Day One
We had a beautiful morning and it was not too cold. The sky clear and the sun shinning. Took doggies for a nice walk.
Our one and only neighbor had already left. Appeared to be a retired couple one small dog and they came quietly and left the same. It was so nice to have so much quiet and have space. A nice beginning to day two
Day Two
There are not too many big trucks or RV rigs on the road at 7 am. We drove through the little town of Hawthorne, Nevada. It is an old ammunition storage site and Army base from WW II. The town itself is clean, quiet appearing with alot of pride for its history.
The road that brings us here ends here. We take a left turn through town and end up on I-395 -via I-95 passing Mono Lake! Wow.
We have stopped for a potty stop at Mono Lake before going to California before. This time we drove farther in and looked for the old cemetery and gave up. It was quiet and nice and the dogs loved walking about. Nice lunch break and taking a deep breath instead of racing for time. We also could not see how to get to the lake from this entry road.
We did notice that going through a small town after the turn south on I-395 was an entrance to Mono Lake! Felt like duh! We felt foolish but we had a nice stop and we noticed that the temperature was dropping.
We drove through Tuttle Town, cute, next time we will stop and have lunch. We know that we have to go through Yosemite to get to our destination. Not a really fast trek.
As we approached the entrance to Yosemite, we say signs stating no entrance without a camp reservation!!! COVID and winter rules. We had to wait 2 hours for our turn to at least see if we can drive through and not stop to sight see or camp. When we hit the ranger station they asked if we were active duty military and I still had my ID that said I was. They gave us a no fee permit to drive through the park. Wow, what an ordeal. It did show how much work they had been doing to clean up fire and snow damage. It was nice to see reasonable numbers of people walking, hiking and enjoying the frozen sierra vistas.
The roads are two lanes, the Yosemite Valley shops are closed, at the entrances they are checking for your reservation and ID status when you are stopped. Kinda creepy. After many switch backs, slow going and beautiful scenery we were in the dry low lands and the temp was increasing.
Our destination for the night was a Harvest Hose Winery that we had made reservations with. We needed to check in before 5:00 pm when they closed. We put the address into the NavAid on our tow vehicle and off we went. As we neared the back end of the Modesto area. We were directed to a lonely, desolate combination road of asphalt, gravel and back ranch roads. I had lived in the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay area all my life and skied the areas near by the winery. I could not recognize any of the roads. It took us away from Hwy 49 which is wine, hiking, historical and ski areas around Angels Camp. We kept going, tried not to argue and keep cool. After 3 hours (should have taken 1.5hrs) we found the back way into the Twisted Oak Winery! It was a silly, crazy road. The entire one lane road into the winery had rubber chickens hanging from the trees with funny sayings also either posted on a tree or in the ground. Even had chickens with prison stripped suits painted on them. I couldn’t believe it. We laughed so much after such a challenging way in. A good way to start the evening. But was close to 100 degrees outside! You will have to try the red blend “Chum Bucket” too or “Chicken Bubbles”.
After checking in and trying their wines we retreated to the now empty parking lot in the middle of the vineyard. We did walk the dogs about the grounds and they loved it. It was so good to be outside the “Phantom” and all the windows were open. The great thing about our Airstream is the great ventilation. Cross winds from the hills made it so comfortable. We had our home made version of charcuterie and a bottle of white wine.
As the sun set we settled in and slept in the warm quiet.
Day two complete! Now it will be back into the traffic of the San Francisco Bay Area! Hmm. In the morning we found Hwy 49 a quarter mile away from the winery. Oh boy!
Canned Comfort 