Southwest Road Trip Video

Southwest Road Trip: Calistoga Wine Weekend

Side trip! While we were staying in Lake Tahoe, we realized it was just a short three-hour drive to the Napa wine region in California. This would normally be a 12-hour drive from our house in Arizona, so we thought it would be worth it to take a short weekend side trip from Tahoe.

We arrived in the Napa region just in time for lunch. It was a Saturday, so there was some traffic as we wound our way north on the St Helena Highway through the vineyards. The familiar names on the winery signs were tempting, but our first destination was a spot more known for its burgers than its grapes -- Gott's Roadside. They had a really nice outdoor picnic area and the burgers were absolutely delicious.

Since I prefer my wines with bubbles, we had booked an afternoon tasting at Mumm Napa. It did not disappoint! We had excellent service and loved the generous pours of various sparkling wine varieties. Definitely a good tasting room to visit if you have something to celebrate, like a birthday or anniversary. Or if you want to just celebrate life in general by drinking some sparkly wine with a fabulous vineyard view!

Another winery we really liked was Vincent Arroyo. The tasting room had a very casual vibe, but they had so many varietals available to taste or to purchase -- Chardonnay, Sirah, Cabs, Merlot, Sangiovese, Zinfandel and even a Port. So of course we definitely had to try the port, having just been to Porto and the Douro valley last November -- it was actually pretty good, so we picked up a bottle to bring home with us.

Just like everywhere else in the Southwest this summer, the Calistoga area was experiencing an unusual heat wave. Definitely a concern for the grapes currently on the vines, although the ones near the Vincent Arroyo tasting room looked okay to us. Kevin tried one but it wasn't very sweet -- there's a reason they differentiate between wine grapes and table grapes. Too many seeds for me!

This trip was mostly about the wine tasting, but we did get tickets to a wonderful evening of jazz at the Charles Krug winery. Bebel Gilberto is bossanova royalty -- she's the daughter of Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto and a world-famous musician in her own right, with four Grammy nominations. She put on a charismatic and delightful performance, and it was wonderful to sip some wine and enjoy the music in such a beautiful outdoor setting.

One of the highlights of our trip was visiting the world-famous Chateau Montelena. The winery is one of the oldest in the Napa Valley, having been established in the 1880s by a man named Alfred Tubbs. 

After prohibition, the winery fell into decline and was purchased in the 1950s by Yort Wing Frank who used the chateau as a vacation home. He improved the landscape around the chateau by excavating Jade Lake and building a beautiful Chinese garden. It is a very peaceful spot -- we sat and watched the swans for a bit after we finished our tasting.

But the primary reason that Chateau Montelena is world-famous is because of the "Judgement of Paris". In the 1970s, the Barrett family replanted the vines and began producing wine again. There was a wine competition in 1976 that pitted the upstart American wineries against the old guard French wineries from Bordeaux and Burgundy. In a blind tasting, the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay was ranked above all the other white wines. (Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, another American wine, won the honors in the red wine judgement). This competition put the Napa region on the wine map, so to speak. There is an excellent movie about this competition that we saw a few years ago called "Bottle Shock". Having tasted the wines from Montelena, I can agree that they live up to their reputation!

With our wine weekend trip coming to an end, we visited one last winery - Bennett Lane. It was probably the friendliest and most down-to-earth tasting experience we had on this trip. Our host Bill was incredibly knowledgeable about the history of Calistoga and the local wineries, and he made sure we had a wonderful experience tasting the wines. By the end of our visit it was like we'd been sitting talking with an old friend.

Calistoga is a town full of charm and we had such a nice getaway here in California wine country! I think this photo sums up our time here very nicely:

Southwest Road Trip: Lake Tahoe

From Great Basin National Park, it was a long and very boring drive across the entire state of Nevada to get to Lake Tahoe. There were so few cars on this stretch of road and the rest stops were few and far between. We were thrilled when we finally hit civilization again and got our first glimpse of the crystal blue waters of Lake Tahoe.

The original inhabitants of Lake Tahoe were the Washoe Native Americans, who have lived in the area for 10,000 years. White settlers didn't arrive in large numbers until the Silver Rush of the 1860s. The 1860s also brought the railroads, which brought even more people out west. For many decades, the lumber industry was king in this area, but in the early 1900s wealthy families began buying forest land around the lake to build fabulous summer residences.

In 1928 Lora Josephine Knight, one of the wealthiest women in America, decided to build a Scandinavian-inspired mansion in Emerald Bay. She and her architect traveled to the Nordic countries and took inspiration from Norwegian stave churches and Swedish castles to build the house she named "Vikingsholm". We took a guided tour of the home, which is now a museum.

The tour showcased the guest rooms as well as the staff rooms. There were many beautiful Scandinavian antiques and other Nordic-inspired furnishings, like "Selma" the clock.

We loved how much of the land around Lake Tahoe was preserved as natural forest or open meadow. The Lam Watah Nature Trail meanders through Rabe Meadows and the surrounding woods. It was a very scenic way to walk down to Nevada Beach from where we were staying.

Also near our lodgings was the Heavenly Ski Village. Even in summertime it's a lively place, with lots of bars, restaurants, shops, and activities. It was a great place to have a beer and listen to live music.

