Weekend at Murphys in Southern Gold Country -- Part 2

After the hike we had lunch at a picnic table near the trailhead parking lot (some fruit and cookies that Mary had left over from Barbara's April 17-18 visit with Maddie, Nik and Courtney). Then we drove on to the bridge over the Stanislaus River, at the point where our family had spent many happy summer days swimming, sliding down rocks into the water, and jumping into the water from higher rocks. Being early Spring, the water was too high and frothy (and much too cold) for such activities just now.
.

We got home from our hike soon enough to drive two miles east out of Murphys on San Domingo Road (the part that isn't a bumpy dirt road) to the Stevenot vinyards and tasting room where we tasted about eight wines. The only one I thought had taste comparable to price was their Sangiovese. I bought two bottles of this and Val bought four bottles of other assorted wines. In the pictures below you see us carrying out the resulting half case.

On Saturday evening we had diner at the old City Hotel in Columbia. I mention this because we had the best meal we've ever had in our years visiting the Gold Country. And most expensive ($194 for the four of us). After a very mediocre Sunday morning breakfast at the Rose Bud Inn, we headed out to the Ironstone Vinyards to take their tour and taste more wine.

The winery has been under massive construction since 1994, with John Kautz lavishing money in much the same way Hearst sprayed money at San Simeon. John and Gail Kautz made their fortune as vegetable farmers in the San Joaquin Valley (near Merced, I believe) and are enjoying their family winemaking at Murphys. The winery is massive and has a huge (a million gallons of fermenting tanks) winemaking capacity. His grapes come mainly from their and other farms in the valley, much the same as Gallo, for the same wine market. He's well on his way to making the Ironstone Winery the Knotts Berry Farm of the Gold Country, complete with a huge amphitheater under construction.

After lunch at Ironstone we returned to Murphys and wandered Main street. Then we spent some time at Dunbar House to look at the rooms and gardens and reserve two rooms for April, 2000. Their web site is worth a visit.

Then Mary and I drove back to Jackson to stay the night at the Court Street Inn on the gift from daughter Barbara. We checked in and then walked down to the National Hotel at 5:00 p.m., in time to enjoy the last hour of the Jazz Festival that had been going on all day at the bars in town. We each had a beer, danced a few at the platform entry to the hotel, and then bought a barbequed tri-tips sandwich for five bucks. The cook was closing up shop and took a liking to us as we drank, danced and chatted with him, so he sliced more than a half pound of meat into the sandwich. We brought it back with us to the Court Street Inn and shared it for supper, along with a bottle of wine from Murphys and some crackers and dip Mary had made for our stay with the Watsons.

At breakfast Monday morning we learned from another lodger at the Inn that there's a great used-book store at the north end of town. After buying a sandwich at the Jackson Deli to split for lunch, we headed for the Book Mine, where we bought nine books for $25. Considering that $15 of that was for a thick railroad picture book for Nik, that was quite a deal. The proprietor also gave us four web sites that she uses to search for rare books: abe --- Bookfinder --- Bibliofind --- Alibris . You can contact her (Barbara is her first name) at bookmine@volcano.net .

On the way home we stopped in Coloma to eat our half sandwiches. I clocked our trip home from there at 50 miles and a little over an hour, making Coloma a nice destination when the kids have time on a future visit to Lake Wildwood.