Elko and the road...

Just an FYI - I am now home from the trip and have been since August 5! The events of this post took place July 27-8, if I should need this information to prove an alibi at some point. 

 

You may remember we got up at 3:30 to avoid the heat. It was well worth it. We got to Elko, Nevada just after lunchtime. What is the best thing in Elko, Nevada? If you have to ask, you obviously haven't met Sallie!

Sallie is a Betsy-Tacy friend who invited us to stay with her and “scoured the coal scuttle” to make us feel welcome. We sat and talked for a few hours when we got there, as is our way. Annika proved herself to be the most patient and polite of teenagers by putting up with our nonsense.

At dinner time, we headed downtown to a Basque restaurant. If the Star Hotel is the Elko version of Cheers, than Sallie is definitely Norm! Everyone seemed to know her and she, them.

We got cocktails (well, not Annika) and Sallie introduced us to a drink called Picon Punch. Now she had been talking about it when she told us about the restaurant but both of us thought she was saying Pecan Punch. It didn't taste like pecans at all!

 The place was very cute and the food was amazing! We were served family style. I thought, "There is no way we are going to be able to eat all this!" But I considered it a challenge and gave it the old college try... Even the cabbage soup was delicious, and it was made out of cabbage and soup!

After dinner, Sallie gave us a tour of Elko, including the houses of ill repute. I am not sure if they are considered to have ill repute if they are legal. Either way, I giggled like a 15 year old at the sign on in front of Inez's. Annika, the actual 15 year old, did not. She gave me the stony glare of maturity. 

We also saw some pretty early 20th century houses, some of which were at one point inhabited by Sallie and/or members of her family. 

I enjoy hearing about other people's family history, and Sallie is a true raconteur. 

Sallie's house is at the end of a dead end street and it looks out onto an empty lot. That sounds like it wouldn't be much to look at when I put it that way, but in the desert, it is beautiful!

She also has a back deck and garden so pretty that I had to panoram it!

Before we left, we got the obligatory selfie, which isn't actually a selfie because now I had Annika to do my selfie-ing for me! She is so helpful.

Her other job, which she did with no complaining, was to remove the bug graveyard at every gas stop. We had a serious bug-death problem going east. They saw us coming and decided to end it all. 

If you are a weirdo who likes driving videos and wants to see the different terrain we managed to drive through in a 48 hour period, these clips might interest you. If you are curious about what the windshield looked like encased with all matter of insects, you will also want to take a look. 
I would urge you to not listen to the sound. We were listening to audiobooks all the way home and often forgot to turn them off when filming. And we are goofy as well.

San Francisco to Chico - July 26

Nearing the Donner Pass - July 27

Chico to Elko - July 27

Elko to Salt Lake City - July 28

You would think I would have Annika take the video since I am the worst driving videographer of all time! But it was not to be...

Up next - a lot of pictures of Salt Lake City!

Chico, California

  

California is about 8 different states rolled into one. We drove through three of them on the way out. The starting point was San Francisco where I was to drop off my beloved at the airport.

This is what it looks like on drunk Canadian Siri when you cross the Golden Gate Bridge. You know what else? You have to pay money to go south. You know what doesn't work to pay for the bridge? Fast Pass. Well played Golden Gate Bridge, the check is in the mail...

After a tearful goodbye, I went to the cell phone parking lot. If ever a place was designed to make you pray for the day when we develop transporters like on Star Trek, it is San Francisco International Airport.

But I got to see these lovely ladies!

And Jorge, who declined to be photographed. Maureen was supposed to work, but she ended up getting the day off to make the trade off. I would be given Annika and she would get, well, really nothing in return. The good news is that I was getting Annika!

Mo and I took a selfie, which shall be kept small for...well, it will just be kept small. It ain't my best work!

After the second tearful goodbye of the day, it was off to Chico, California! 

If you have read any comments on this blog, you are familiar with Lady Chardonnay. But you have yet to meet her mother - Mama Chardonnay! But we'll just call her Susan. She isn't the drinker her little girl is. Heh heh heh...

Susan was kind enough to have us stay with her between San Francisco and Elko. It is a 500 mile leg and just too much to do in an afternoon. We were SO GLAD we stopped. 

The best thing about the visit was getting to know Susan better. It is clear where Lady Char gets her joie de vivre!

We went in the pool and splashed around and admired the landscaping. Which I did not photograph in true second-half-of-the-trip fashion.

Susan showed us her prize possession - a VW micro-bus that Annika was quick to claim she was ready to drive. Lady Char's son, L'il Martini claims that the bus will one day be his. But he is going to have to marry Annika to get it. (I will admit this has been my plan all along...)

