Wine Tasting and Hors d’oeuvres. Art show and sale. Taste limited release wines, tour the gardens, and shop for holiday gifts. 


·        Thanksgiving Celebration at Pedroncelli
Holiday will have great wines, holiday cheer and snacks.

·        Dry Creek Vineyards’ Holiday Open House
Holiday Celebration has become a local favorite during the long holiday weekend as guests enjoy tasty tidbits paired with an outstanding array of single vineyard wines and live music.

We hope you will have a pleasant Thanksgiving wherever you are,

Lynn

      On the Russian River and in a cottage high up in the redwoods, with views of nature through the treetops, can you think of a better way to create a new Thanksgiving holiday tradition? Think of lying in bed with a lovely fire burning in the your bedroom fireplace and out your window a view of trees.  After a leisurely breakfast on your private balcony, you spend the day foraging for your Thanksgiving menu from some of the best of the local suppliers. Farms, bakeries and artisans that supply what they grow to the best restaurants in Napa, Sonoma and San Francisco surround us. For example, there is Willie Bird Turkeys, a family-owned business who has been raising fresh free-range turkeys for more than 75 years. (www.williebird.com). Gourmet bakeries, organic vegetables, artisan cheese and chocolate makers, organic meat and seafood suppliers and, of course, a number of fabulous wineries are all within driving distance. We will be happy to provide you with a list of how to create your own gourmet dinner by visiting local suppliers and sampling the wares.  Much rather spend the day, visiting a couple of wineries, taking a walk in the redwoods, and having an in-cottage massage? But want to enjoy the privacy of eating in your cottage and just cooking the turkey or tofurky? The local Safeway has a number of side-dishes already prepared from pumpkin soup to mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. For a higher-end option ZaZu restaurant & farm, the Zagat, Wine Spectator and Food Channel darlings, are just up the road (http://www.zazurestaurant.com/). On the gourmet side-dish menu this year are a number of choices including: bacon wrapped dates with harissa; maple and browned butter yams; quinoa and squash stuffing with pine nuts and currants or gingerbread stuffing with squash, apples, celery and shallots. For dessert, they are preparing pumpkin gelato pie with gingersnap crust and caramel sauce (they make all their own gelato in the Italian way) or Laura Chenel goat cheesecake with a brown sugar crust. Orders for their side-dishes must be in by November 19^th! We will be happy to send you the whole list of what they are offering.   We also have a number of restaurants in the area, offering full Thanksgiving dinners with several different price points. Our favorite for creativity, fabulous fresh ingredients and ambiance is Mosaic Restaurant. Information on their menu and their reservation system is available at (www.mosaiceats.com/reservations.htm). Another good option for Thanksgiving is Applewood Restaurant. Their menu this year includes: celery root soup with white truffle crema and cinnamon porcini; oven roasted turkey served with apple sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, garnet yam sofrito, gravy and cranberry relish; and pumpkin crème brule with vanilla marshmallows and brown butter shortbread. They have other menu choices available as well. The price is $65.00 per person and beverages, tax and gratuity are additional. Reservations are available at 800.555.8509. The Village Inn Restaurant in Monte Rio is offering a menu for $53.00 per adult and $30 per child eleven and under plus tax and gratuity. Their menu includes a choice of three starters, four entrees and two desserts. Some of the menu choices are fresh roasted young turkey with a cornbread Italian sausage, nut, caramelized apples and onion stuffing, natural pan gravy and cranberry compote. All their entrees are served with Yukon gold mashed potatoes, maple chunk sweet potatoes, fresh green beans almandine and warm dinner rolls. Reservations are available at 800.303.2303.  Check back next week when we have information available on Christmas Tree Farms and wineries and other attractions open on Thanksgiving Day.      

