Lifestyle

The exterior parking lot of Bacchus Landing was filled with gorgeous lowriders and classics, with several food trucks off to the far side. When I walked into the interior courtyard, I found a “lowrider museum.” Many of these cars had been in actual museums and exhibits, and featured in numerous publications ranging from the car-centric to the Smithsonian.

This year the Gay Wine Weekend becomes even more closely tied to Healdsburg, with the Lodge at Healdsburg on Grove Street serving as unofficial headquarters. As well as the winery tours and winemaker dinners, the signature events continue this year for the most part at Healdsburg-area locations.

Always a cheerleader for Healdsburg, Sen. Mike McGuire was an energetic highlight of the Fourth of July celebration in the Plaza, introducing the winners of the Kids Parade...

Once again Healdsburg throws itself wholeheartedly into the 4th of July holiday, starting at 10am with the Fourth of July Kids Parade and Duck Dash in the Healdsburg Plaza. Arrive on bikes, tricycles and wagons adorned with red, white and blue decorations. There will be live music and activities for all.

While all the nominated plants are found in the area, Healdsburg Garden Club did limit its list to native plants, though some are widely found outside Healdsburg’s city limits. The proposal included four flowers: the Douglas iris, the yellow mariposa lily, scarlet fritillary and blue-eyed grass, the once ubiquitous California native grape, and the familiar oak trees of the region.

Have a hankering for live music? At last, all the local venues have announced their free summer music in the sun (or on the grass, or at the park, or in the Plaza) programs, so music-lovers can begin making their summer weekday plans.

In this "web extra," we take readers inside the JANE Dispensary. It officially opened last week right next to the Coyote Sonoma, a tasting room for Wilson wines and live music venue (aka the “Coyote Den”).

Agraria is a 7.5 ton (or larger) hand created by environmental artist Larry Kirkland of Portland, Oregon, and installed at the mall in December 1996. A full 12 feet long, six feet tall and three feet wide, it was carved from a single marble block twice its size from Carrara marble in Torrano, Italy, where Michelangelo got his stone. It's now at a new home in Geyserville...

Though the price of admission may prove daunting to some, it’s the only way to attend the Welcome Celebration at Mayacamas Golf Course on Thursday, May 16, and Friday’s Platinum Lunch at MacMurray Estate and a Platinum Dinner at Chalk Hill Estate, each with celebrated chefs and winemakers or sommeliers - or both....

At the Healdsburg Certified Farmers’ Market, strawberries are reaching their peak sweetness, their scent lingering in the air before they are even visible in the stalls. Spring onions and green garlic are tender, fava beans are shelled by the pound and sugar snap peas—the kind of bright green that seems to be omnipresent in my life lately—offer that crisp, wet-mouth crunch that makes them an irresistible snack...