Dinner was at la Hacienda - a place with salad dressing so good that if you type "hacienda Chico" into google up will come "la hacienda chico ca salad dressing recipe". This is LC's favorite restaurant of her youth and she adores the dressing. Guess who brought a bottle of the stuff home to her? Yes, it was us. And since it had to be refrigerated, we basically had to treat it like a human heart we were transporting for a transplant. There was a daily icing of the cooler (although by this time we were just living on nuts, iced tea, Starbucks and the kindness of others) and some discussion along the lines of how sick she could potentially get if we waited until morning to get ice. 

One thing I forgot to mention was that while we were in the pool, Susan told a story about crossing the desert to Elko with LC in an overheating car in the dead of night that scared the living daylights out of us!

Annika and I decided that it was imperative that we get up at 3:30 am to be on the road by 4 so that we could be in Elko by noon or we would DIE!!!

And we were. 

And we did not die. 

However we did a few hours of driving in the dark which I realized was my first nighttime driving of the whole trip! Annika is a very comforting person to have around. While I drove, she opened the moon roof and laid back and looked at the stars. She saw a shooting star, which is an excellent omen,

When drunk Canadian Siri told us to turn off the main road onto what looked like a gravel path leading to the home of a serial killer, Annika assured me, "We probably won't both be murdered here..." We were not.

And then, inexplicably, we were in the mountains! How did this happen?? We were in the freaking FOREST! And then we turned a corner to a scenic overlook and saw this -

You can't really tell, but it is a sheer drop that goes on forever and it was breathtaking. 

We drove a little further and the car was getting winded so I knew we were making some elevation. Nonetheless, I was rather surprised when we stopped at a rest area and saw this.

We were at about 7000 feet. The highest elevation of the trip so far. And Chico is 197' above sea level, so we made this elevation FAST!

It seems like as fast as we went from the bay to the farmland to the murderous dirt road to the mountains, we hit the desert! We were in Nevada and it looked very Nevada-ish.

I took a picture in Winnemucca because it is the hometown of one of my favorite fictional heroines. Anyone care to hazard a guess? I will reveal all in my next post from beautiful Elko, Nevada!

Glorious, glorious San Geronimo!

 

Here is my slightly blurry sister, Susan. She isn't always blurry but she is driving a huge yellow truck, so I will blame that and not the photographer. She and her husband Jim live in Marin County and was kind enough to let Rich and I stay with her for 5 wonderful days. This was day one, but she pretty much smiled the whole time! She has a very high tolerance for me.

So this is what happened. When I left Aptos, I headed to San Francisco International Airport to pick up my partner in crime [and parenting and house holding and any number of other things] - Rich! We had been apart for nearly three weeks so it was a tender reunion. We had to drive through the city to get up to Sue and Jim's and Rich took some shots of the Golden Gate Bridge - which is neither golden nor gated nor - if Rich's pictures are any indication - symmetrical...

I made an afghan for Susan over the winter and carried it across the country to bring to her. 

She loved it!

 

The first evening, we went to get Indian food for dinner. While we were waiting to pick up the order, we walked to see an Airstream trailer that Jim had made into a work of art. On the way there we saw these.

 

So on the way back, we PICKED ACTUAL FRUIT FROM A BUSH AND PUT IT INTO A CONTAINER AND EVENTUALLY ATE IT!! Can you believe that?? 

California is truly a magical place.

 

We had a nice dinner with Jim's niece and her gentleman friend and Maeve. Who is Maeve? I'll get to that later...

Who is this woman? No, not Maeve, I said later. Good grief... 

 

This is Ms Katie Watts of Petaluma! If you have read any comments on this blog, you will recognize her name. She even has it on the wall of her house. Which she used as part of the directions to her home. Which you can't see from the road. Alas...  

 

Anyway, Katie and I met for lunch in Petaluma and had a delightful time in spite of the fact that at the coffee shop where we met (to paraphrase Katie) apparently they had to raise the turkey for my sandwich and harvest the tea...Customer service wasn't their strong suit. Actually, they were very nice, just slow as dirt. But the conversation was sparkling! After knowing Katie for so long on the internet, it was great to get to meet her in person. She was nattily dressed (And not just in comparison to me! Actually fashionable!) We talked about travel and sons and Betsy Tacy. The time just flew by. I was meeting my family for a beer-swilling afternoon so I had to be off. But we managed to take an adorable selfie before parting ways. 

I met up with everyone at Lagunatis Brewery. They had a very warm, beer-garden where we spent a very long time sampling every single thing they brew. 

