Dec 8^th

On Monday morning we left our week long retreat in Bakersfield and once again headed towards the coast. After stocking up with supplies including a live 3’ Christmas tree from Walmart (and lights), we headed towards Paso Robles for a night. The park was only 2 years old and very nicely constructed with stamped concrete sites and lots of space and gardens between sites. We headed for the pool and hot tub in the late afternoon for some of the final rays of the day. The only downfall of this park is that it is located right beside Hwy 101! The row we were in was the closest to the highway – my estimate was 150’ away. Our sleep that night wasn’t too quiet or restful.

Anyway, it got us closer to our main destination the next day which was Hearst Castle at San Simeon, CA. http://hearstcastle.org/ I have listed their website here for those interested and I will try to be short in the narrative and let some of the pictures do the talking. William Randolph Hearst was an eccentric man who was a media baron owning 26 newspapers, magazines like Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Good housekeeping, and a movie production company. He had a rich father and when he was 10 he and his family toured Europe for 1 ½ years, which is where he got all his grandeur ideas for the castle he was to build later in life. When Hearst owned the castle, which is now managed by the California Parks Commission, they had 250,000 acres. The acreage has now been reduced to 82,000’ which the Hearst family still raise cattle on. Back to his story….briefly. He started building the castle back in the early 1900’s and ran out of money at the time, but by the late 30’s he was back at construction with the help of a architect from San Francisco-Julia Morgan. After 15 years of construction, it was at the point where he could move in, but it was by no means finished – still unfinished today. He was an avid art collector and with his wealth he was able to bring literally boatloads of art and items to use in the construction. He would find abandoned church’s, etc and disassemble entire ceilings, pews etc. to be used later. See pic’s. The tour we took was the Grand Rooms tour. The main house called Casa Grande is 68,000’ with 38 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms. There are 3 “cottages” ranging from 2,500’ to 5,300’. The tour began in the Assembly Room. Often he would have weekend guests, usually rich business people or movie stars (Charlie Chaplin – often) and in the evening before dinner they would “assemble” in this grand room having happy hour waiting for their host to arrive. He would arrive and mingle a bit then it was off to the Refectory (dining room)-see pics. After dinner the guests would continue on to the Morning Room (also used for morning coffee) to wait for the staff to clean up the dinner. At that time, they all would go to the theatre, including staff, to watch home movies or feature films.

After our tour, inside, we were free to roam the gardens, pools and the rest of the outdoor property. It was beautiful and just kept going on and on. Incredible! In his time, Hearst had the largest private zoo in the U.S. The remnants of that now are Barbary sheep and a herd of Zebra that roam the range with the cattle.

Hopefully I haven’t been too wordy and I’ll let the pictures provide more insight into this man’s vision.

 

Dec 1-7

Our first – a week in one spot!

We have been thoroughly enjoying a restful and quiet week in Bakersfield CA. Bakersfield is in the mid/south central valley of California. They are known for “ag” and “oil”. Neither is doing well at the moment with the depressed world oil prices and the state of California has been in a drought condition for over 3 years, so growing fruits and vegetables is a challenge as well. We are certainly enjoying the lower gas prices as we motor around the nation!

The park we are in has about 2/3 rds “long term” residents in the 120 sites. As we continue to find, there are many transient workers on contracts, etc. that occupy RV parks. This park has been recently constructed and was well done with paved streets, cement patios, grsss and trees, a very nice pool and hot tub (it’s our as no one else seems to go), store, club room, etc..

We haven’t done too much all week. We have had the bikes out three times as on the other side of the Kern River there are 30 miles of paved trails. The Kern River has been dry for at least 3 years due to the drought, so we have to walk the bikes across the river bed to the other side to access the trails. See PIC. Weather has been great all week with the day time temps going into the low to mid 70’s. Unseasonably warm according to the locals. We’re not complaining.

One day we biked over to “downtown” Bakersfield. Nothing too special in a city of 400,000. Tired and quiet. There is  a local country watering hole called The Bull Shed, so we checked it out one night. Probably more exciting later in the evening, but as “retiree’s” we had to be home early.

Other than that, we took the RV out on Thursday for an oil change and check the house battery. Not too much exciting.

Only other thing to report is that there was a small RV Rally here this weekend (about 24-30 people – not sure what they do) and they brought with them all their Christmas decorations, trees, etc.. So when I dug out the 6″ x 8″ box of decorations for Kathy to put up, they just didn’t cut it! I guess we are doing a little shopping tomorrow when we leave here.

