Just 45 minutes north of San Francisco, there is a little gem of a museum that many baby-boomers will enjoy.   The town of Santa Rosa, located in the popular Sonoma County, (California’s “Wine Country”) is home to The Charles M. Schulz Museum.  The museum pays homage to the baby boomer classic comic strip, “Peanuts” and its gifted creator, Charles M. Schulz, in a beautiful setting and a relaxed atmosphere.   The museum is open and airy, giving the exhibits and the visitors room to breathe and relax.  Museum guests will undeniably smile, laugh, and sometimes guffaw at the original strips on display.
 
As visitors enter the museum, they are welcomed by large framed images of the four kingpins in the Peanuts world---Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy in full character mode.  Rounding the corner into the “Great Hall”, first-time visitors usually stop short as they behold the immense 17 ft x 22 ft tile mural on the south wall. It depicts that  familiar scene of Lucy smugly holding a football as the ever-trusting Charlie Brown runs to kick it.  An image known literally around the world!   But upon closer inspection, the mural becomes even more fantastic.   Guests realize that it is made up of 3,588 separate Peanuts comic strips on little individual  2 in x 8 in tiles.  It is a true masterpiece, created by Japanese artist Yoshiteru Otani. 
 
 
Fortunately, Schulz created each of his strips on a large board.  The dailies are 7"x 24" and Sundays are 19"x 26".  They are the perfect size for viewing in this environment.  Also, a few of the strips have some of Schulz's initial pencil markings, which occasionally differ from his final pen drawing.  It is a fascinating aspect to the presentation.  Many of the strips on display (100 at a time, and there are more than 7,000 in the museum archive!) follow a theme.  And the curators change the themes to keep the museum fresh for sporadic viewing.  I've been there three times now and always see something different.