Off The Vine: The Wine Country EMS Symposium

Took a little trip to the left coast last week, to speak at Off The Vine: The Wine Country EMS Symposium at Santa Rosa Community College in Petaluma.

I’d like to give a shout-out to the organizers and volunteers who put on the symposium. Small but growing conference, with great speakers like Tim Phalen, Sean Kivlehan, Chris Van Luen, Mike Petrie, and some redneck from Louisiana who somehow slipped through the cracks. It’s only going to be bigger and better next year.

If you’re in EMS and want a nice, tax-deductible vacation in wine country, circle June 2015 on your calendar, and watch that Facebook page. Barely ninety minutes north of San Francisco, Petaluma is smack in the middle of the Sonoma Valley, with more wineries than you can count, and barely thirty minutes from the coast.

Get yourself a room at one of the utterly reasonably-priced local hotels, listen to a day of nationally-known EMS speakers, and then spend the rest of the weekend going from one vineyard to the next, tasting wine and eating great food. Take a hike through the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve, and marvel at trees which were already sturdy enough to climb when Leif Ericson stepped foot on American soil.

Go take a drive up Highway 1 for some spectacular views of the coast, but be sure you make it back to Bodega Bay in time for a sunset dinner on a deck overlooking the bay.

And did I mention the scenery was nice?