Back to the coast tomorrow.

Sunday, Funday – Squawk!!!

 

Nov 26-30

We left the city of Napa on Thursday morning, the US Thanksgiving Day, heading up to much higher grounds. The plan for the next 4 nights was to drive up into the Sierra Nevada mountain range and camp in Groveland for 2 nights then a short drive into Yosemite National Park for 2 nights during the US Thanksgiving weekend. We were only spending 2 nights in Yosemite as we were “dry” camping. No electrical or water services. We had our holding tank and generator, but were still somewhat limited.

The Groveland park was about 120 miles from Napa and drive was good until the last 20 miles or so as we met the elevation. Going around 12 miles of that at about 15-20 mph so it was a long and winding road to 3,000’. Luckily we were greeted with warm and dry weather that day and on their Black Friday. When you can wear shorts and T-shirts and blog and play board games outside, all is good!

When we arrived around 2 pm the park was not full, but the ones that were there all had their deep fryers out for cooking their turkeys. We didn’t partake in those festivities. That night, at 3,000’ it cooled down fairly well, so we left the camp fire until the next afternoon. Many campers left during the day on Black Friday, for the day, so it was real quiet in the park which suited us fine.

Saturday morning we were up and out early heading to one of the grand daddies of National Parks. We had heard of snow expected at elevations above 6,000’ but our camp in Yosemite Village is at around 4,000’ so we thought we wouldn’t see any. That wasn’t the case! What we didn’t know is that we had to climb from 3,000’ to over 6,000’ that morning and as we did, guess what – big snow flurries. Shortly after this we began our descent to around 4,000’ which is where the Yosemite Village is located amongst the valley floor, surrounded by monster mountains.

Needless to say once on our way and when we arrived, the “shutterbug” was in engaged. There is too much to talk about covering the next 2 days, but I will try to surmise the visit. Needless to say, everywhere we turned, awesome sites abounded. Once we settled in on the early Saturday afternoon, the bikes were out so we could orientate ourselves around the village. We headed off to see Mirror Lake and Halfdome. Mirror Lake is a dry lake until winter snow and spring runoff fill it up, so that day we walked the lake bottom. It was basically a big beach. For those that know the clothing line “The North Face”, the Halfdome in the logo was inspired from here. See pics.

We did some more roaming around that afternoon then headed back to camp for a fire to warm us up. Temps at night went down to the high 30’s so we were glad to be high and dry and warmer in the RV. The next day we had booked a 2 hr bus tour to show us all the sites on the “valley floor” beginning at 10 am. It was very informative. One item I’ll share here is that these sheer rock faces are a Mecca for rock climbers world wide. One rock face is called El Capitan. There are a couple of pictures below, one were you will see a small red highlight with a dot above it. Zoom the picture if you can and you will see a climbing platform suspended by ropes were climbers will sleep during the night – at around 1,500’ elevation. El Capitan is 3,000’ in height and the tour guide said the average time to climb it is between 2-7 days. Some have set records though at under a day. Looking at the sheer size of the rock face and this little speck is incredible. Try to zoom the pic and you will see the platform/tent and several ropes nearby.

There was lots of wild life around, mainly deer but bears were prevalent in the area, so any tenter’s had to keep all food products, coolers, etc. in a bear box which you will see in the picture of us by the campfire.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story on our exciting time in Yosemite National Park.

On Monday we head off to much lower elevation heading south to Bakersfield to relax for a week – at one site! That will be a first and we are looking forward to it as we have exceeded 5,000 miles (8,000km) so far. I estimate another 6,000 miles for the next 5 months, so obviously it will be at a much slower pace.

Until then, we’ll be on the perch for the next week.