Book a stay of three nights from November 1 to November 31 and we will give you the fourth night free! We are at the end of all our renovations and November is a perfect time to come and stay with us in one of our new eco-friendly cottages or new birdhouse rooms. All the rooms have been raised high into the redwoods and many have private balconies sitting up among the trees.
The weather is still gorgeous. The days have been sunny with mild breezes and no humidity. The temperatures during the days are in the 80s. The nights cool down to the low 50s or high 40s. All of these are Fahrenheit temperatures of course. The 10-day forecast at weather.com shows more of the same fabulous weather. The day temperatures right now are better than some summers we have seen.
Need another reason to come visit us in November? On the 15th, Joan Baez is going to be at the nearby Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. 2008 marks her 50th anniversary as a performer. Here is a link to her MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/joanbaez. Reservations are available at 707.546.3600 and http://wellsfargocenterarts.org/

 This is one of the best times to come to the Russian River. The days are still warm and there is the scent of all sorts of lovely harvest fragrances in the air. The nights are cool and crisp. The leaves on the grapevines and the trees are lovely shades of gold, orange and brown. Things have slowed to a leisurely pace after the hectic rush of summer and a great event to experience is <b> The 10^th Annual Food and Wine Affair “Tasting Along the Wine Road”  The event is Saturday and Sunday, November 1 & 2, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. There are 73 Wineries participating this year. What makes this event different then other wine events is the emphasis on food and wine pairings and the very reasonable price to taste the wines and enjoy some fabulous food. The wineries all seem to compete to impress with their food selections chosen to offset their great wines. The event map helps you decide what food and wine you would like to sample in the Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River Valleys. This is also a less crowded event then some of the others. It’s one of our favorites. Ticket prices: $60 Weekend; $40 Sunday Only. For more information and to purchase tickets www.WineRoad.com Want to enjoy a fun and adult Halloween then the Russian River is the place to be. The mostly-gay but very straight-friendly Russian River Resort (RRR) has “The Haunted Resort” on October 25 from 7 p.m. to midnight as a benefit for Food for Thought. From Friday, October 31 to November 2, there is a weekend of Halloween fun. Friday night is the RRR Halloween Party with Spookeoke with DJ JfX from 8 to 11 p.m. and Scary-okke with Country Dan from 11 p.m. to closing. On Saturday night, November 1, it’s the Guerneville Progressive Costume Contest from RRR to the Rainbow Cattle Company and then to Yamagata and back to the Triple R for a Drag Show by Charlie Horse. On Sunday, it’s the Costumed Pet Parade with all the darling pets parading through the town. You will never experience another Halloween weekend anything like it.  The best place to stay, of course, for both events is right here at Creekside in one of our remolded cottages or in the inn if you want to enjoy one of Mark’s fabulous breakfasts.

This Saturday the Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will host an adult bingo game. The beneficiary is the Russian River Childcare and the theme is appropriately “Milk and Cookies” For more information see http://www.rrsisters.org.

We have a collection of beautiful antique and vintage glassware and china, some silver flatware and vintage furniture. Some are furnishings we are no longer using, others are inherited pieces from a mother and grandmother. All are priced to sell and will be insured and packed carefully and shipped to you.

In addition to these treasures, we also have the work of talented artists and crafts people, some local, in our inventory.

Should you want to know what is cooking at Creekside and other Bed and Breakfast Inns, we are selling cookbooks.

To visit the rest of the click here.

Or click here to just start shopping. 

It’s too cold to go swimming in the pool and not cold enough to ice-skate on it but you can still get outside and have some fun.

Western Sonoma County is a great place to find the perfect Christmas tree. Along with some great wineries, berry farms, cheese makers and…..we also have a number of small farms that grow Christmas trees. Most of these farms let you come out and hike around to find cut down your perfect tree. This can be a great family outing on your way home from a weekend at Creekside.

It can put Scrooge in the mood for Christmas! If you want to pick your tree early and cut it on the way home, Buddy’s Christmas Trees lets you tag a tree as sold but they can’t guarantee it will be there later. Tags can fall off. To get the freshest tree you could cut it on your way home or you can also bring it back to the resort, cut a 1” slice off the bottom of the tree and stick it in a bucket of water. We can help you and provide the saw, bucket & water. If you keep it watered and cool, they will last a long time like this too. Buddy’s has a great model train setup that the kids will love. The Victorian Christmas Tree Ranch is fun too. In addition to friendly folks and nice trees, they also have a petting zoo that appeals to children of all ages.

Creekside Inn invites you to see Guerneville’s Parade of Lights!   

Quirky after dark fun for adults and toddlers alike. Come and join the old time fun. Gangs of bikers, not really, groups of tricyclists decked out in flashing lights and balloons and brightly lit floats along with colorful people take over Main Street. The perfect beverage-hot spiced cider. Cider plus lodging and glow sticks make up the Festival of Lights Package at Creekside.
Look at the article by Nancy Belcher in East Bay Newspapers

Click here to check out the Creekside special package for lodging and treats.

See you Saturday.