Carmichael to Bangor, CA
Spencer Shirey Winery
Distance: 83 miles
Route: I5 to Hwy. 99 to 20/70 to La Porte Road
Duration: 1 night
Cost: Harvest Host (free)
Weather: Sunny and warm
After a delicious breakfast at Sarah & Bert's we headed out to a Harvest Hosts vineyard in Bangor. It was a bit of a tough drive due to 40-50 mph wind gusts, but we made it. The vineyard is in a very isolated area and the road in (La Porte) is not only curvy with lots of hills, but extremely bumpy in spots. I didn't get a chance to meet the owners (Kimball & Mary) since I was feeling so miserable with a head cold, but Rod had a free wine tasting and brought a bottle of wine back to the RV for me to enjoy later.
Our site was fairly level, overlooking the vineyard, and we had a picnic table, water and 30 amp power (which is not typical for Harvest Hosts locations), but we were in an area in which PGE had turned off the power due to the risk of fires, so we had to run our generator, which was fine with the owners since they were running theirs as well. There were plenty of trees to provide shade and it was very peaceful, but as it was so far out of our way, I'm not sure we'd return.
That looks like a sweet location, but sometimes it isn't worth it if you have to drive too far out of your way—unless there's a specific reason to be there, right? I hope the wine was good.
ReplyDeleteLaurel, we've stayed at a couple of wineries (using our Harvest Host membership) that were pretty far out of our way that we probably wouldn't return to, but you just never know when you might hit on a great one that's worth revisiting. Sadly, this isn't one of those. The wine was ok, but nothing remarkable.
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