| Canfield Travels | |
| Summer 2018 #9 September 12, 2018 |
Napa and Sonoma
Valley
We left the
California coast just south of Fort Bragg in the Mendocino County wine country
but instead stopped at Anderson Valley Brewing in Booneville for a beer tasting.
In wine country, in addition to offering tastings for a fee, wineries maintain
beautiful flower gardens, historic structures and picnic areas. At the MUMM
Napa winery we toured a wonderful exhibit of Ansel Adam photography emphasizing
the effective use of natural light.
Our visit to this
area was to early for us to experience grape picking but every year about 300
wineries produce nearly 2 billion bottles of wine. Signs along the roadway
identify both the variety of grape being grown and the company producing the
wine.
Grapes on the
Vine
Time
for a
tasting
Rutherford Hill Winery
Sweet Treats
Jelly
Belly jelly beans are
small bean-shaped sugar candies with soft candy shells and thick gel
interiors.
As we discovered when touring the manufacturing plant there are over 50
different colors and flavors including draft beer, toasted marshmallow,
and buttered popcorn, all made primarily of sugar. For more exciting
information about these candies. https://www.jellybelly.com/
Jelly Belly Art
Many
juicy flavors
Before sugar coating
California History
Sutter’s Fort, built in 1840
in the Sacramento area by Johann Sutter, was a popular emigrant destination
where Sutter provided shelter and supplies to the weary settlers. It was from
this large fort that Sutter directed the building of a sawmill on the American
River, 35 miles northeast of the fort. During the construction of this mill a
shiny nugget was discovered in the mill’s tailrace. News of this discovery
caused the 1849 California Gold Rush.
Sutter’s
Fort
Trades
room
Sierra Nevada Mountains
Lake Tahoe or “Big Water”
Twelve miles wide and twenty two miles
long, Lake Tahoe is shared by California and Nevada. At an elevation of 6,229
feet with an average depth of 989 feet, it is the third deepest lake in North
America. (Good Jeopardy answer). Despite cold winters, the lake never freezes
over due to the constant flow of water from the bottom to the surface. With
mountains rising 4000 feet above the shore, several major ski areas attract
skiers and snowboarders.
Across
Lake Tahoe
Huge
Jeffrey Pine cones
Squaw Valley -A Pioneer Ski
Area in America
By the 1860’s many mining
towns in the Sierra Nevada Mountains saw the first organized ski clubs and
competitions. With 1000 competitors from 34 nations, in 1960 the VIII Olympic
Winter Games where held in Squaw Valley.
1960
Winter
Olympics
Hiking in
Sierra Nevada
The Great Basin
Sand Mountain
Sand Mountain is a
sinuous dune derived from ice age beach sand piled by southwesterly winds
against the Stillwater Mountains. To Native Americans the “Singing Sand Dune”
was a giant rattlesnake traveling to the northeast with the wind at its back.
Now it is a favorite playground of off highway vehicle enthusiasts, several of
which were enjoying the day when we stopped to view their activities.
Sand Mountain
ATV playground
The highlight of
Great Basin National Park, near the Nevada – Utah border is Lehman caves, a
limestone-solution cave with many colorful cave formations and curious shield
shapes.
Shield
Tower
We parked overnight
at Lower Lehman Campground among a wide variety of plants, along a babbling
brook and browsing turkeys and deer. Our darkest and quietest night of the
trip.
A Geologists Paradise
In the beautiful San
Rafael Swell in south-central Utah, layers of the earth’s crust are eroded and
exposed for easy viewing, revealing millions of years of earth’s history –
seashores, tropical forests tidal flats, seas.
Millions
of
years of earth’s history
Many colors of the earth’s crust
We are now moving east of
the Great Basin into Colorado and the Rocky Mountains.