California Adventure: Day 1

Saturday, July 19, 2014

We left the house in the pouring rain (so much for all that planning for the care of the plants!) to make our way to the Marta station where we discovered that they were reporting delays on the north/south line we'd be transferring to. As we pondered whether or not to risk it, the Marta employee was awesome in tracking down director who assured her that we'd be fine. So we took a deep breath and took the plunge and of we went hoping and praying that we'd been given good information.

And we had. We made our connection and off to the airport we went without a hitch. I don't think Pierce has been to the airport 2 hours before his flight, well, ever!

While we were on our 5-hour flight to Sacramento, we decided to create a travel blog. So welcome to the first post in Traveling Story's blog at www.theroaminggardeners.blogspot.com! We created it to keep a travel journal for ourselves and decided that my mom would love to read it, so anyone else who stumbles upon it and enjoys it can thank her :).

One we landed, we grabbed a quick lunch and hit the road, ready to had to Clearlake, or destination for the evening. Off we went, cruising along until ... screech! We found our first detour ten minutes into the drive. In Woodlands, CA we happened upon what we can only describe as a water skiing jump park. It was a small pond by the side of the interstate with an overhead mechanism with ski ropes hanging down. Guys, yes all guys, were skiing in circles with obstacles to jump, just like a skate park. Very cool .. very fun-looking.

This detour led us to the first of many gigantic fields of sunflowers we would see on our drive to Clearlake. Acres and acres and acres of sunflowers bigger 6' or taller! It must be where sunflower seeds come from ... pretty awesome!

Yes, we finally made it to Clearlake and got in two wine-tastings before dinner. If you're not into wine tasting, what you need to know is that there is high degree of competition between Napa and Lake County. At this point, Lake County is the "new kid on the block" and therefore it's more that they are competing against Napa, leading to some interesting conversations with the folks running the Lake County tastings. The first winery we stopped at was Gregory Graham. They are relatively new as they just opened the winery in 2006, but they won quite a few awards in the Lake County Wine competition a few months ago. While the tasting experience was a bit stilted, they do have some good wines.

Next on the list was Vigilance. They were recommended by the folks at Gregory Graham and were well worth the stop! They have a fantastic view ... did we mention that Lake County surrounds Clear Lake and is an absolutely breathtaking view of a lake in the valley? Anyway, Vigilance had great ambiance and very good wine as well. We can't vouch for whites as we're primarily fans of reds, but we walked out with a few bottles of Vigilance to enjoy throughout the week.

After dinner at the Saw Shop Bistro in Kelseyville (absolutely wonderful!), we finally made our way to our B&B in Nice: the Featherbed Railroad! (http://www.featherbedrailroad.com). Yep! We got to stay in our very own caboose complete with a cupola we could sit in and enjoy the view of the lake across the street! For anyone who hasn't heard me talk about this in the weeks leading up to this, I was off the charts excited about it and it was as great as I expected! Yes, of course it's a bit cheesy, but it was great fun and just fueled my desire to take a train trip ... complete with a sleeper car!

Assuming you haven't fallen asleep reading this, it's now time for us to turn in for the night. More tomorrow when we explore Clearlake, do some more wine tasting and head to Eureka!

Pierce & Heather