The Pass of the Oaks.
We were looking for a place to unwind after the weeks in SD and LA. Just
seemed like we needed some time to just relax and chill from our hard
vacationing. While we did know what we were in for before we rolled into this snallish
town, we were totally unaware of this area before we started researching
it.
Any wine connoisseurs in the audience are probably up in arms about
now. Seems this region surrounding Paso Robles was voted 2013 wine
region of the year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine at its annual Wine Star
Awards. They vineyard folks to seem to be rather proud of the award.
While wine making has been going on here since 1797 by the Spanish conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries the region has just exploded with vineyards since the late 60's and early 70's. The area now boasts somewhere in the neighborhood of 200. There are only a few that produce enough to be called large, many just produce a few thousand cases are year. Small by Napa standards I suppose. But it's gold rush all over again except rather than gold it's the grape that is sought after.
So, rather than sitting in the trailer, sitting out side the trailer, sitting by the pool, sitting in the hot tub, our chosen form of relaxation was to visit a few wineries (no not all 200) to see what the hub hub is all about. They were having one of the several wine festivals during our stay so we opted to add a day or two to our stay.
Fortunately the downtown festival area was off limits to children so we could not go. I say fortunately as almost all of the folks manning the tasting rooms indicated they personally would not have gone, just too much of a mad house and it had turned into just wine tasting booths, apparently none of the other things one thinks of when one thinks of a festival.
Several of the wineries had a bit more going at their tasting rooms Friday and Sat so we opted to visit the wineries instead. We only had to put Rosalie in the corner at a couple of the rooms. Some had coloring stations for the kids (which is greatly appreciated), others had live music which seems to fascinate the girl these days.
We spend one day running over to visit Hearst Castle just over the mountain ridge on the coast at San Simion. It looked to be a testament to excess but I suppose it was a form of wealth transfer as Hearst did manager to keep a number of builders busy for several years.
The castle grounds have been donated to the state to preserve as a park of sorts. Apparently efforts to sell the place were unsuccessful so it was donated. No funding to provide for upkeep/repairs was provided with the deal. If it were not for the many works of old, some ancient pieces of art work that Hearst had collected over the years that was included in the donation, one might be thinking that the Hearst Corp managed to unload a white elephant. But, one supposes sale of the artifacts might help fund the place for a good while. Fortunately that has not had to happen, on a large scale at least.
On the way back from the castle we stopped at an Ocean overlook and managed to spot a couple of whales off the beach just a bit. We have no idea what kind all we could see was a bit of their back and spouts as they surfaced for a breath. But, at least we were not totally skunked as far as seeing whales is concerned.
Some pictures of the area: Picasa Web Album
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