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| Snoopy carefully guarding the entrance to the Charles Shulz Museum and Research Center |
Monte Rio is ideally located for day tripping. There are multiple options in every direction. Drive a few miles west and you're on the coast. There are great choices driving both north and south along the Pacific Coast Highway (California 1). Inland there are numerous towns and cities with plenty to keep you entertained. If wine is your thing, Sonoma County boasts over 425 wineries! All of these options are within an easy, scenic, although winding drive of Monte Rio.
One of our first day trips after settling in was to Santa Rosa, which is just over a thirty-minute drive inland. For this adventure we met Sarah and James (Emma was in school) at the Charles Shulz Museum and Research Center. If you're not familiar with the name, you're most likely familiar with some of the loveable characters he created. Shulz was the creator of the Peanuts comic strip and introduced us to Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and of course Snoopy. There were about 10 main characters that appeared throughout the years and about the same number of characters who appeared less frequently.
Shulz, who passed away in 2000 had been a resident of Santa Rosa since 1969. The museum opened two years after his death and is the home to many of the original Peanuts comic strips. There is a theater that features short films about his life and the Peanuts comic strip. There is also a display of his office/studio, as well as both permanent and rotating exhibitions about his work.
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This is a 22 foot tall mural inside the museum. It's made up of over 3,500 comic strips. I'll bet if it was live action that Lucy would move the football at the last second.
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| Shulz's office/studio has been recreated using all the original furniture. |
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| James trying to figure out what Charlie Brown and Woodstock are building. |
Admission to the museum was very affordable. The current admission prices are Adults $12, Seniors $8, Youth (4-18) $5. The museum easily lived up to its high rating and we enjoyed spending a couple of hours roaming the two floors and outside grounds, as well as walking through the adjacent ice-skating rink.
Shulz's nickname was "Sparky" and the early editions of the cartoon ran under the name of Sparky's Li'l Folks. The first publication of the comic strip as "Peanuts" was in October of 1950. In his lifetime Shulz produced a total of 17,897 Peanuts comic strips (15,391 daily strips and 2,506 Sunday strips), that appeared in over 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and translated into 21 languages. Interestingly, the last original Peanuts comic strip was published on February 13, 2000, just hours after his death.
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| Sarah admiring James's skills.......maybe we have a future cartoonist on our hands. |
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| He quickly reached the conclusion that I was hopeless! |
The museum is a great tribute to both the man and the beloved characters that he created, and is well worth visiting.
Our second Santa Rosa adventure came a few days later, while Beth and I were keeping James and Emma for a few days. It also proved to be a great day.
We had read about the Sonoma County Fair, which billed itself as "The Greatest Fair on Earth". We also learned that on the first Monday of the fair that admission was $1 if you brought 3 cans of food, which would be donated to the local food bank. There was no way that we were going to miss something with such a lofty billing and such a low admission price.
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| Getting into the spirit of the "Greatest Fair on Earth"! |
We carefully planned our day in advance to make the best use of our time and certainly not miss any of the many feature attractions. The fairgrounds were laid out in a manner that made it easy to navigate, and although it was busy, it wasn't overcrowded. We marveled at Twiggy the Waterskiing Squirrel, motorcycle daredevils, juggling clowns and much more. We kept cool with dipping dots and sno-cones. But the highlights of the day were the "audience participation" activities that James and Emma participated in throughout our visit. They battled with rock em' sock em' robots, spun plates on sticks while standing on one foot, and marched in the daily afternoon parade around the fairgrounds. James was really on a roll. He took home first place in both the bubble gum blowing and screaming contests. Emma was so proud of his accomplishments!
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| Dippin Dots..........just one of many things that put smiles on their faces! |
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| James in an intense battle of Rock em' Sock em' Robots! |
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| Emma battling hard! |
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| A proud warrior......with a ribbon and animal crackers as a reward for her effort. |
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| Twiggy the Waterskiing Squirrel had James, Emma and the rest of the audience spellbound! |
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| It was an impressively loud and shrill scream. The judges face speaks for itself. |
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| High level talent and on one leg! |
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| Ready for the parade! |
By the time we made our way towards the exit, we had spent several more hours than we anticipated. We had been entertained with wholesome family fun that kept us smiling and laughing the whole day. It just may have been "The Greatest Fair on Earth" after all!
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| Heading for the exit after a great day at the Sonoma County Fair! |
