Mecca

Day 3


View Harvey's Route in a larger map

This was a good day.

We stared it by heading back out into the Napa Valley in Harvey. We wanted to go back to HaGafen to buy some wine. Since it was the first stop on our bike trip the previous day, we didn't buy any to avoid carrying the bottles the whole ride, by the time we passed it on the way back it was closed. We also wanted to taste more wine (naturally) and had a tasting of their reserves (all under the "Prix" label), which were all quite good. They were very proud of their reserve chardonnay, which they were quick to point out was recently served at the White House for the Obamas' Easter dinner. Another interesting fact was that HaGafen is hebrew for "the vine" and all of their wines are kosher - the only one of its kind in Northern California.



We then said goodbye to Lisa as she went off to explore more of Napa before heading home and the rest of us hopped in Harvey for our next destination: Chico, California and...


Yesssssssssss! Not a whole lot going on in Chico, but the brewery did not disappoint. We arrived for a late lunch at their restaurant where Jake and I sampled all 16 of their beers and Casey sampled enough to finding the Torpedo Extra IPA to be her favorite.





And the food! Fillet fettuccine gorgonzola, Sierra Nevada beer battered fish & chips, buffalo wings and garlic fries with their house ranch. It took a while, but we left there grinning like fools.



We hit up the gift shop, bought a few souvenirs and two cases of Torpies and headed north to Mt. Shasta. This was a beautiful drive up the Five and Mt. Shasta itself is a completely imposing figure in the skyline. You think you're diving through mountains... and then you see Shasta. Still mostly covered with snow, and gorgeous.



We arrived at our beautiful campground on Lake Siskiyou near the base of Shasta around sunset to find only one other camper there. Our site as about fifty yards from the shore and it's so peaceful it's almost eerie.

Tomorrow we will try a hike on the side of Mt. Shasta if there's access, but that was a lot of snow...