Here are Rich and I early in the process. Yes, we do find our matching hats adorable and assume you do as well...

 Here we are after some consumption. Everyone is doing just fine. Maeve took this. Who is Maeve. Soon, reader...soon...

 Here are Susan and Jim after we completed the tasting. They left those nachos completely unattended! Noobs!

OH look! It's Maeve!! Isn't she the cutest??

So Maeve is Susan's goddaughter. She is the daughter of Chris, Sue's best friend from high school. In our family we take goddaughter's pretty seriously. And it helps that they are awesome. 

Maeve is currently living in the camper that Susan and Jim provide at their house for traveling friends. I refer to it as the finishing school for hippie princesses. But I think I am the only one who does that. 

Here is the gang at Russian River Brewing Company. Rich is very excited to be here because, well, beer. Guess who was the designated driver at this point? This will be a reoccurring theme for me. Because I live to serve others. And also, I don't trust anyone's driving but mine. And Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s.

  

 

When we got home, we were too full to eat so we just goofed off. In this picture we were trying to reenact a postcard I found in their living room that just may encapsulate everything about my whole trip! I am saving it for the end of this post – because I believe it is worth waiting for.

The next day (Saturday) was all prep for the big party! Susan and Jim have a group of friends who are just amazing. Every time we visit you can count on some sort of gathering. We had a wonderful time! Did I take any pictures? Of course not. But I did get some lovely shots of things neatly stacked up in preparation and Jim manning the grill. It will have to suffice.

 Here is what we did the next day. 

 

Crab cakes + eggs benedict for breakfast.

Rich naps while nearly dabbing! This is particularly amazing because Rich knows none of the current dance moves of the young people of today, they way I do...

I take a poncho selfie, because my poncho is awesome.

We sit on the deck and talk.

Have I mentioned the deck? It overlooks a little stream where I have seen actual salmon. (although not this trip) 

It is so lovely I have panoramed it.

Sunday afternoon we went to Terrapin Crossroads and saw some great music. Bluegrass first with Scott Law, there was a banjo - expertly played, I thought - and Jim is no fan of the banjo. And yet he loves bluegrass. This amuses me to no end... Then a blessedly banjo-free set from Kate Gaffney and Jeff Miller. It was wonderful. Did I take any pictures? Of course not...

I did go outside and brave the blistering heat (northern California is not supposed to have this, but northern California was being a butt, weather-wise) to hear Phil Lesh and the Camp Terrapin Family Band. I took a little video and here is a screenshot, so at least I have some visual!

That's Phil there on the right. This is the second closest I have ever been to a member of the Grateful Dead. If you ever run in to me in person feel free to ask about the night I saved Jerry Garcia from almost certain embarrassment. I love to tell that story...

On Monday we went to Sonoma to visit some wineries. This is Rich's favorite thing. I can't remember the names of the ones we visited, but they all had some kind of water in the name - pond, river, puddle - what have you...

Here are my artsy pictures with no people in them -

Here are the people ones...

Here are Rich and Susan going into the first place - we'll call it Roaring River...

Here are Rich and Sue (and a little photo-bomb-y Jim) at the second place. We'll call it Rushing Tributary.

They are really quite photogenic. 

Due to my responsibilities as D.D., I was able to take these very nice pictures. 

We didn't take pictures of the third place, because it was pretty much a shack. But the guy who poured was very knowledgable and friendly. And there were a lot of local people there, which seemed like a good sign. And the wine was delightful. (I had, like, 4 tiny sips!) We will call it Beginning-to-Regret-Being-Designated-Driver Creek.

 

Look at the pretty eyes on this guy! The last place we went was fancier than the others and had a beautiful outdoor tasting area. There was a guy playing classical guitar, but playing 80's classics on it. It was fun to play “Name that Tune” as he began each new song. Who knew “The Boys are Back in Town” could have such graceful emotional heft?

The wine was good (I hear) and I got to eat some olives. So it was a win for everyone!

 Two panorams in one post?? How do I keep up the pace??

 That evening, I was reading some old magazines that Jim collects and he noticed that I gave Maeve a new head!

That same evening, Susan gave Rich a 50th birthday gift. 

It is a wine decanter that we had in the house growing up. It is a family heirloom! Susan adores that thing and would not give it up lightly. Rich was honored to have been given it and drinks wine from it frequently. And he remembers this amazing vacation and his wonderful sister-in-law every time he does. 

I have it on good authority!

And I leave you with this - 

 

Next time, I pick up a new travel companion and face the desert again.

Now with even more mountains!!