On The Road

California Travelogue Gallery

August 28

I had driven up to Lancaster from Las Vegas the evening before, and the early morning found us up and on the road at o’dark thirty. We headed west with the sun’s light just rimming the horizon behind us.

We passed through small, obscure California towns such as Needech and Antelope Acres before finally merging into Highway 5. As the passenger, I was able to completely absorb myself into the Central California scenery as we swept past fields of crops and orchards. Some were redolent with green; fields of sorghum, beans, and peppers, orchards of almond trees and other drupes, and some fields that whisked by so quickly I could not discern what they were. Some were lying fallow, with sagebrush dotting the fields with otherwordly rounded green forms like an alien landscape.

We passed by the turnoff to Paso Robles, and I was able to suppress a whimper. After all, I reasoned, I was going to A Taste of Paso Wines in San Jose, and I would have my fill of Paso Robles wines. Never mind that many of my old friends wouldn’t be there!

Halfway between Hollister and Gilroy is a little establishment of several related stores called Casa de Fruta. We stopped at Casa de Restaurant for a filling breakfast of corned beef, eggs, omelet, coffee, and juice. While sitting quietly and waiting for our meals to arrive, my traveling companion, Rod, asked a question that turned out to be a theme question later. And that was, “Tell me again why we don’t drink wine at breakfast? And I’m not talking about champagne. That’s overdone.” I was taken aback and just shrugged. Surely any breakfast at which champagne was included could have “real” wine, right? So why isn’t it being done? But more on that later.

So here we are in Casa de Restaurant which is somewhat reminiscent of a Denny’s/Pancake House/Applebee’s type of casual family dining, and I realized that we had finally arrived in “wine country.” Where else could you find wine so completely showcased on every menu, on the walls, on posters, except in wine country? Where else can you find an entire building devoted to all things wine? How many places offer tastings of the house wine? Oh yeah, babe. We were definitely in wine country.

This wine country was Santa Clara Valley, and while there are only about a dozen or so wineries, they seem to be of high quality. There was the ever-present J.Lohr, and Fortino, Hecker Pass, Sycamore Creek, and Thomas Kruse for starters. It was still very early in the morning, and because of our schedule, we had no time to visit the wineries. We enjoyed the Casa de Fruta’s fruit stand, wine tasting room, and the scenery at before getting back on the road.

With full bellies and a sack of fresh Galas, we were again on our way. He knows the way to San Jose (sorry. couldn’t resist). He took the main thoroughfare through Gilroy, home of the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival held every July. You would have thought that the festival was in full swing since the air was redolent with the aroma of garlic. If you’ve ever visited Hershey, Pennsylvania, you will experience a similar phenomenon, except that Hershey’s aroma is, of course, chocolate. I inhaled deeply and laughed. It was my first trip through Gilroy, and I know it won’t be my last. I found out later that July and August are garlic processing months, and that explains the pungent aroma that permeated everything. During the winter months, I was told, the fragrance is not nearly as noticeable. With the sunroof open and the windows rolled down, we were, I’m sure, absolutely reeking of garlic funkiness. And it was wonderful.

Soon we were back on the road headed towards San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley. We arrived to a fanfare of hugs and kisses, and while Rod took a short nap to sleep off driving fatigue, I sat and kibbitzed with Bunny for a while.

And then it was time to go to A Taste of Paso Wines. Take a look at what we did there!

August 29

Our next trip was to San Francisco to attend the Slow Food Nation conference. Bunny was still recovering from drinking the wines of 30-something Paso Robles wineries, and needed to sleep a little more. Rod and I got an early start, first driving to Fremont and then taking BART to “the City.” I learned that if you live in the area, you describe San Francisco as “the City” or as San Francisco, never as SF, Frisco, or San Fran. If you do, you are immediately pegged as a tourist and treated accordingly. Which, as you may know, may be good. Or not.

I understand that in Vegas we don’t have the population and resources to support a system such as BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit - in our area, but damn. It would be nice to get on a train at, say, Santa Fe Station and take it all the way to Green Valley Ranch. Especially for the price … the cost of a round-trip ticket from the Fremont station to Civic Center in San Francisco was a little over $10.00. Compared to our monorail, it’s a decided bargain. It makes needing a car optional.

The trip was nearly 45 minutes, and I couldn’t imagine how we could have dealt with the traffic had we decided to drive. We didn’t want to spend money on gas – especially since we had driven Rod’s Chrysler 300 which *loves* premium gas at California prices – and the lack of stress was worth the price. The only negative was that the rumble of the train was just physically subliminal enough to bother Rod who is recovering from recent cervical (neck disks) surgery.

