The Golden State

California here we come: the first 4 days!

(go to the second 4 days)

fri | sat | sun | mon | tues | wed | thurs | fri2

day 1: friday, may 24
We flew into san jose airport from vegas, and headed north through san francisco to napa valley. We had lunch in downtown napa at a cool restaurant by the name of tuscany, The whole town was getting ready for the weekly friday afternoon wine festival, which runs through the summer. But we were off to the robert mondavi winery for a brief wine sampling (4 oz. samples cost anywhere from a few bucks to over $20!) and a look at the vineyard (see my pic of the vineyard).

Then we headed off to bodega bay, the location for alfred hitchcock's the birds (see my pic of the famous schoolhouse). It was getting close to dusk, so we headed south to san francisco along the coastal highway (california route 1), which is a winding, narrow road along the cliffs with no guardrails in most spots! By the time we got to our motel, the wharf inn, we were pretty tired, but got some food around 10 pm over at fisherman's wharf. I had an anchor steam beer to wash it down.

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day 2: saturday, may 25
Breakfast was at the cafe pescatore, a cool italian restaurant just 2 blocks from our motel. After breakfast, we took the short boat ride over to alcatraz, and had a quick tour of the cellblocks and some outside areas including the guard tower and lighthouse (see my alcatraz pics). A lot of the property is in disrepair and needs to be renovated. We also sat in on a talk about some of the famous inmates, including al capone, robert stroud "the birdman of alcatraz" and machine gun kelly. After our tour of "the rock", we watched for quite some time the fun and noisy sea lions (see my wildlife pics and mpg videos) who hang out near the piers at fistherman's wharf.

Then we headed east over the bay bridge through oakland, berkeley and on to sacramento. We stopped first at the beautiful capital grounds, which is surrounded by a park that contains all the different trees that can be found in california (see my sacramento pics). We had dinner in old sacramento at jazzmen's, and listened to a jazz band in the outdoor garden (see my mpg video). After dinner, we headed farther east and into the sierra nevada mountains to our motel on south lake tahoe.

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day 3: sunday, may 26
After mass in a church overlooking the sierra nevada mountains (here's a pic), we headed east on route 50 into nevada (read the more detailed description of nevada and see the western nevada pics here).

Leaving reno and nevada, we made our way to north lake tahoe (see my lake tahoe pics), crossing a mountain pass over 9,000 feet high and riding by the ponderosa ranch (again, more bonanza stuff). We had dinner back in south lake tahoe at the fresh ketch overlooking the lake, and then I won about $15 in harvey's casino in the border town of stateline, nevada.

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day 4: monday, may 27
We headed down the mountains toward gold country and yosemite. It was a long, winding road, which sometimes went back up the mountains as we snaked along various streams and lakes. Eventually we made it to angel's camp, home of the annual jumping frog contest in calaveras county. You may remember the mark twain story about this contest.

Just south of angel's camp was jamestown, where they still have "tourist trap" gold panning available. That's what we wanted! They try to talk you into 3 or 4 hours of panning, but we only wanted about an hour. I think I found about a nickel's worth of gold, which cost me about $15. No wonder they call it fool's gold (see my gold country pics).

Anyway, we continued south and entered yosemite national park, one of the true jewels of the national park system. We saw the giant sequoia trees in the mariposa grove, including a tree that you can walk through, and the "must see" sites such as el capitan, half dome and the bridalveil falls (see my yosemite pics and mpg videos). Dinner was at the mountain room in yosemite lodge overlooking yosemite falls. I had filet mignon, and this was my best meal on the trip so far. The sourdough bread was also outstanding.

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go to the second 4 days