oct. 21 - 24

Monday  Oct. 21

The route from Washoe/Reno to Sacramento is all route 80 and a pleasant drive. We buy fuel first, before we cross the state line, and then we’re off again, like a mother duck followed by one chick – that’s me, in the Honda. Yes, the Honda can be towed, but we first need to have a special tow bar installed in the front. So I’m still following. First we go uphill a little, up the Sierra Nevada I think, but from there it’s all downhill. Before 1 o’clock we are in Vacaville, 20 miles past Sacramento, at a lovely RV park. Shade from eucalyptus trees, singing birds - finches, hummingbirds, woodpeckers - it feels like we’ve arrived at an oasis. I relax the rest of the day while Opa catches up on work. Of course, when we’re following each other, he can’t work with his computer; he can only use his phone.  In between relaxing (chair in the shade, cup of tea, binocs, birdbook) I do four loads of laundry. The state parks we stayed at have only limited services and enough water for laundry is not one of them ;). Yeay! Enough clean socks!

Tuesday Oct. 22

Yesterday Mr. Campground handed us a promising Napa Valley route. Opa fields phone calls as we go along. We start at the east side and go north from Napa on Silverado trail. We are told to make a stop at the Soda Canyon Deli to pick up lunch, so I go in while Henk is on the phone. How large are the rolls, I ask. Like those over there, says the young man, pointing at rolls of the size that they put six in a bag of. O, good, then I can buy two and we each have two different halves; I order one turkey avocado and one roast beef jalapeno. Opa will get all the peppers ;) When I pay I also get one cookie to share - you know the size of those deli cookies, it would be enough for a party of four. Chocolate dipped oatmeal raisin, yum. Meanwhile they put our sandwiches in boxes.

Then we drive further north, pass by a few vineyards and stop at Clos de Val for our first ever wine tasting. It’s a small place, but they were part of, when, years ago, the Napa valley wine(s) beat the French the first time. First surprise: tasting wine is $15 for a few sips of three wines. A $30, a $35, and an $80 wine. I watch Henk enjoy his three tastes, seeing as I don’t really like the stuff, the $15 would be so wasted on me.

A little further north we cross the valley and drive back south on route 29. Pretty soon we stop at Beringer, the vineyard with, according to our route description, the best wine cave tour. I don’t look as opa pays for our half-hour tours…  We enjoy our lunch on a European-style terrace decorated with grapevines, that is, eh, we enjoy half of our sandwiches, each half larger than the small rolls the young man pointed at. Geesh, one sandwich would have been plenty for the two of us!

The tour is cool, it involves tasting three more wines (I barely sipped the first, skipped the second, and! liked the third!) and strolling through the cool caves they ripen in. Just before Henk goes back to the car for yet another call we pass though a short connecting corridor decorated with photos of past master wine makers.  And then from the picture of Roy Raymond, wine master until 1970, !those are my dad’s eyes grinning at us! Only the mouth and chin are different. Same head, same hair, eyes, eye brows, nose… Hmmm… Much later Henk checks Google maps to see how far it is from Mainz, where the Beringer brothers hail from, to Kratzenburg, where the Krassenburg’s family tree research stops. Hmmm… a mere 30 miles… which is even stranger when you realize Roy wasn’t a son but a son-in-law…

After his phone call Henk rejoins me and gets to taste the last wine, a new light red, lightly sparkly one, only available at the vineyard as a test wine. He likes it too and the young fellow talks him into getting a few bottles.

Afternoon tea is in the shade next to the RV, and after dinner we pack up the RV because we’re expected for service in Davis (Sacramento) at 8 A.M.

Wednesday Oct. 23.

Today they install a replacement faucet in the kitchen and a new awning motor, plus a few other minor adjustments. Great people, only, it takes until 4 P.M. Opa works, while I visit the nearby WalMart, play computer games and watch episode after episode of American Pickers. Finally everything is finished and we can go. We back up a bit on route 80 and then take 5 south, with dinner at Denny’s in Stockton or thereabouts. We have driven route 5 enough already to know we’re actually going to be better off driving as much of it as is reasonably possible in the dark… Of course, it’s six hours drive time to “our” RV park north of Los Angeles, and no need to get there tonight. So we see how far we get. This turns out to be a rest stop just north of Coalinga.

Thursday Oct. 24.

We’re awake early, I guess we smell the stable? At the first exit is another Denny’s where we have breakfast, and then we finish our long trek via the grapevine to Castaic, to the RV “Village” on the edge of Santa Clarita. We find a good spot with great satellite reception (Red Sox, Patriots). Opa, as usual, gets as much work done as he can, and then we get back into the car to drive to Los Angeles in time to pick up the grandkids from school.

And that concludes this fall’s trip. Do stay tuned, because I intend to add a post with lots of photos sometime next week. Thanks for reading! And don’t forget, I like to write but I also like to hear from my audience once in a while. One little note from each reader would really make my day!