Down the winding road , following the Delta ....

So in continuation of our little road trip and exploration of HWY160 and the Delta region below Sacramento....

We last left off with exploring actually just a small part of Locke, I so want to go back and see the community garden, all the old homes and eat at the one and only still operating restaurant there. But this day we moved on.

The next town we drove through was Courtland ....I looked and looked for a web site with information and perhaps a history, but apparently there is not much to be had. They have a Pear festival, and well there was from what I saw it was filled with old majestic homes, and buildings, and most were for sale....seems there really is not much left to the town of Courtland. So it was on to Walnut Grove....not too far away really. There seems to be a lot of history to this town
( click on city name for full history) , and it was a bit more booming , even in the middle of the week when we were there.

One thing I did know about it is that it has a mix of Chinese and Japanese culture there, just from what I was seeing in the buildings and some of the people walking around, and later reading the history. What I saw while cruising the few streets that we did, was it was more populated and as I said active . There was regular business, that were actually open, and places to eat and tourists milling around. we stopped to take a few pics of the parts I was interested in....the old town main street.

And I am always interested in what I call unexpected or hidden gardens !

We just sort of drove around, it already getting later in the afternoon and we still had not eaten. I hope next time we can get out and explore and maybe take some pictures of the homes. that were there. But off we went, through Isleton , population 923, Ryde , that we apparently blinked and missed. We went on further over to Ryer Island....

But the transport had left.....so better luck next time !

Then we made a brief stop, in Rio Vista, but did not feel like exploring it so much , I guess it did not grab us upon first entering, too new LOL . So being the people that we are when we go out for our day trips, and since we saw HWY12, and KNEW it led to Napa Valley Ca....well we took the turn onto the HWY and were on our way!

Just about an hour later we finally arrived ( traffic was backed up due to road work) ....I snapped a few pics of the wonderful buildings in the downtown area , we grabbed a bite to eat at one of the few places still open for a late lunch, and then it was off to get at least one wine tasting in ....

Main street that runs through downtown

Historical Society , corner stone set in 1901

Post office

New buildings that mimic older ones......

Surrounding sites as we made our way to the wineries on The Silverado Trail

I so have to go back and explore this cemetery!


How about these houses????

Finally we found two wineries that were open, and made it in just in the nick of time, as they all close by 4:30...it was 4:15 when we found The Reynolds Family winery. The tasting was 20.00...a bit steep, but we decided to go for it , Napa tastings tend to run a bit higher. But to be fair the average bottle of wine here at Reynolds ran about 50.00 and up! It was very good though, so we shared the tasting, to save money and enjoyed.

the tasting room.....

The grounds ....at least the best view....

And just a couple of pics of us there....

While there, we found out just down the road was one more that is a private farmer that owns a vineyard and produces wine, so he was open until 6 pm!
So off we went to Van Der Heyden Vineyards

The tastings were 10.00, but we got some extra tastings included as it was late in the day, met some nice people and had some very good wine to top off the day...then it was on home....a day well spent, and much needed, now it is back to budget crunch time and reality....but it was so nice while it lasted.