We found plenty of great hiking trails all around the Lake Tahoe area. Many trails lead to the smaller alpine lakes that dot the landscape. One of these is the Fallen Leaf Lake trail.

We saw very few people on the trail, but the meadows were full of brightly colored wildflowers.

And the forest was thick with old-growth redwoods and pines. This tree looked like it had been struck by lightning in the recent past.

Another excellent trail was the Rubicon Trail. We hiked two sections of this trail on separate days -- one hike took us along the south shore of Emerald Bay to Vikingsholm, and the other hike took us down from Lester Beach to the north side of Emerald Bay along the prettiest aquamarine stretch of water.

We passed a couple of hikers that had just seen a bear near the trail, and sure enough, we managed to see it too! Well...actually Kevin saw it and tried to point it out to me -- I just saw its rump as it scampered off into the forest. I was too slow to catch a photo of the bear, unfortunately.

After our Rubicon Trail hike, we headed up to Tahoe City for lunch and enjoyed walking around the town. There are 63 creeks and tributaries that feed into Lake Tahoe, but only one flows out -- the Truckee River. The flow on the Truckee river is controlled at the dam located in Tahoe City.

So we didn't get a photo of the actual bear that we saw on our hike, but we did see this enormous bear sculpture in Tahoe City and couldn't resist taking a picture. The sculpture is called "Ursa Mater" and her fur is made up of over 200,000 pennies!

Later in the week, we drove up the eastern shore of the lake and stopped in at the viewpoint of Sand Harbor. Many iconic Lake Tahoe photos have been taken from this spot. 

Continuing our drive north, we tried to stop in Incline Village for lunch and a stroll on the beach but we discovered that all of the beaches here are private, which was irritating. So instead of eating lunch there, we continued to Kings Beach at the very north end of the lake. We found a great lunch spot, Jason's Beachside Grille, overlooking the long stretch of public beach.

Having seen it from the roadside viewpoint, we knew we wanted to head back down to Sand Harbor to enjoy what we thought was the prettiest of all the Lake Tahoe beaches. Sand Harbor is a popular state park with limited parking, and even on weekdays they often run out of parking spaces by 9 or 10am. So one Friday morning we got up super early and headed to the park entrance. We arrived just after 7am and there was already a looong queue of cars waiting to get into the parking lot. We scored a spot easily, but we later found out that the parking lot filled up completely by 9:20 am that day, wow! We rented a kayak from Clearly Tahoe's beachside kiosk and paddled around for about two hours just enjoying the early morning sunshine and the crystal clear turquoise water.

Sand Harbor has a really well-run concession area, with a full lunch menu and a bar offering tasty beach cocktails. We had a wonderful afternoon lounging in the shade and reading while sipping on some very delicious Mai Tais.

The water was a brisk 70 degrees. Too cold for me to want to swim, but I did enjoy getting my feet wet. Spending the day at Sand Harbor was probably the highlight of our Lake Tahoe trip and we would highly recommend it -- just be sure to get there early!

Southwest Road Trip: Great Basin National Park

Great Basin National Park is on the very eastern edge of Nevada where it borders Utah. It's one of the most remote National Parks in the country -- on the drive here we encountered maybe a handful of other cars. The reason for the strange name "Great Basin" is that this region of the United States offers no outlet to the sea. In Central Nevada the rivers and streams flow inland and eventually evaporate from shallow lakes and mud flats because of the arid conditions.

But the park itself gets heavy snowpack thanks to its proximity to Wheeler Peak and the mountains here. Our campsite in Upper Lehman Campground was surrounded by plenty of lush tall trees that provided ample shade. Unfortunately we had to set up the tent here twice because the first time we forgot to sweep away some of the sharp and small pine cones and rocks -- ouch! Good practice, I guess!

Our site was right next to the Lehman River. A tranquil spot for reading a book or having a glass of wine at sundown. We did see deer coming through here on several occasions.

Because of its isolated location, Great Basin is a Dark Sky park -- there are no big towns or cities nearby, making this a wonderful spot to stargaze because there is minimal light pollution. The excellent ranger program was a great introduction to stargazing -- they set up three Celestron telescopes so that everyone had a chance to see the stars after the sun went down. We were there on a fairly clear night and the Milky Way was plainly visible with the naked eye.

Another feature of the park is the Lehman Cave system. You can go into the caves on one of the guided tours, and it's best to book ahead because they sell out. We got lucky and were able to upgrade our pre-booked 30-minute Gothic tour to the longer 90-minute Grand Palace tour that explores all the open sections of the cave. 

There are lots of hiking options in this park, but it is definitely high-altitude hiking. The brave (and very fit) can hike to the summit of Mount Wheeler (13,063 ft), which is above the treeline and involves quite a lot of scrambling over rocky scree and talus. We opted for the still-challenging but less fatiguing Bristlecone Pine-Glacier Trail.

The Bristlecone Pine trees in this grove are nearly twice as old as the ones at Cedar Breaks. Note how the wood of the trunk twists and curves.

We went as far as the rock glacier, which sits at 11,500 feet elevation in a cirque just below Wheeler Peak.  This glacier is mostly covered in rock and is one of the southernmost glaciers in the U.S. It is Nevada's only remaining glacier.

We did several other hikes including the loop that goes past both Stella and Teresa Lakes. We were glad we had the opportunity to visit this remote park, it was definitely worth the long drive and far off the beaten path!