November 23^rd and 24^th

Our first full day in Calistoga began with beautiful sunshine and temperatures in the high 60’s. We took Jazz for a walk through the downtown and checked out the local Visitor Information centre to learn what all the area had to offer. Lots of wineries of course!! The downtown  had a lot of shops similar to what is in Niagara on the Lake but on a larger scale. The population of the town is approximately 1600. The town has a lot of Hot Spring Spas to enjoy and many great restaurants. Once we had our bearings, we returned to the RV, dropped off Jazz after grabbing a bite to eat and we took off on our bikes to go on a winery tour. Our first stop was at Lava Vine Winery. This winery is owned by 3 guys who were quite entertaining the whole time we were there. Their wine was not bad but the whole experience itself was a lot of fun. We continued on our wonderful bike ride through wine country stopping briefly at Clos Pegase Winery, Sterling Winery (which we decided we would check out thoroughly another day as it was very big and busy) and finally we ended up at Twomey Winery which was a great stop. The tasting server was extremely informative and we learned a lot about the winery and the Napa Valley in general while we were there. He even gave us 2 free really nice wine glasses . Sunday night we enjoyed pasta at Boskos’s Trattoria for dinner. As we were walking back to the RV we found live entertainment at the Hydro Grill being performed by a  group of 7 Swing Musicians performing Jazz music. The music was great and it was a perfect way to end our day. Monday morning we again woke to beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures. We set off on our bikes again, this time taking a totally different wine route. We first went to Chateau Montelena . In 1976 Chateau Montelena helped put California at the forefront of the wine world. That year a who’s-who of the French wine and food establishment gathered for a grand tasting at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Paris. Four white Burgundies were tasted against six California Chardonnays. When the scores were tallied, the French Judges were convinced that the top-ranking white wine was one of their own. In fact, it was Chateau Montelena’s 1973 Chardonnay, rated above all other wines. The results proved that Chateau Montelena could produce some of the world’s finest wines, and that California’s wine industry had come of age. This is how California became famous for it’s wines. Check out the movie Bottle Shock (made in 2008) which tells the story. We watched it this past week on Netflix and really enjoyed it. After Chateau Montelena we rode to Bennett Lane Winery as well as Envy Winery and enjoyed tastings at each one. Again we learned a lot about wines and the region from the people at each winery. It was time for lunch and a bit of relaxing at the campsite after all that wine! We knew we still had more wineries to visit and more sampling to do the next day so we had to get ready for that! On Monday, November 24^th we packed up the RV and headed down Hwy 29 toward the city of Napa where we would spend 2 days. On the way, we revisited Sterling Winery which was very impressive. To get to the actual winery you take an aerial tram (Gondola) which is the only one of its kind in Napa Valley, offering stunning views as visitors ride up to the winery. You are greeted with a glass of wine to enjoy while you stroll through art galleries, overlooks, and elevated walkways that allow guests to follow the winemaking process from grape to glass. Along the way, motion-activated flat-screen televisions provide detailed explanations. This arrangement lets guests tour the winery at their own pace. It was an amazing tour and we came away from there with some delicious wines which we will do our best to try and keep to age awhile before we enjoy them. Next stop was just as impressive but in a different way. We went to Castello di Amorosa which is an authentic Tuscan Castle modelled after a 13^th Century castle built by Dario Sattui in Napa Valley because of his passionate, all-consuming desire to create something extraordinary to honour his Italian heritage. It took 15 actual years to construct. It is 121,000 square feet (3 acres of rooms), has 5 defensive towers with battlements, 2000 pound hand-hewn doors from Italy, 107 distinctive rooms – 95 of them devoted to winemaking and 8 levels – 4 of which are underground which makes 2/3’s of the Castello underground. Our server told us that every rock and or reclaimed brick used to construct it came from Europe. You will see from the pictures how many would have had to have been shipped over. It was an amazing place to visit. Check out the website: http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/   if you would like to learn more. The wine they make is only sold at the Winery so of course we had to buy some there as well! Last stop before we arrived in the city of Napa was at the Robert Mondavi Winery. For those of you who know me well, you know that Mondavi’s Woodbridge Cabernet Sauvignon is my absolute favorite wine to drink. So, I could not have possibly driven by and not gone in for a visit. We were at the Mondavi winery back in 2000 which is when I first discovered his wines and that is where the story began. Anyway, we had a great time there as well and of course we had to do some more sampling. We arrived in Napa in the late afternoon and set up camp in the Napa Valley Exposition Fairgrounds RV Park which was very similar to the Fairground RV Park we had camped in in Calistoga. These RV parks in Fairgrounds are a great idea. They come with all hookups including free Wifi and we quite enjoyed our stay in both parks. The following morning we set out on foot to explore the downtown area of Napa. Napa is quite a big city with a population of approximately 75,000 people. The downtown had a lot of restaurants and shops in it. We saw a lot of buildings which were damaged in the earthquake that just happened there this past August which measured at 6.0 in magnitude. Many of the damaged buildings were their government buildings – the Post office, courthouse etc. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at The Bounty Hunter BBQ restaurant. Then we returned to the RV and spent the rest of the afternoon reading our books while enjoying the sunshine. No wine that day!!! On Thursday morning (Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.) we hit the road and headed in the direction of Yosemite National Park. More to follow on this in our next Blog. Let’s just say it was another eventful drive with me at the helm again.