Madera Wine Trail Wine & Chocolate Weekend

Oh my, it has been far too long since I have posted on this blog.  What with the holidays, moving to a new house, and spending inordinate amounts of time at the veterinary specialists with the huskies as they were diagnosed, and are now treated for, cancer, we haven't had time for much exploring.  We have been having fun times with friends, but haven't really gone on any roadtrips until this past weekend.  We headed out on the Madera Wine Trail for their Wine & Chocolate Weekend with our friends Heather and Joe and their friend Andrew, who recently moved to Sacramento to take a job at a law firm.

The special event cost $25 and included a commemorative wine glass, tastings at all area wineries, and delicious chocolate treats.  Many wineries featured artists with work for sale and some had food and live music.  Our first stop was Quady Winery which specializes in ports and other dessert wines.  We enjoyed some of their wines, but one of them, Purple, was an "acquired taste".  The label reminded us of a frat party invitation and the taste was most similar to Grape Pucker. 

The crazy label for the crazier wine.

Basically, it was gross and we sought out the nearest tray of chocolate truffles to cleanse our pallets.  The moscato was good, though, and Sean particularly enjoyed their  Starboard Batch 88 port.

One of the best parts of the Quady Winery visit was the mobile wood-fired pizza oven onsite for the event.  I loved my little wild mushroom, tarragon, and goat cheese personal pizza, and the nutella, wild berry, and mint dessert pizza was fabulous!

The Nutella, wild berry, and fresh mint pizza!

Our next stop was Chateau Lasgoity Winery.  We sampled some wines and Heather treated us to chocolate-covered strawberries.I particularly enjoyed the Blanc duVal (white of the valley) which was light and crisp, and will make perfect sipping by the pool this summer.  Unfortunately at this point we had to leave our friends to head home and check on the huskies.  They enjoyed more tasting, with their trusty designated driver, Heather.  Once home we thought twice about cutting off our wristbands as they were good for the entire weekend, but since Ili was headed to the radiation center for the next week we wanted to spend as much time with her as we could.  There's always the Spring Wine Trail Adventure in May!

Waiting for our wood-fired pizzas.  Sorry I cut you off, Andrew!

Mist and John Muir Trails

Thursday's Thanksgiving dinner at the Ahwahnee Hotel just wasn't enough Yosemite for us this weekend so we headed back yesterday for some hiking.  Our plan was to hike to Taft Point, but the NPS closed the road up there, so we were forced to alter our plans.  Not a problem when there are so many incredible hikes we have not yet taken in the park.  We chose the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Fall, and then looped back on a portion of the John Muir Trail to escape some of the holiday crowds and see another part of the park.  We took off from the trailhead at Happy Isles Nature Center.

The trail is incredibly steep in places on the way up to Vernal Falls, but the number of little kids on the trail gave me hope that I could make it.  The boulder piles along the trail are amazing.  I can't imagine witnessing a rockfall of that magnitude.

There are more than 600 steep, granite steps completing the last portion of the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Fall.  This part was tough on the thighs, but I just imagined the people who built the trail and the hard work they participated in and I knew I could make it to the top.  Staring at the steps ahead and not the ground far below made it easier to ignore how high we were.

While late summer and fall are the lowest flow in the falls, it was still worth seeing Vernal Fall up close.  We'd like to see what it looks like in May at full volume.

This is a view of the trail from the top looking down.  It is difficult to see them, but there are people on the trail all the way down to the valley.

At the top the trail splits.  We could have headed back down the way we came, or to the left to view Nevada Fall, but chose to take a right turn and return to Yosemite Valley via a portion of the John Muir Trail.  It did not disappoint.

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite

Since we couldn't be home with our family for Thanksgiving, Sean and I and our friends Heather and Joe decided to head to the Ahwahnee Hotel inside Yosemite National Park for their special Thanksgiving dinner.  Over the river and through the woods indeed, though it wasn't to grandmother's house that we went.  The food was delicious: 2011 menu.  We snapped some photos outside the hotel as well as inside by the massive fireplace and at the table, where Sean enjoyed his Gobble Gobble Ice Cream dessert.  We drove home full and happy and enjoyed the sunset over the valley walls.

Sentinel Dome - Yosemite National Park

Yosemite has seen some snow showers and, since it's almost Thanksgiving, Sean and I were craving some cold temperatures.  We headed to Yosemite to hike Sentinel Dome.  Glacier Point Road is now closed past the Sentinel Dome parking area due to the snow, but we were able to reach the trailhead parking and head up to the dome.

The view was a bit obstructed due to the cloud cover, but it was quite beautiful seeing the cloud mass from one side and the clearer skies from the other.  Sentinel Dome has a beautiful 360 degree view, including views of Yosemite Valley and its waterfalls.

The one thing we couldn't get a view of the entire time we were standing at the top of the dome was Half Dome, which was unfortunate.  I guess that just provides an excuse to head back up in the spring when the snows melt.

Merced River Hike

This past Saturday we headed up toward Yosemite to a hike we had read about along the Merced River about 15 miles past the town of Mariposa on Highway 140.  After a slow drive down a 1-lane, dusty road and across a 1-lane wooden bridge, we came to the trail's beginning.  Apparently this trail involves a fitness test as we needed to pass through a narrow opening in order to cross one last bridge along a private road before reaching the trail itself.

The trail runs along the Merced River and is the old bed of the railroad that brought early visitors to Yosemite National Park from the town of Merced through the town of El Portal. Along the opposite bank of the river we could see old, rusted pieces of curved metal and wooden braces that provided a chute or pipeline of some sort at one time.

It was a beautiful fall day in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

All that fresh air and hiking made us very hungry so we stopped at a great restaurant in Mariposa, The Gold Coin, which is housed in Mariposa's oldest building.  The town was really hopping due (we think) to the opening of Santa's Bazaar at the small, local hospital.  It's a fun, quaint little goldrush town (and home to the Mariposa Gazette, the oldest weekly newspaper of continuous publication in California) that now serves as a great stop for food and shopping on the way in or out of Yosemite.  Quite a few UC Merced folks have chosen to live in or near Mariposa and make the daily trek to Merced by car or commuter bus.