California!

Hosea 14:6
His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive tree and his fragrance like that of Lebanon.

Who’s excited? We Are! After driving across the barren wastelands of southwest Utah and Nevada… okay the minimally shrubbed land, we were all excited to see the welcome sign to California.

Our first California stop was Mono Lake. I had seen Mono Lake a few times when I was younger and lived in California, but I had never been as up close and personal to the lake before this trip. It was quite magnificent. Mono Lake is one of America’s oldest lakes, dating back between three-fourths to one million years old. It has these “tufas” that form out of the water when fresh water from underground springs mix with the saline water of the lake. It is cool to look at from the shore and even cooler to kayak over.

We finished kayaking before the rain came. Our campsite was supposed to be at 9,000 feet, near the Sonora Pass, but since it was supposed to be raining and possibly snowing, we opted to go into the town of Sonora and stay the night at an inn. This was nice as we stayed dry and warm and we all took showers, even Sebastian.,

Because we drove a little while further, we were able to change some of our original plans and head into Oakland early. We contacted the Western Dominican Province and we were able to get a tour of the “headquarters” – St. Albert’s Priory – go to Mass and chant vespers with the Dominican friars before heading to our campsite outside of Berkeley. Our campground, Anthony Chabot, is one we had stayed at about ten years ago. We loved the beauty of the fog in the morning coming up from the valley below and shining into the trees. This time, we were there on a Saturday and the campsite next to us had a bunch of college-age students whooping it up until four in the morning. Man, do I sound old? We slept in a little. Went for a short hike. Found a nice chapel to chant morning prayer and headed off to see Lisa Aronovitz.

We had a lovely time with Lisa, Larry, and Lily (and their dog, Tuna!). We had a lovely homecooked meal and stayed in their ADU. A new acronym I learned in retirement – Additional Dwelling Unit. Lisa and Larry have built a beautiful home in Los Altos, and they are lovely hosts to the weary Mozdy travelers. We even learned a new card game, Five Crowns, which I barely kept a lead I had held all game to win. The more I spend time with my friends, the more I realize the importance of my people connections. My good friend Subhash reminded me of this right before I retired. We plan to meet up in Spain or the UK sometime soon.

The next morning Michael and I went to church at the Stanford University Church. We went to the Catholic mass to see his long-time friend and priest he’s known since the late 1990s, Father Bartholemew Hutcherson, OP. Fr. Bart had just returned from Rome in celebration of the Jubilee year. He oversees the Catholic Center at Stanford with another Dominican brother. After Mass, we said our goodbyes to Lisa and Tuna (Larry and Lily had already left to usher in Lily’s final year at UCLA) and headed to see my Great Aunt Lucy and my second cousin, Alex. I am guessing at these family tree titles. Lucy is my mom’s aunt, my grandmother’s sister and Alex is Lucy’s son, my mom’s first cousin and my grandmother’s nephew. If you’d like to correct my titles, please leave a comment! We had a lovely visit. Alex wants to move back to Italy, or at least visit soon, and we promised to keep in touch. I hope we do.

Our next stop was Samuel P. Taylor Park in Lagunitas, CA. This is when the singing started.

This land is your land, and this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Waters
This land was made for you and me.

Every camping night remaining in California was surrounded by the Seqoia, the Giant Redwoods. So I sand the first verse of this Willie Guthrie song a lot.

At this first campsite, though, we were visited just past dusk by these eyes and claws scurrying up and down the redwood trees at our campsite. It was too dark to get a photo of the racoons, but I captured evidence of their ashy paw prints on the fire ring the next morning. The next campsite we visited was called Schoolhouse Canyon Campground. This is a nice place to visit. They are a throwback campground. They only take cash. The sites are amazingly huge and there were only four other campers at the campground. We were so spread out we didn’t see another camper except for the walk to the bathroom. This campsite also had a private beach across River Road and a bunch of land. Sebastian and I took advantage of this spot while Michael was sleeping. He played in the Russian River and retrieved a stick for several minutes. The temperatures were expected to reach the one hundreds so we opted to get a small cottage on the vineyard of Enriquez Vineyard. Unfortunately, check in time gave us just enough time to drop Sebastian in the cottage and get to our next appointment. This did not go well for Sebastian. His nervousness took over and he had a few hard days. Poor Guy.

The next four days were focused on wine tasting. We have done so much wine tasting on this trip that when we say, “Wanna go wine tasting?” to Sebastian he know we are talking about a cool cement floor and air conditioning, or a patio seat looking at a great view.

We visited these wineries:
Monday:
Porter Creek – Amazing Pinots and Viogner. This is a must visit winery. No “Experience” (every winery seems to call its tastings “experiences” now), but a lovely experience. We returned again on Thursday because we thought they were perhaps the best on this short visit.
Robert Young – This was a lovely winery. We tasted several wines, but none compared to the Porter Creek wines we had just left. But we had a cool indoor spot for the three of us. And Sebastian received a lot of attention here.

Tuesday:
Mounts Family Winery – This winery has been one of our favorites for a long while, but I think that their wines are just a little too big for our palate these days.
Reeve Winery – This was another experience winery with a capital E. We enjoyed the wine, and our experience director, Colin, was knowledgeable and interesting. I would recommend this experience over others. I ended up splurging on some Sangiovese here.

Wednesday:
Marine Layer – This winery was in the square at Healdsburg. It was a fun place to pass the time before our dinner at Dry Creek Inn, but we didn’t love the wines.
Dry Creek Inn – Wine pairing with the tasting menu was the best experience. This place is a fantastic place to celebrate. The attentiveness of the wait staff was great, and the food and wine pairings were amazing.

Thursday:
Porter Creek (I told you we went back) to have a case shipped to us in Palm Desert. Additionally, they gave us a free bottle of wine for buying a case – apparently this was a special deal they announced on Instagram! The gentleman who helped us quipped, “something to drink while you are in Anderson Valley.” What?? Yes, we went to two places in Anderson Valley. The wines were no bueno. My only recommendation is Toulouse for the view.

What a week.

Our last night in California was in Humboldt Redwoods State Park in the Burlington Campground. We traveled on the Avenue of Giants to get to this campground. I am thinking I should do a separate post on the campgrounds, just in case anyone is interested and traveling by tent or trailer.

Our next stop: Oregon. Where the sadness of saying goodbye to Sebastian outweighs the excitement of seeing my sister. Although I love seeing my sisters! It is just hard. I am thinking of doing a post on Sebastian, but it may take a little while before I can do this. Just writing these sentences makes me cry.