California

Northern California, 2019, Part 1

We enjoyed our California Road Trip so much in 2016 we decided we needed to revisit a few places on the north coast. The week of Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect time to do it, take 3 days off and have 9 days for a road trip? Sign me up! We headed out of town on Friday and made it to Castle Crags State Park for an overnight. We didn’t have time to linger or explore but it served well for a convenient place to spend the night.

Sunrise on Castle Crags

We were up early and continued our trek south to Anderson Valley.

In 2016 we only had a portion of a day in Anderson Valley and we wanted to spend more time there. We made it our southernmost point on our trip and worked north from there. We arrived with enough time to visit Anderson Valley Brewing for the afternoon. Bear + deer (=beer) abound there. And we were able to get in 18 holes of frisbee golf too. And did I mention it was t-shirt weather (in late November)!

Bear + Deer = Beer welcomes one and all, Anderson Valley Brewing
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Death Valley, 2018

After completing the Mojave Trail it was time to start wandering in the direction of home.  We had one more potential stop in our plans, and we had enough days left to do it.  We headed north to Death Valley.  We had a side trip on the way north to the China Ranch Date Farm near Tecopa.  Having never seen Date Palms before, but loving dates, I was immediately impressed to see this little oasis.

We took a walk around the plantation and enjoyed a date shake.  Many of the palms were loaded with dates which looked ready to harvest.  Yum.

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Mojave Trail, 2018

It wasn’t long after finishing the White Rim Trail and having a spectacular time, that we started wondering what was next.  What other ‘trails’ were out there to explore?  It wasn’t too long before we settled on the Mojave Trail.  The rest of our 2018 California Road Trip formed around seeing the trail.  The trail is a ~ 140 mile stretch used historically by Native Americans and later developed into a wagon route between the Colorado River and the Mojave River between multiple desert watering holes. 

Hitting the Mojave Trail
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