Rachel Sarah Thurston portrait, events, travel and wedding photography and travel/lifestyle writing

May 19th, 2009
Destination Wine Country Article
"Free-Wheelin: A Romantic Bike Trip Through Santa Ynez Valley"






For the past year or so, I've had the opportunity to write for the Santa Barbara-based Destination Wine Country Magazine. It's been a joy working with the editor, Laura Sanchez, whom I also have known as a friend through my band King Bee, for many years now. I can't tell you what it means as a writer to be able to write stories I'm passionate about and to have such incredible communication with the editor. We've started a tradition of having coffee a few times a year to talk about new story ideas and our own love of travel, Spanish, and literature.

The most recent summer issue (the most gorgeous cover I've seen them have yet!) features an article I wrote about a romantic bike trip through Santa Ynez Valley with my Baby Love. The only downer is that they replaced every reference I made to my "Baby Love" with either "boyfriend" or "Steve." Can you imagine?! ;)

"Steve" and I had great fun doing "research" for this article...research which included several glasses of wine, a very leisurely downhill bike ride, strolling through a lavendar farm, and stuffing ourselves with deli sandwiches and strawberries. After finishing the book The Beautiful Santa Ynez Valley with photographer Chuck Place in 2007, it was pure joy to go up to the Valley just for fun and to write a short piece. By design, Chuck was hired to do the photography for the piece so the four of us (including his wife Ger) made a fun day of it....a lot of it involving Chuck getting in our faces with a big lens telling us to look at each other longingly and to stop drinking all our wine before he had taken his fill of photos.

I'm stoked with how the article came out and pleased once again to have the opportunity to work with a good friend (Chuck), go biking with my Baby Love (Steve), and continue working with a wonderful editor (Laura).

You can check out issues of Destination Wine Country at wineries throughout the Valley and at various bookstores in Santa Barbara.

Just for fun, I'm going to include some of Chuck's photos from the shoot that weren't included in the article. You can check out his gorgeous website at www.placephotography.com