Lodi, Red Bluff and Chico - We Get Around!

Life is happening faster than I can write it.  Seems I am out there having fun with no time for the computer.  We are currently in a very nice little federal park in Red Bluff, CA.  But I need to back up just a little.

Lee stuck around and on Monday we drove about 45 minutes to Grass Valley to see Lou again and also his wife Vivian.  They live on a hill in the middle of a lot of very curvy streets with awesome views no matter which way you look.  They purchased their home about 6 years ago and have spent all of that time improving the yard so that it feels like you are in a park.  I have no words that can describe what they have done.  Thousands of man hours of work and love plus lots of money have gone into the improvements. 

Lou and Vivian built this whole thing themselves, selecting the rock and placing them too!

Kirby and Lou enjoying the deck.

This is water feature #2 where the Goldfish live.

Vivian, Kirby, Jake and Lou.

After the tours of the yard, the house and the new motorhome, we went into Nevada City for some beer and wine tasting.  You can see that we all have the same interests can’t you!  Then it was back to the house for a barbeque on their gorgeous deck with the tinkle of the waterfalls in the background.  What an awesome day.  We were a little late getting home to Lodi and Lee had to leave as soon as we got there because he had a ship to catch today….he is First Mate for Matson Lines.

Visiting Nevada City Winery - Great wines!

Lee

Lou

Vivian - I caught her about to blink.  Sorry Viv!

 Next morning we were off for a long 4 hour drive to Red Bluff where we are now.  This park is kind of strange.  It must be pretty old because the spaces are really small, the road narrow and curvy and all of the water/electric is on the wrong side.  We got here and the camp host told us it would be OK to go out, turn around and come back in the wrong way so that our door would open to the pretty park, not to the road.  Even doing that we had a challenge getting lined up so that the power cord would reach and the slides wouldn’t hit the pine tree next to us or the water/electric boxes.  Now that we are all set in, we love it here.  The camp is called Sycamore Grove and there is good reason for that – the sycamore trees are large and glorious!  There is a river next to us, a dam to study and admire and lots of trails for walking/biking.  Of course in the last camp I got a big sticker (goat’s head) in my bike tire and had a flat this morning.  No biking today!  Oh, and there is nice green grass for Jake.

We had realized that we would be close to Chico, CA and the brewery for Sierra Nevada Ales so of course we knew we would be making that visit!  Kirby found a bicycle repair in Chico so we took my bike in first and left it for repairs and safe keeping while we played in town.  We were early for the tour and found a nice coffee house with seating outside.  What a beautiful morning it was – one of those perfect days where you don’t even feel the air.

We found the brewery and took our seats to await the tour.  We have toured breweries, wineries, and distilleries and this was probably the best tour of all of them.  We had Rachel as our tourguide.  A recent college graduate, she is very excited about working for such a forward thinking company.  And – she started us off with a small glass of ale – before we even left the waiting room.  There were just 5 in our tour, Kirby and I from SC, a young man from Montreal and a couple from New Zealand.  We were a fun group! 

Rachel was our tour guide at Sierra Nevada Brewing.

The hops are being added!

The fermentation room

Bottling and packaging

This is the kegging operation - my favorite to watch!

Now, I am not a big ale drinker preferring something lighter like a lager but this tour was wonderful.  She had her interesting stories down pat – lots and lots of good information.  But the parts that intrigued me the most were that the company is privately owned and how GREEN it is.  The founder and his family are the only owners and I think that is pretty cool in this day and age.  And he is so forward thinking in his commitment to green!   Over 10,000 solar panels on the roofs, even the plastic for the sample cups is recycled (as are the paper towels in the restrooms), the yeast is reused up to 15 times on some brews and all the used grains and the yeast go to the local farmers for the cattle.  There is more but I can’t remember it all…where is Rachel when I need her! 

After the tour we went to the tasting room where we were served about 6 different ales to try.  Kirby was in heaven!  I drank most of mine but they are so hoppy that I couldn’t finish them all – so I had to give them to Kirby! 

The tasting room!

Rachel was an awesome tour guide.

Kirby was so happy to get his very most favorite brews!

The tastings were fantastic!

And I have to add that this whole tour and the sampling that we had was all FREE!  Not one penny – just the cost of the fuel to get there!

They have a lovely restaurant on the premises with more of the seasonal brews but we wanted to see more of Chico so we found a little local place called Nashes for our lunch.  I really loved Chico.  California State University is located there so it has the college town flavor and it has lots and lots of big beautiful trees.

And speaking of trees – there are orchards everywhere!  I love driving the back roads there.  We stopped at a fruit stand and got ourselves some local apricots, plums, peaches and cantaloupe.  Yum!

We get to stay here a few more days – and my bike is all fixed now!