Santa Rosa, CA
Opened May 2025 at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County, named for Schulz's WWI Flying Ace Snoopy (custom mural inside). Pre-security at the terminal entrance, with a runway-view patio. Korean Fried Chicken Wings, Griddled Pot Roast Sandwich, four taps including Pliny the Elder and Russian River STS Pils. Vintage propeller wall art. Replaced the beloved Sky Lounge that closed Dec 2022 after 15 years.
Renamed for the creator of Peanuts, who lived in Santa Rosa from 1958 until his death in 2000. The terminal features a giant bronze of Snoopy on his Sopwith Camel — the WWI Flying Ace battling the Red Baron. The Charles M. Schulz Museum is a few minutes from the field with original Peanuts comic strips, Schulz's studio recreated, and Snoopy aviation memorabilia. Sonoma County is wine country — quieter and earthier than Napa across the hills.
In Santa Rosa, where Charles Schulz lived and drew Peanuts from 1958 until his death in 2000. The museum has original strips, his recreated studio with the actual drawing board, the wood-paneled office where he worked alone every day for over 50 years. Schulz was an aviation enthusiast — he drew Snoopy's Sopwith Camel WWI Flying Ace fantasies. The KSTS terminal has a giant bronze Snoopy on his Sopwith. Visit the museum, then cross the road to the Redwood Empire Ice Arena — Schulz's "Warm Puppy Cafe" still serves the same chocolate-chip cookies he ate every morning.
The world's most famous wine region from the air — 30 miles of valley between two mountain ranges, neat geometric vineyards stretching to the horizon. The Robert Mondavi mission-style winery, Castello di Amorosa (a full-scale 13th-century Italian castle replica, 2007), the Napa Valley Wine Train. Yountville (with three of California's 14 Michelin three-star restaurants — including The French Laundry) is the gourmet capital. The Mayacamas to the west and Vaca Mountains to the east frame the valley. Especially gorgeous at harvest (September-October) when leaves turn red and gold.
The foggiest spot on the Pacific Coast and one of the most dramatic lighthouses in California. Point Reyes juts 10 miles into the ocean — a triangular wedge of land carved off the continent by the San Andreas Fault. Tomales Bay, the long thin water cut to the east, sits directly on the fault line. The entire peninsula rides the Pacific Plate and is creeping north toward Alaska at about 2 inches a year. The 1906 earthquake shifted the peninsula 20 feet in a single morning — a fence in nearby Olema famously offset by exactly that distance, still preserved as evidence. The lighthouse was built in 1870 at the tip of the headland, with 308 stairs down a sheer cliff because the cliff-top was almost always above the fog layer. Crews logged more than 1,400 hours of fog per year — twice San Francisco's average. Decommissioned 1975, now an NPS museum. Original first-order Fresnel lens still installed.
The world's largest concrete "drain" — a 72-foot-diameter funnel that pulls water down 200 feet into a tunnel cut through the canyon wall. It is the spillway for Monticello Dam, built in 1957 to flood the agricultural town of Monticello and create Lake Berryessa, which still supplies water to Solano County. The dam sits at Devil's Gate, a narrow gorge with no room for a conventional channel spillway, so engineers built a bellmouth — a morning glory spillway, named for the flower. Locals call it the Glory Hole. It only activates when the lake reaches 440 feet elevation — full pool. From 2006 through 2024 it ran exactly twice (2017 and 2019). Then back-to-back wet winters in 2024 and 2025 brought it roaring back. When dry, the rim sticks out of the water like a concrete crown. When the lake is full and the spillway is going, water pours over the rim in a smooth laminar sheet and disappears straight down — a circular waterfall in the middle of the lake.