BEST TRICK- OR -TREAT NEIGHBORHOOD IN SONOMA COUNTY

For reasons that are lost in the mist of history Halloween is a "BIG OCCASION" in the North Bay area of Northern California.The cover story of Datebook, the Sunday magazine of the San Francisco Chronicle has a survey of Halloween action around the region. Among the "hot" spots listed is my own neighborhood, the historic MC Donald district in Santa Rosa.The MC Donald area includes several blocks clustered around the old MC Donald Mansion, a 19 th century reproduction of a Mississippi plantation house. The neighborhood has always been a favorite place because of the wide avenues, mature landscape and charming architecturally diverse style homes.This creates the perfect environment for the witches and goblins that inhabit them on All Souls Eve. Families from all over the area come to see the sights and either get a trick or a treat!

As quoted in Datebook by a neighbor, "Many of our houses, including ours, decorate like crazy with fun Halloween themes. We often have fog machines, music, laser light shows to accompany the scary clowns in race cars or Harley Davidson's that we stage on our lawn. We go through roughly $400 worth of candy every year, but it is well worth it!

So if you find yourself in Sonoma County at the end of October the sights along McDonald Ave. and adjacent streets are well worth the "EXPERIENCE."

Kathleen Bonham

Country and VIntage SPecialist

Santa Rosa, Sebastopol. Healdsburg