Joe Matos Cheese Factory

Fresh from our caffeine fix at Flying Goat...

we headed westward to a small cheese farm...

that I first read about on Kirk's blog (post linked at the end)...

Flying Goat Coffee, Santa Rosa and the Train Depot

On our way to our coffee destination, we saw this...

a giant hand sculpture outside the Macy's exit in the Santa Rosa mall. Interesting this was.

Across from the train depot was a historic building which now houses Flying Goat Coffee..

The houses from "Shadow of a Doubt" and "Scream", Santa Rosa

We had a light breakfast at our hotel before heading out to Santa Rosa...

Bert had some coffee and we all had mini crepes with jam and sugar (they didn't have Nutella, drat)...

There was a lady making crepes in a parlor area; they were there for the taking. She would make a batch or stack and make more as it ran low.

We had a long day ahead of us and our first stop was just a few minutes north from Petaluma...

Spring Break Road Trip 2016 - Day 2 Highlights

Even though I was so tired, I still woke up super early!  We had things to do, places to visit. Chop! Chop!

(the scene at our super cute French inspired hotel's cafe counter)

After enjoying a few mini crepes at the hotel, we were ready to get going...

SF Road Trip - Day 3 - Part 1 Charles Schulz Museum and Research Center & the Warm Puppy Cafe

[Note - am actually blogging this weeks later, now that I have some time to actually organize things...]

It was Monday, June 22nd - Thane had to go in for work so we had the whole day, well, most of it, to ourselves. After reading an old Giant Robot article about this place and also after doing online research, we made our way to the little town of Santa Rosa, which is located about one hour north of San Francisco.
I know, this place sounds so "official" having the word "research center" in its moniker. But here it is folks, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, which opened its doors in 2002. More about it here. Santa Rosa was the place that Schulz called home for nearly forty years until his death from colon cancer in 2000 at the age of 77. (Yelp reviews of the museum here).

"Peanuts" was one of the first comic strips I started reading when I was young. I was enchanted with Snoopy, Charlie Brown, his sister Sally and always irritated with Lucy van Pelt and her constant needling of toy piano player, Schroeder! Prior to that, my only exposure to Charles M. Schult and the Peanuts gang were from the animated tv specials, like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". What better way to check out a tribute to one of our favorite childhood cartoonists? As we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, we listened to my ipod, playing "ipod Roulette" which is shuffling the songs and trying to guess which songs they were by the first few notes. It was also shaping up to be a very warm day as we headed up to Sonoma County. The museum looked kind of sterile from the outside...but once you walked in, it felt like you were in someone's house (a very big house).
Okay, you have to see this. Sorry for the blurry shot but this is the women's bathroom on the first floor. Yes, those are ceramic tiles with Peanuts strips on them! You can do some reading while doing your business! Close up of one of the comic tile panels:

Once you walk into the Museum, there is a Great Hall featuring several massive artworks devoted to Peanuts. There are only a few designated spots to take photographs in the museum. On the bottom, or first floor, you may only take photos in the great hall. You cannot take photos in the gallery, nor can you take pictures upstairs where there are more exhibits, galleries and a recreation of Schultz's home office (which, by the way, was very cool - he had a signed basketball from Dr. J!)

There was a long wooden display with all of the Peanuts characters - here are a few of my favorites, "Pig Pen" and "Linus".

(click for larger view)

This is the artwork, "Morphing Snoopy":

Closeup of comic panels making up artwork of a huge art piece depicting Lucy about to snatch the football away from Charlie Brown. Damn bitch, I always hated her for doing that!

Larger view of the artwork here:

Me and TC with our matching face obscuring spray paints!

We had a great time reading through the strips displayed in the various galleries while TC enjoyed putting on a space suit for their exhibit, "To the Moon - Snoopy Soars with NASA". According to the website, "To the Moon takes a looks at the history of Apollo 10 and the Peanuts characters’ role in that flight and in the NASA Manned Flight Awareness safety program. It features a one-third scale model of the Apollo command module from the Johnson Space Center, an Apollo-era flight suit, the actual image of Charlie Brown that flew aboard Apollo 10, and a special children’s area for creative play."

There was also artwork in the museum garden, such as this one:

"Crossword Linus"

Here's Charlie Brown:

This is a shot from the Great Hall - you can see the mosaic artwork. The stairs lead up to more galleries and several areas where you could create your own comic strips as well as a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope strip (quite fascinating that was!).

The museum workers were nearly all senior citizen volunteers; they were all so very friendly and helpful and eager to answer any questions from the musuem visitors. After spending a few hours in the museum, we went next door to the cafe which is right next to the Snoopy Home Ice Arena(see below).

The Snoopy Home Ice Arena also housed the Warm Puppy Cafe (yeah, I know, cheesy name, but it goes with the Schulz/Snoopy theme). We had about an hour's worth of driving ahead of us so we wanted to take a lunch break before heading back to the city. Since the cafe was next door to the museum, it saved us time driving around Santa Rosa looking for a place to eat. As expected, the cafe had your standard "kid" food (burgers, fries, hot dogs), nothing earth shattering here. No fusion or gourmet quality eats.

TC's Cheeseburger with fries:

Bert's Bacon Burger with potato salad. It was cold sitting in the cafe since it was right next to the ice rink - where you could see kids and teenagers wheeling around on their skates. It's not like UTC's ice rink where you are above the rink, looking down and watching. You are at ground level here. TC wanted to go skate but we were kind of pressed for time so we didn't do it.

I had the breakfast sandwich - a biscuit filled with egg, cheese and a sausage patty. Not exactly health food, eh. The food was so so. I was saving my appetite for later tonight. We were going to meet up with my cousin (actually, not a blood cousin, but a close family friend) and her kids later for dinner.

It was only fitting that Bert, clad in his Charlie Brown shirt (which I bought for him years ago at Knotts Berry Farm, and which elicits comments from many onlookers wherever we go), stood next to the hockied out version of Charlie Brown.

Two mannequins sporting the groovy outfits that the Ice Arena employees had to wear in 1969! Nice!

Bench featuring various Peanuts characters in the Snoopy Gift Shop:

Next up - the Sunset District