Road Trip to Yellowstone

With most of our boat projects finished, we have some time on our hands before the synthetic teak arrives, so we decided to take a road trip to Yellowstone National Park, with stops along the way to visit friends and family in Berkeley and Nevada City, then a week or so in Mammoth Lakes before heading northeast to Yellowstone. We packed bikes and backpacks in the truck and headed up Highway 101 toward Berkeley. Along the way we stopped at Pinnacles National Park long enough to check out the unique caves near the west entrance to the park. These caves are made of enormous rocks that tumbled down into steep ravines, leaving spaces between them. Some of those spaces are cavernous, others are too small to fit through. After a couple of hours we continued on to Berkeley where we met friends and family. We spent a couple of days in the area and took an afternoon putter around the Bay aboard SF Joe, our friends Grand Banks 36.

Pinnacles National Park. The "Balconies" cliffs overlook the ravine where the caves are located.

The trail to the caves crosses over a dry creek bed. Unfortunately we saw many signs of Californias severe drought along the way,

Entrance to one of the caves. 

In some areas the caves were pitch dark and we were fortunate to have brought along a flashlight. In this area, light filtered down between the enormous boulders that make up the caves.

Lisa checked her camera after bouncing it on the rocks as we scrambled through the caves.

On Monday, August 18th we drove northeast toward the town of Grass Valley where we spent an afternoon and evening checking out the town and visiting a couple of our favorite wine tasting rooms. At the Sierra Starr winery, we were invited to visit their vineyard, which is located in the hills just out of town, where they were taking the first harvest of sauvignon blanc grapes. So the next day we drove up to the vineyard and spent a couple of hours with a merry group of volunteers harvesting these tasty grapes.

Rustic and quaint, Sierra Starr is a small, family run vineyard with about 25 acres of land under cultivation.

Phil Starr runs the vineyard while his wife, Anne manages the tasting room. But when harvest time comes, everyone picks grapes.

Its hot, sticky work, but for a few hours it was fun to pick the grapes and learn about the rudiments of viticulture.

Lisas first bunch of grapes.

The colors of the grapes were amazing.

Picking grapes is hard work. I wouldnt want to do it for a living.

Son Jack Starr is the chief winemaker. After the grapes are crushed and cleaned they go into the stainless steel tanks where they are inoculated with yeast and allowed to ferment. 

The next day we drove through the town of Nevada City and up into the hills along Banner Lava Cap road to visit family, hike, bike and relax. We spent an afternoon riding our mountain bikes through a beautiful forest of pine and oak along an old aqueduct. Another day we went tubing on the Yuba river, enjoying perfect weather and lovely scenery.

We hiked down to the river from the road and were greeted with the sight of the beautiful old Bridgeport Bridge. It was completed in 1862  and is a fine example of a truss and arch covered bridge. It is the longest bridge of its type in the world, so I guess it beats all the bridges in Madison County!

Bridgeport Bridge is the longest single span covered bridge in the world. 

The bridge has fallen into disrepair and is no longer usable. Fortunately the governor of California has allocated some money in the state budget to repair and restore the bridge so there is hope that it will survive. 

It was fun to navigate our inner tubes among the rocks and float down the gentle rapids of the river.  

After three days in hills above Nevada City, we headed to Mammoth Lakes where well stay a week or so, hiking, biking and fly fishing. 

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Road Trip Patzcuaro and Chapala

We left Morelia around mid-morning on March 24th, headed toward Patzcuaro.  Wed heard that the lake of the same name is a beautiful place, dotted with islands and that the town is something of a hangout for American and Canadian expats. We had also read about the recent trouble there but locals in Morelia told us that all of that is in the past, and the town has been peaceful since February.

We arrived in Patzcuaro around noon and discovered that the town isnt really built on the lakeshore and isnt quite as picturesque as we had expected. The place was crawling with Policia Federales, Policia Estado, Policia Transito and Policia Municipal though. No shortage of guns here.

After about 20 minutes in town we decided to head north along the eastern shore of Lake Patzcuaro in search of beautiful vistas and perhaps a margarita as well. We found the vistas but no margaritas. So we continued on to Lake Chapala another couple of hours up the road.

Isla de Jinitzio rises from the lake. It is topped by a 140 foot statue of Jose Maria Morelos, who was a hero in Mexicos fight for independence from Spain. You can climb a spiral staircase up the inside of the statue and look out over the lake from windows in the raised fist of the statue.

Patzcuaro is said to be an upscale town, but here on the eastern shore of the lake there were few signs of wealth. This fisherman told me that things were bad now because the lake is low and the fishings not good. 

Tools of the Patzcuaro fishermans trade

We stopped at a small settlement where there was a pier for panga-sized island ferrys and a few fishing boats. This was about halfway between the towns of Patzcuaro and Tzintzuntzan (pronounced zin-zoon-ZON, I like the name). Aside from these places, the countryside was farmland on the right and the coffee colored lake on the left. With that we left Lake Patzcuaro and headed northwest toward Laguna de Chapala.

Lake Chapala is Mexicos largest freshwater lake. It is about 50 miles long in the east-west direction and 8 miles wide in the north-south direction, and lies at an elevation of 5,000 feet above sea level. We headed toward the north shore of the lake with plans to stay in the town of Chapala and visit the neighboring town of Ajijic the next day.

We took the back way into town and were rewarded with several miles of rough cobblestone and dirt roads before we got into town but it was worth it to see the working farms up close as we bounced past. Chapala, with a population of about 45,000 is a good sized town and sports a beautiful lakefront malecon. We took rooms at the beautiful Hotel San Francisco, just across the street from the waters edge. After getting our bags stowed in our rooms we went out to the the hotel bar which is situated in a beautiful garden and ordered a pitcher of margaritas (Ed and I are still searching for the perfect one), but believe it or not, the hostess informed us that the hotel was out of tequila! So off we went downtown searching for a meal and a drink. We found what appeared to be a good restaurant and ordered dinner and a pitcher. The meal turned out to be mediocre at best, and were still looking for a decent margarita.

White pelicans on Lake Chapala

This area has long been a haven for American and Canadian expats, with at least 15,000 of them living here. The weather is said to be among the best in the world and we were certainly blessed with beautiful, mild weather while we were there. One of Chapalas claims to fame is that the famous playwright Tennessee Williams set up shop here for a while in the late 1940s and banged out one of his most famous plays, "The Poker Night" from the shores of this beautiful lake. Never heard of "The Poker Night"? Neither have I, but somewhere along the way it was renamed "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Ajijic (pronounced ahi-HEEK), just a couple of miles down the road from Chapala, is the center of the expat community. The place is crawling with gringos, American stores, restaurants and other trappings of the US and Canada. The homes here are mostly beautiful places surrounded by high walls topped with electric fences or shards of glass embedded in the tops of them. I do not find electric fences attractive even if they are attached to beautiful handmade stone walls. We stopped at a waterfront hotel and were warmly greeted by the staff even though we had no intention of staying there. The place was beautiful and I was tempted to try one of their margaritas, but the sun wasnt nearly over the yardarm yet so instead we got back in the car and headed out on the last leg of our journey back to La Cruz.

Beautiful pool at a waterfront hotel in Ajijic. The place was nearly empty.

We arrived back in La Cruz around 7:00pm and found Finisterra just as we left her. The next day we started getting ready for a quick passage to Mantanchen Bay and then to one of my favorite cities, Mazatlan.

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