Day 33-June 27, 2016-DePortola Rd. Wine Trail
Only 97 today, a lot more comfortable
Most campers have left, only about three left in our section.
We’re planning on going to Bakersfield for a few days tomorrow but we’ve heard the wildfires are bad there so we called the campground to make sure we’d be OK. They assured us the fires are so far away we won’t be bothered. Asked about the weather and he said they’re hot but 20 degrees cooler than the 126 we had in Palm Springs. Oh, goody, only 106. Thought about going a different way, maybe up the coast, but we’ve been there, done that so we’re sticking with Plan A. Drove to De Portola Rd. Wine Trail after lunch. About 15 vineyards, very different from the ones we’ve been to here. Most of these grow grapes from Italy and we liked these wines better. The scenery is quite different also, a lot of horse ranches and donkeys, llamas, goats, and we even saw an emu. Wonderful sculpture of a horse and rider jumping over a fence on the side of the road. More citrus orchards too, we stopped and picked a couple of grapefruit. We stopped at Cougar Vineyards first, met some nice people who live up the road. Good wine, not as expensive as some of the others we’ve been to. Then on to Frangipani Estates Vineyard, probably my favorite, great wines, great owner/manager, Nick, great cat, Barrel and a great dog, Franny. He told us most of the vineyards in the area have lost 70% of their grapes because of the heat. He said one day they looked fine and the next they weren’t even raisins, they were just withered. A lot of the trees in the area are dropping their leaves also, it’s really hot and dry. We couldn’t decide which wine we liked the best, they were all nice. But that was it for me, I had to go back to the RV and rest my weary head.