Santa Nella, California

A mere 480 miles and 10.5 hours later, here I am.  I've never heard of Santa Nella, either.  It's about 60 miles south of Stockton, near Los Banos, somewhere down I-5.  I hadn't planned to go this far, but Google Maps was 40 miles off in its estimate of the miles between Brookings and Stockton, and I just wasn't ready to stop in Stockton.  You wouldn't think 60 miles would make that much difference, but by the time I got here, I was really tired.

However, I think it's safe to say that this was the slowest and most tiring day of the trip. From here on out, it's all fast, if boring, Interstate.  Today, Highway 101 wasn't to be rushed.  Following the beaches, redwood forests, mountains and small towns of Northern Califonia, it meanders slowly as it makes its way south.  At Geyserville I cut east through the Alexander Valley to Calistoga, and then into St. Helena for lunch, 7 hours after leaving Brookings.  I'd decided some time earlier that I'd have lunch somewhere in the Napa Valley, since the timing seemed to work.  As I mentally catalogued the possibilities, I remembered the original Taylor's Refresher in St. Helena.

As you can see in the above photo, mustard covers many vineyards and hillsides.  When I first moved to Northern California in the early 60's the hills of Marin, Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino were covered in thick swatches of gold every spring.  So much more development since then -- and so many more vineyards!  It's still beautiful.  The above was Alexander Valley.

 

  

Last summer I visited an offshoot of this original location, in Napa.  It was fun to visit the original.  When I lived here, this was your basic soft ice cream stand and one of only 2 fast food establishments north of the city of Napa.  The latter still holds true, but this place has been transformed into a gourmet fast food paradise.  It was packed!

 

Those sweet potato fries are as good as they look!  I don't know what was in the dipping sauce, but it was a perfect foil for the fries.  A cheeseburger, made of natural, hormone-free beef.  Do you wonder that I'm still stuffed?  In fact, I still have lots of the fries left, just as good cold as they were hot from the fryer.

As I sat eating my lunch, a brand new Bentley convertible rolled in to the parking lot, a studiously casually chic woman of a certain age emerged from the passenger seat and walked directly to the Beer and Wine window.  After a few moments she walked away with a discreet brown paper shopping bag, got back into the Bentley and they continued north, presumably fortified for the rest of their journey.  Funny.

After lunch, I walked across the old stone bridge to Sunshine Foods, in search of some of the wonderful Rancho Gordo beans that I love.  They're produced locally and I knew Sunshine carried them. This is another place that's undergone a fabulous reincarnation since I lived here.  Back then, it was something of a second-rate, small supermarket mostly shunned by the food-oriented residents for its lack of even the most basic exotic or interesting products on the shelves.  Today, it's just the opposite.  The store is wall to wall exotic foods, bursting at the seams with unusual, wonderful and often organic foodstuffs to fit the most demanding shopper.  I found my beans, although the selection wasn't as good as I'd have liked. Still, I saved shipping charges to Georgia.

I opened the trunk to fit the beans in, managed to find a spot for them (brown paper bag) but I don't think much more will fit.

 

Since I was once more on a real nostalgia trip, I detoured through Yountville, where I lived for a year or two.  This is the famous French Laundry, which has been an institution in this town since I moved there around 1979.  I see that Thomas Keller has seen fit to put a discreet sign in place.  Back when Sally Schmidt owned it, there was no sign, and you couldn't get a reservation without weeks of effort back then, either.

 

More nostalgia in Yountville.  I used to spend a lot of time at Domaine Chandon -- actually went in search of a good vineyard/mustard photo, but didn't find one. Felt good to see it again anyway.

 

This little colony of concrete mushrooms on the Chandon grounds was really intriguing.  No clue what the purpose or meaning might be.  May be simply one more of many modern art 'sculptures' scattered around the grounds.

 

Full telephoto in use here!  This is the home of Robert and Margrit Mondavi, way atop Wappo Hill.  You'd have to know it was there...it's barely noticeable from Highway 29.  I just happened to see, and of course recognize, it.  Notice the architectural similarity to the architecture of the winery?

After Yountville, I didn make any more stops -- just followed Highway 12 over to I-5, on to this wide spot in the road.  And now, tired and ready for rest -- I'll talk to you tomorrow, assuming I end up in a room with wireless.