San Benito County

We stayed in San Benito Thousand Trails park through Feb. 17th.

The park was very dry and sat right in the middle of mountains and vineyards.  Here are some of the sights from our campsite.  The new wildlife we experienced in the park was one sighting of a bobcat. Also, they had pine cones that I had not seen before from the Coulter Pine.

We went to Pinnacles National Park, entering from both the East and West entrances.  The National Park Pass from my employees as a retirement gift has been very appreciated.  We went through the park's caves on the east side of the park - a little scary when you look up above you and know that you are on the San Andreas Fault.

We visited some of the surrounding areas such as Morgan Hill, Hollister and Gilroy, the Garlic capitol.  Bought some garlic items at the Garlic Shop and then went to the Rapazzini winery that sells garlic wine.  I wasn't sure what to expect but it really was better that I thought.  We bought a bottle and will have it when I fix a garlic pasta dish.










We visited the oldest winery in California just down the way from our camp - DeRose
winery.  I loved the label and of course the wine.









We did a day trip to Monterey and Carmel by the Sea, visiting the Wharf, driving through Cannery Row, walking through the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary and then hitting shops in Carmel and only one winery - Galante.  Loved Carmel as they were so dog friendly it made it an easy visit that day as the weather was a little warm.

Look closely for all the Monarch butterflies.















We also visited Mission San Juan Bautista.   It was the 15th mission built, but from what we learned it was one of the largest church missions and so much a part of CA's history  They still hold weekly masses.

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Sites in Sacramento Area

We spent 9 days in the Sacramento area.  Here are some of the sites that we saw around the area.



In the campground we had beautiful sunsets almost every evening.  This is the most spectacular one we saw.

We spent two days going to three different Thousand Trail parks around the area.  The first one we went to around Marysville, CA we had been to before, but had forgotten exactly what the park looked like.  In a matter of 30 minutes driving around the park, we saw at least 40 deer

We then went to a couple of other parks but only took the one picture of the park up by Donner Pass on Hwy 80.  Looking for better weather but driving to snow??!!  The park did not have much snow for this time of year, but it does stay closed until May for anyone not staying in a cabin.

We also went to old town Sacramento and walked around, having dinner at Joe's Crab Shack.  We enjoyed a couple of the shops but really enjoyed the California State Railroad Museum.
 

There were multiple trains on display, to include the history of building the tracks and the trains.  They had multiple trains we could walk through which was quite interesting.  There must have been about 10 - 12 full size cars on display

 Other shots in Sacramento was the Tower Bridge which is a Sacramento landmark as well as the stagecoach that we found in the Visitor's Center.

Driving around the Sacramento area to include areas North of Sacramento, there are lots of rice fields which were quite interesting to us.  

Of course we also enjoyed watching the Seahawks win the Super Bowl and wearing SeaHawk shirts as we did our shopping around the area.   I was proud of the team, but we didn't get too many reactions from our 49r neighbors except that they should have been the ones enjoying the fame.

On Tuesday, Feb. 4 we moved onto Paicines, CA to another Thousand Trails park.  We had nice weather the first two days, but it rained most of the day today.  Not a problem as I did laundry in the coach while we played cards with friends that met us here yesterday.  Weather is to be in the 70s next week so we are looking forward to getting around the area to see Pinnacle National Park, Monterey and Carmel.