Venturing Into The Great Unknown

Is the day over yet? It seemed like the drive lasted forever. The morning started off quiet enough with me being able to jaywalk, not run, across a 5-lane street to grab coffee. We then packed up the car and headed towards the obelisk to get close-up pictures of the bicycle parts. We made it as far as downtown before we started running into barricades – turns out that today was the Annual Luther Burbank Rose Parade and Festival, though we didn’t know it at the time. After being turned around several times, we decided to forego the close-up and headed out of town towards Healdsburg.
We arrived in Healdsburg, found a great parking spot, and then headed to Downtown Bakery for a coffee and donut muffin. This is always a necessary stop on our trip, though my mum now has the recipe and does a bang up job of making them herself. We wandered around the Healdsburg Plaza for a while, waiting for the stores to open at ten, and noticed that one of our favourite stores had moved to Cloverdale (Oh well, next trip). We also stopped at a fabric store but decided against buying anything as the prices were a bit steep.
After Healdsburg, we headed just out of town to the Jimtown Store to grab a picnic lunch. My mum had a roast pepper and fennel salad with a side of olives, and I had a small potato salad. We walked around the grounds, looking at flowers, then back on the road we went.
We drove to Calistoga, passed by Chateau Montelena (which had a line of cars out the driveway), then headed towards Lake Country. My GPS tried routing us down a road that barely looked like a cow path, so we pulled over and reverted to a good old-fashioned paper map to find what highway we wanted. We found the correct road – which turned out to be the road we were already on – and off we went again. Now, I say we were on the right road, but the road was definitely not one that I was too happy driving on. After what seemed like hours of switchbacks and drop-offs (it was only 90 minutes), we arrived on the other side of the mountain range, and located our picnic spot – Clearlake.
We sat by the water in Redbud Park and watched the various species of birds that were around us. I was able to add another bird to my list – a Bicolored Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus gubernator) – a subspecies that is only found in California and Central Mexico. I also saw a Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis), though I had initially thought it was Clark’s Grebe (A. clarkia). On closer inspection of my pictures, albeit blurry pictures, I made the determination it wasn’t a new bird to add my list after all – I added a Western Grebe in Salmon Arm, BC on my cross-Canada trip with my mum in 2010.
After lunch, we headed back out, and this time ran into a bicycle ‘event’ on the highway. For the majority of the drive to Williams (and the I-5) we shared the road with the cyclists in scattered groups. Needless to say I was sick of driving already and there were still four hours left to drive. We finally reached the I-5 and headed north, passing newly planted patty fields where rice is now being grown.
The drive up the I-5 was fairly uneventful, but every rest area between Williams and Weed (180 miles) were closed. When we finally reached the one in Weed, it was raining and we were only a few miles from Yreka so we pushed on to the hotel. We checked in, threw our leftovers in the microwave, and ate in front of the television. Both my mum and I were just done and my mum was snoring before 10 o’clock. I intend to follow suite as soon as I post this and organize a few things for tomorrow.
Enjoy the pictures, and I will talk to you tomorrow.

L

Red Flower

Colourful Flowers

Jimtown Store

Poster in Jimtown Store

What a great day we had. We ate a delicious breakfast of Eggs Benny for me and eggs and biscuit for my mum at Hank’s Creekside, we headed out of Santa Rosa. Our first stop was Calistoga, and we found ourselves travelling on an ‘interesting’ road that was quite curvy and hilly, but quiet at least. We arrived in Calistoga, looked around a bit, and then headed south down the Napa Valley towards St. Helena.

St. Helena is a cute little town with a great bakery. When we went to St. Helena two years ago, Model Bakery was sold out of their English Muffins, but this year we were able to get one as it was much earlier in the day. I can’t tell you if they live up to Michael Chiarello’s claim (on The Best Thing I Ever Ate) that “they are unlike any other”, as we were still full from breakfast, but we grabbed one to go and plan on sharing it tomorrow morning. We also stopped into the St. Helena Olive Oil Co. where I grabbed a bottle of lemon olive oil for my mum as a belated Mother’s Day gift. After a short walk around the downtown area we were again back in the car and heading south. We bypassed the city of Napa, as we find it just too ritzy and over-priced for us, and headed to Sonoma via Schellville.

Once in Sonoma we grabbed the first parking spot we could find, set my countdown timer on my watch for 2 hours (the length of time you can park for free), and headed to Basque Boulangerie for coffee and a small bite to eat. There I had my first Snickerdoodle, which I quite enjoyed, and my mum had a healthier snack of a poppy seed bun with brie. We then wandered around downtown, stopping in this shop and that shop – basically just being tourists. We visited Wine Country Chocolates in one of the quaint courtyards that are scattered amongst the mid-nineteenth century Spanish mission-style buildings, but decided not to buy anything. I also went looking for a bottle of wine for a friend of mine, but couldn’t find a white zinfandel with a cool enough name.

After Sonoma, we headed back towards Santa Rosa and detoured through Agua Caliente and Boyes Hot Springs. Both are tiny little hamlets, which I’m sure have hot springs, though we saw no signs of any. We also stopped in Glen Ellen and visited the Wine Country Chocolates tasting room in Jack London Village. This time, we gave into the chocolate and each bought a box of 7 truffles. I also saw a sign for Laurel Glen Vineyards, but unfortunately their tasting room is no longer open at this location. It would have been a perfect place to buy a bottle of Zin.

On the drive from Glen Ellen back to the hotel, I happened to notice that we were around Kenwood, and mentioned to my mum that we were near Figone’s of California Olive Oil Company, where we both bought some olive oil last year. Since my mum hadn’t been too enamoured with the plain olive oil in St. Helena, we stopped and she picked up a bottle of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil for you non-foodies out there), and I grabbed a couple of small flavoured olive oil bottles to give as gifts.

Back at the hotel, we went over our Google/Wiki list and researched a few of the easier topics before we left for dinner at the Russian River Pub in Forestville. I had called and made reservations before I left Canada, just in case it was busy being a Friday night – I needn’t have as it was quite quiet. My mum and I both had chicken sandwiches, hers with pesto and Swiss (and salad) and mine with hot sauce and blue cheese (and fries). The food was unbelievable and the service was top-notch as well. One thing about the restaurant that I really liked was that the walls were all wood and people have signed their names and left messages and such in black marker. I also decided to leave my mark and used a Sharpie pen to sign my initials – if we go back next year, I will come prepared with a bigger Sharpie.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and finished up the original wiki list and also what we had added to it over dinner. My mum decided to turn in fairly early, and I also need to get some shut-eye before the long drive we have tomorrow to Yreka. I have included a few pictures below from our adventures today…I hope you enjoy and I will talk to you tomorrow.

L

Baby Bacchus Statue, Sonoma, CA

Wine Statue in Sonoma

Flowering Hen and Chicks in Sonoma

Duck in Sonoma Park

Unknown Fruit Tree in Sonoma