No doubt my ardent followers are wondering what the hell happened to my blog?!  As you will now see this move of homes entailed a couple of lay-overs, and our coping with bad colds on the way.

We left Sedona on New Year’s Eve and checked into Mr Hilton’s Garden Inn in Palm Desert on schedule.  The plan was to get take-out and hunker down in our room with food and champagne to watch Alabama beat up on Michigan State.  The hotel was a 5 mins walk from The River, a complex of restaurants, shops, and bars all round a “river”, where I collected our P F Chang’s take-out.  The place was rammed and there was a queue at the pick-up counter, where I encountered another English couple. We exchanged seasonal greetings, and when I asked about their Christmas in Palm Springs I was immediately corrected that it was Palm Desert not Palm Springs!  Duly chastened, I collected our food and headed back to the hotel, where we ate some good Asian stuff, washed down with a nice bottle of pink bubbly, and watched The Tide annihilate Michigan 38-0 – Yes!  A great New Year.

Next day it was a mainly interstate journey to Paso Robles.  I was under the misconception that traffic would not be too bad as it was New Year’s Day – wrong – everyone and his uncle was on the road!  We did I-10 to I-210 around Los Angles, and then onto I-5 north to Rt 46 into Paso, only a 5-hour journey but most of it was a nightmare of fighting really bad drivers on 10 and 12 lane highways.  The speed limit was either 60 or 65 mph, with this being treated as mere guideline by 95% of the drivers, while the other 5% were doing 50 mph in the fast lane!  I did most of I-210 on the 2 inside lanes as they were the fastest of the 6 lanes!  When we merged with 1-5 the traffic from both roads ground to a halt as 12 lanes became 6!  Slowly the wedge of traffic sorted itself out and we picked up speed to go through the switchbacks of the Alamo Mountains, with the lanes slowly dropping from 6 to 2 while the speed limit picked up 70 mph by the time we were in the Bakersfield area.  The last few miles into Paso were through huge orchards of almond and walnut trees before we saw the wineries of Tobin James and Eberle as we entered into town.  We made a quick stop at Albertsons to buy the basics for our cottage in the countryside of Adelaida, which turned out to be 11 miles out of town on a narrow, winding, very hilly road.  There were obviously not going to be any long dinners in Paso!

Our cottage was actually on a farm and we parked between hay barns before walking past the chicken coop and through the gardens to the house.  Probably the original farm house – lovely wide veranda all around the house.  Unpacked and started getting organised to watch some football only to find the TV was not hooked up and it was only good for DVDs!!  Then found there was no mobile phone service when we tried to contact the owners!!  Not a good start to our stay to say the least.  We are not TV junkies and don’t mind being without, but in this instance we had been lied to about the services, so were not kitted out with BBC box sets and jigsaw puzzles for the long winter evenings!  Listened to the final New Year’s Day games on TuneIn Radio on my trusty iPhone while having dinner, as we did at least have Wi-Fi.

Adelaida wine country!

We had a fun time in Paso visiting and revisiting wineries like Ecluse, Justin, Eberle, Tobin James, Adelaida, Tablas Creek, plus Olivas de Oro – 160 acres of century old olive trees producing great olive oil – and excellent lamb from their Katahdin sheep.  We did Executive wine tastings at Eberle and Tablas Creek where we tasted their reserve wines and had our own tasting room manager to guide us through the wines. At Eberle we were actually in an alcove in their cellars surrounded by barrels with that lovely musty smell of wood and wine, where at Tablas Creek we were in a smart private tasting room.  A really great way to taste wine!  We had lunches in Paso at Bistro Laurent and Estrelle.  Laurent is a real French Bistro and the food was outstanding!  We shared a Crispy Shrimp Salad as a starter where the huge prawns were wrapped in this crispy mesh, which turned out to be finely shredded phyllo pastry; extremely yummy.  Estrelle is one of these new Latin inspired restaurants where the food is a mixture of Spanish and South American dishes and once again the food was excellent.  Did some cooking in our farmhouse, but the light was so bad around the stove I had to wear my hikers head light to see what I was doing!  However, it was a lovely setting and in the mornings we had a covey of quail come out of the adjoining field and walk through the garden for their bug breakfast.

Adelaida cottage.

After our week in Adelaida/Paso it was on-on to Roseville, a town just north of Sacramento, to visit our old friends Candi & Frank Staszeski, who were our neighbours in Arlington.  Frank and I had bonded over golf and curry, so it was going to be a few days of playing golf and cooking curry – yes!  However, I had started a cold in Adelaida, and we arrived in Roseville to find Candi was sick with a really bad cold, which Frank had passed on, but we still played golf and cooked curry!  We actually put together a super Indian meal which proved that Frank and I hadn’t lost our touch.  By the time we left Ann wasn’t feeling so hot and would obviously soon be hit by the dreaded lurghi!!