San Jose, Fremont, Hayward, and Oakland were all new to me, and it had been about 25 years since my last visit to San Francisco. I was as wide-eyed as any neophyte tourist visiting the area for the first time.

The view from BART is, like most public transportation systems, less than scenic. Initially, oleanders and graffiti made up the greater part of the landscape. As we left the Fremont and Hayward areas, we sped by schoolyards, housetops, loading docks, apartment buildings, trainyards, churches, and clotheslines, and got to see the private areas of the public cities. I smiled because much of it was very un-Californialike, and took me back to my youth in Philadelphia where I saw nearly identical landscapes as I rode the Reading from Downtown Philly to my Mom’s home in Cheltenham. Except without the palm trees. Palm trees on public transportation are symbolically California.

I was quite surprised to see quite a number of Victorian homes in the cities that we passed through. For some reason – I’m sure it’s because of TV – I thought that the only Victorian homes were in the City. I was wrong. I loved the old homes that we passed and wished that there was a way that I could have visited them. Many of those old homes, particularly if they have not been renovated, still have that “Grandmom’s Closet” aroma that takes me back to my childhood and happy, carefree times.

And then there was the San Francisco skyline through the famous Bay Area haze. You just gotta grin. I felt so much like a tourist! The fun part about the BART trip was that the train goes under the Bay when it leaves Oakland to go into the City.

Going underneath the Bay is a little disconcerting, only because your imagination (okay, *my* imagination) goes nuts after 9/11. However, my fellow passengers – each of whom seemed to be plugged into an iPod – were very unconcerned and lah-dee-dah about going through the tunnel. Even Rod had dozed off. Apparently, I was the only one who remained awake, un-iPodded, and vigilant against a terrorist attack. Apparently it worked. We arrived at the Civic Center station with no incident.

We departed (detrained?) the train and walked up a long corridor where there was a young man singing and playing his saxophone. I grinned, since it had been years since I’ve seen “subway talent” in any form since leaving Philadelphia. We took the escalator up to the street, and a short block later, immersed ourselves into Slow Food Nation.

By the way, our saxophone artist had been replaced by a guitair musician when we headed towards the train after our Slow Food Nation adventure. Apparently, they have some sort of change-of-shift schedule thing going on.

August 30 found us staying at home, relaxing, and just enjoying friends and family, with the ideas of visiting Napa and Sonoma fading far into the distance. The BBQ later in the day confirmed that was the best decision. People and family come before even the most storied of wineries … and before utter exhaustion!

August 31

It was finally time to leave San Jose. The last few days had been wonderful, with connecting with friends old and new, and reminiscing, prognosticating, and enjoying the friendships and loves.

As we whisked by the exits that were a part of San Jose, we were shortly on a two-lane highway that would take us to Highway 5.

We stopped at a roadside produce stand that had fresh fruits and vegetables and lots of Gilroy garlic. After purchasing several sacks of oranges, mangoes, several types of peppers which had just been picked early that morning, bags of corn on the cob, a couple of “bolas” of garlic, lusting after the chickens that were running around (free range at its finest), and other miscellaneous fruits and vegetables, we were finally back on the road to Southern California and Rod’s home. By the way, all of that stuff came up to $17.00. I still can’t believe it.

We made a “tourist” stop at the San Luis Dam through Highway 152 and the Pacheco Pass - supposedly haunted - where I took a bunch of pictures of the currently receding waterline of the reservoir, the beautiful landscape, and the placards. We saw people who were camping out at the water’s edge with their poles and popup tents and who were enjoying the fishing and the beer. We stayed long enough to inhale the fresh Central California air before continuing on.

We arrived at Rod’s home about noon and decided to stay at home and prepare our evening meal with the fresh produce and cheeses we had purchased at Slow Food Nation and on the road. We popped open a bottle of Paso wine, and we made a toast to an incredible weekend.

Oh yeah. I’m so sorry that I didn’t make it to the Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares restaurant as I’d promised. But fear not!! I spoke with them, and that’s coming up soon, in two weeks if everything goes as planned.

Meanwhile, don’t hate me because I’d had more fun than I’ve had since the last time I visited Paso Robles. Although I can’t afford to live there, I have to say that for a relatively local tourist destination, there’s no place like California.

Stay tuned for California trips and more from Vegas Wineaux!

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