calistoga


Lunch in Calistoga with the kids

wearing: lipstick / blue and silver earrings / adidas sweatshirt / long sleeve tee / skinny jeans / nail polish / handbag / hiking boots /

We took some time to explore downtown Calistoga in between visiting the Geysers and the Petrified Forest during our road trip up to Calistoga in the Napa Valley. Downtown Calistoga is super cute! It is filled with historical buildings and shops. My middle child found a vintage store, and my son discovered some old train cars which were converted into retail space. Unfortunately they were not filled with shops to explore, but they did turn into an entertaining spot to take pictures of each of us being silly. haha

Our main reason for exploring downtown Calistoga was to find food! It was lunch time and we were starving. When you are traveling with kids, they can be a bit picky. We were lucky to find a Chinese restaurant in the middle of downtown Calisoga, which always satisfies picky children.

Soo Yuan Restaurant is located in downtown Calistoga and appears tiny from the streets. Once you go inside, the restaurant has plenty of tables, and offers a few large tables for families such as ours. At lunch, you have the option of ordering a la carte, or off the lunch special menu. We opted for the lunch menu, and it was a great choice! They food was sooooo good!

Soo Yuan Restaurant chines food calistoga

I had the prawns in black bean sauce and it was really yummy. We also ordered a pot sticker appetizer which was really good. Everything we ordered was delicious. If you are in the Calistoga area, and are looking for a great family restaurant, I highly recommend stopping in at Soo Yuan! It was delicious and the prices were reasonable too. Love!

We had a lot of fun visiting the Napa Valley with our kids. There is more to do than what we did, so we will definitely be planning another trip there soon with the kids!

Shop my winter sightseeing outfit:

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

Cathy


Petrified Forest in Calistoga

hiking trails calistoga petrified forest calistoga calistoga hiking trailscalistoga petrified forest historical petrified forest

wearing: silver earrings / lipstick / long sleeve tee / sweatshirt / backpack / jeans / nail polish / hiking boots /

Our family loves the outdoors, and hiking! So, when I was researching hiking trails in the Napa Valley, I came across The Petrified Forest located in Calistoga. I had no idea we had one here in the Bay Area! This sounded amazing, and like something we needed to check out. We are so glad we did!

The Petrified Forest in Calistoga features petrified redwood tress which are frozen in time. They fell over about 3.4 million years ago, you read that right, 3.4 million years ago! The trees were knocked down forcefully by a volcanic explosion from a volcano located behind present-day Mount Saint Helena. It is no longer a mountain, and it is dormant; buried behind our current mountain. The explosion was so forceful, it toppled a redwood forest filled with trees which have been aged at over 2000 years old at the time of the explosion. Can you imagine? Trees which were already 1000-2000 years old, toppled over by a volcano, then preserved under the ash for 3.4 million years! It’s incredible!

We took the 11am guided tour which was incredibly interesting. Our tour guide taught us so much about petrified wood and the history of the forest. He was incredibly nice, and so informative! We really enjoyed the tour.

The tour is also a hike, so if you go, wear a good pair of hiking shoes or boots. My hiking boots were perfect for the terrain. Also be sure to allow enough time for the tour. It was roughly 1.5 hours which was not only a good hike, it was a lot of time to learn a ton of information from our guide. We loved it!

You can learn more about The Petrified Forest on their website.

Shop my hiking outfit online:

Have you seen a petrified forest before? What did you think?

XOXO
Cathy

the petrified forest the queen petrified redwood treepetrified wood millions years old