The Foothills

Sorry for the lack of updates for the last couple of days. Contrary to what you may have heard, I was not shot by Dick Cheney on Saturday.

This has been an interesting weekend. Yesterday Melissa wanted to go to The Limited, partly to use a gift certificate she got for Christmas and partly to pick up some things for a vacation we've been planning for early March (more on that in the weeks to come). Unfortunately, in Reno going to The Limited means driving over the hill to Sacramento. So yesterday morning that's what we did.

As it happened we accomplished most of what she wanted to get done by about 3 p.m. yesterday, and so she asked if there was anything I felt like doing while we were west of the mountains. On a whim I suggested that we drive back home by heading up highway 50, an indirect but beautiful route that takes you south of Lake Tahoe and up through Carson City. I suggested that on the way we could stop in Placerville, one of a string of picture-perfect Gold Rush era towns that are scattered throughout the western foothills of the Sierra. Melissa agreed, as the weather was unseasonably mild even for California and she wanted to walk around Placerville's Old Hangtown, which is what Placerville's historic downtown used to be called.

Now I'm a real Northern Nevada booster, which anyone who's read more than a few posts on this blog knows. But I have to admit that the Sierra Foothills of California are a pretty amazing place. While most people dream of living in a tropical paradise, I dream of living in a place like the Foothills, with it's mild year-round temperatures, rolling hills and valleys, mountain streams and small towns strung together by narrow, winding roads running through dry forests. And of course it doesn't hurt that the primeval woods and granite peaks of the High Sierra are practically a stone's throw away. In the Foothills, everywhere you look you see vineyards and orchards and grazing livestock and people who's only fear in in the world seems to be that someone will wake them from this dream of a life. If this isn't what heaven looks like, I have qualms about going there.

So we were walking down Placerville's Main Street yesterday evening when we noticed signs for something called A Chocolate Affair, which was a food and wine-tasting charity auction that would be taking place in Placerville that night, put on by the local Soroptimits. Tempting as it was, we had planned to be back in Reno that night, and Reno was almost three hours away, so we figured we would have to miss out.

But since we were in the heart of Foothills Wine Country, we figured we would use what time we had to stop in at a local wine shop and find a bottle of the region's signature Zinfandel or Voignier. As one is wont to do on a beautiful evening in wine country we poured a couple of glasses and struck up a conversation with the proprietor, and then with a well-dressed couple sitting at a table nearby, also enjoying a glass of wine. As it turned out, they were headed to the Chocolate Affair that evening, and they told us it was a wonderful event and that we should stop by if we had the chance. We told them we would think about it. In speaking with the man, who introduced himself as Pierre, I mentioned how it is we happened to find ourselves in Placerville that evening, and how much I liked this idyllic little town.

"That's great to hear", he said, "because I'm the Mayor."

Well that settled it. There's no way I was going to turn down an official invitation from the mayor. So even though we had only the clothes on our backs we checked in to the Cary House Hotel. The Cary House is a posh old hotel, built in 1857, and in it's day has hosted the likes of Mark Twain and Horace Greely, who made a speech from the hotel's balcony during his Presidential campaign. And, the staff proudly informed us, it is home to the second-oldest functioning elevator west of the Mississippi.

We then headed over to A Chocolate Affair, which included impossible amounts of free samples of locally produced food, wine and, of course, chocolate (and when I say "we" I mean "me"; Melissa displayed admirable willpower). Mayor Rivas was there, as was El Dorado District Attorney Gary Lacy, whom we also got to meet. Eventually we had our fill, and made our way back to the Cary House.

This morning we woke up to perfect weather. Conditions in the Foothills are Springlike right now, despite the fact that it is the middle of February. We drove about nine miles north of Placerville to Coloma, where John Sutter owned a mill where gold was discovered in 1848, kicking off the California Gold Rush. We wandered around the restored 1850's era frontier settlement next to the American River, and then inevitably made our way to Gold Hill and Venezio wineries. The whole thing was so perfect, we couldn't help but wonder aloud "well, what if we just didn't go back? What if we were to stay here?" It's totally unrealistic of course, but it's a nice fantasy.

In the end we forced ourself into the car (about 24 hours later than we'd planned) and made the long drive up Highway 50 through South Lake Tahoe, Carson City and finally up to Reno. But overall it was a fantastic impromptu pre-Valentine's Day getaway. I think Melissa is coming to love the Foothills as much as I do. Something tells me we'll be back before long.