One of my good friends from college recently got married
near San Jose. As San Jose isn’t too too
far away from Los Angeles (~6 hours each way), I thought it would be fun to
take a few extra days off from work and drive there and back. The groom asked me and another good friend to
be groomsmen, for which we graciously accepted the honor. That other friend lives in New York and he agreed
it would be a nice vacation to drive around the Golden State with me. And thus he flew into LAX to be with me for
the long hauls there and back. I was
happy to have his company as it’s far more fun to share travel experiences with
someone than merely recount time spent alone on the internet for you, dear
reader.
June 21
We departed early in the day (about 7:30AM) to avoid as much
of the legendarily horrendous LA traffic as possible. For those Californians who must know, I decided to take the 101 north so
that we could see some beautiful, varied scenery and stop at a nice spot like
Paso Robles for lunch along the way. It
is hillier and slower than the other route, I-5 north, but that goes through
the desolate Central Valley and includes over 4 hours of driving in a straight,
flat line in 100 degree heat until you reach Pacheco Pass, a peacefully hilly
area that passes a reservoir and some windmills. Additionally, the only legitimate option for
food that I know about along that route is the In-N-Out at Kettleman City. Fully weighing the pluses and minuses, let it
be known that you will smell manure and see cows due to nearby in parts of
either route.
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| 101 North Through the Santa Ynez Mountains |
The Central Coast wineries, while not widely known when
compared to the likes of Napa and Sonoma, produce some high-quality red
varietals, especially Zinfandel (I mean the red; don’t even try to tell me the
white is to be considered wine). To get
some recommendations of wineries to visit, my companion phoned his parents who
exclaimed that Paso Robles had “GREAT” wineries, and found one they liked that
was somewhat close to the highway for us to visit. Turley had a beautiful setting with flowers and trellises leading up to their
doors. The newly constructed tasting
room was gorgeous as well, affixed with rich wood everywhere including the
bar. Their zinfandels did not
disappoint, and I recommend a visit if you happen to be in the area.
After conversing with the cheerily friendly and
grandmotherly bartender, and telling her we had been told Justin was a great one to visit (it was later also recommended by a
coworker), yet was too far from the highway for us, she suggested we drop by at
the much closer Lone Madrone, which
employed the same winemaker. The five
minute drive took us past serene vineyards and hills covered in golden hay (I
yelled HAY! a few times to startle my friend), depositing us on a main stretch
of road lined with wineries in both directions. Pulling into the gravel lot, we
saw local herbs for sale. I love
smelling things so this was exciting. Their
tasting room is set in an old farmhouse style building, which was nice enough,
but their wines were lacking distinction or interesting flavors; I would go so
far as to call them generic. The
exception was a good barbera offered
to us that was not part of the standard tasting menu, so not all their wines
were disappointing. I enjoyed much more heading outside and smelling the ~10
types of basil in the herbs for sale area.
To cap off the tastings, we stopped at the Firestone Walker Brewery, where the
tasting room held many eclectic selections along with some old favorites. I am a big fan of their Double Barrel Ale
which brought us there in the first place, though opted for some of the more
exotic offerings on tap. The most
interesting was the anniversary blend which is a mix of most of the beers
brewed on site, leading to a potent cocktail with a few too many flavors. I also enjoyed the uniqueness of the Parabola
brew, and bought a bottle to share with my friends when I got home, along with
a 6-pack of pale ale to give to the groom.
To sober up for the rest of the drive, we headed next door for lunch at
the Taproom, with an upscale pub-like
interior and all those beers we just tasted on tap. The food was ok, nothing stellar, and we
opted to not indulge in more beer so we could survive the remaining 3+ hours of
the drive. I promised that for my next
visit I would stay a few days and try more of these local beers and wines.
Hopping back on the 101, the next section of the trip was
uneventful, lined mostly by green or golden hills and trees and a surprisingly
high number of cars also taking this route north. The first sign that we were once again near civilization is Gilroy, which my companion excitedly noted was home to an annual garlic festival. The next half hour of driving grew increasingly more suburban as we neared San Jose. We stopped momentarily to pick up the groom
at his parents’ house in a San Jose suburb, then headed up the east side of the
bay in rush hour traffic to prepare for the bachelor party. This horrendous traffic heading towards
Oakland on a Thursday afternoon was worse than even that of the standard Los
Angeles backups and we thanked goodness for carpool lane access. Dinner was retrieved from the Berkeley
collective known as The Cheese Board,
a pizza Mecca adjacent to a cheese shop with a constant line out the door. They serve one type of pizza per day and when
it’s gone, you are SOL. Today’s selection turned out to involve
zucchini and some white cheeses, along with the standard brushing of garlic olive
oil that makes anything they serve delicious.
I am told their “Magic Pizza” is heavenly.
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| At Smuggler's Cove, San Francisco |