Down town Kelseyville – we are the 2 story building on the right.

Thank heavens it was a relatively short drive to our next wine destination, Kelseyville, the centre of the Lake County where 7 AVAs are dotted around Clear Lake; all in volcanic soil with the wineries situated from 800 to 3,000 ft.  Kelseyville, CA turned out to be more like West Virginia than California, and certainly not the most attractive town we have ever stayed in.  It’s a strange area in that it prides itself on having the cleanest air in California, but that’s because it has no industry so it also has very high unemployment. Hence the West Virginia vibe!  Our flat was above an antique shop and tattoo parlour!  The “town” did have 4 tasting rooms, a brewery pub, an excellent coffee shop, and two good restaurants so the basics were covered.  The Kelseyville charm was not helped by grey rainy weather and having rotten colds!  Despite the odds we did 10 tastings at Lajour Estate, Boatique Winery, (so called because it has a large collection of antique boats in the tasting room!) Don Angel, Brassfield, Cache Creek, Chacewater, Smiling Dog Ranch, Rosa D’Oro, Steele, and Wildhurst.  Overall good wines with Steele, Cache Creek and Brassfield leading the pack.  Some good Sauvignon Blancs from the Big Valley and Clear Lake AVAs.  Zins, Syrah and Petit Syrah, with some Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are being produced with nice Zinfandels and Syrahs from Brassfield, Chacewater, and Steele.  A very good restaurant, SawShop, was 5 mins walk from the flat, and is owned by the ex-wife of Steele Vineyards owner Jed Steele, and is producing some really good food with a great selection of local wines.  The other good eatery was Woody’s situated in the corner of a lumber warehouse and hardware store!  A no frills restaurant that served fresh homemade soups, outstanding and huge burgers, as well as really good sweet potato fries.

Red Hills AVA.

With another wine region under our belt we headed off for Oregon along the coast on Rt 1/Rt 101 with an overnight stop in Crescent City before going over the mountains to Grants Pass and picking up I-5 for the final run into Tualatin.  We loaded up the car and had coffee and breakfast croissants at the coffee shop across the road.  In Kelseyville the fog was so heavy you could hardly see from one side of the street to the other and it didn’t clear until we were over the coastal mountains.  Then once we were running along the coast and going through the redwood forests it really started raining with some strong winds in places.  We made it to the Crescent City’s best hotel – the Best Western – at which time the rain was driving horizontally off the sea!  Luckily the rain eased so we were able walk next door to the Good Harvest Café for dinner.  One of those restaurants that served good fresh food but was just short of being a really good because of cooking all the fish in panko and over-breading in the process!  But hey, it had a reasonable wine list and did good Irish Coffees!  It wasn’t even raining when we worked back to our room!

Rt 101 north of Crescent City

The next morning was a different beast!  Filling up with petrol I was soaked by a torrential rain driving off the sea, even though I was under cover and this set the tone for the journey.  After a few miles we took Rt 199 across the mountains to Grants Pass just as the rain picked up to Monsoon levels with some serious gusts of wind. Visibility was down to 6-10 feet with the wipers going full bore, so we crawled along at about 20 miles an hour with small waterfalls coming off the cliffs and spilling across the road, and edging through a rock fall in 4-wheel drive.  Probably the worst driving conditions I have ever experienced!  Signs warning of falling rocks complete with a river running in full spate 50 feet below the road created a little tension now and then!  By the time we got to Grants Pass the conditions improved to mere pouring rain, but by then we were onto I-5 with complete with trucks doing 70mph.  Not fun to say the least and lasted all the way until our Tualatin turn off.  The journey from hell and up there with I-35 in Texas!

Tualatin flat – we are on the 3rd floor at the back.

New Seasons, a local Whole Food’s type super market was on our way to the flat so we stopped for bread, butter, milk, eggs, etc.  We found whole Jersey milk in glass bottles – really delicious – and something I hadn’t tasted since many years ago in the UK.  If they can produce milk like this where is the double and clotted cream?  Anyway, found the flat, which is actually on Sweek Street and not SW Tualatin as listed, sorted out door codes and got the garage opener so we could unload out of the elements and put the truck to bed.  We had made it to our 3^rd roost after leaving SC almost a year ago, and were very happy to settle in, put our feet up, and drink wine!!