Trying to Escape from the Negativity

The U.S. has state elections happening at the beginning of November. Unfortunately, 90% of the radio and TV commercials are attack ads, so rather than talking about the merits of the candidate the focus is on how terrible their opponent is. The ads often follow one another and the rhetoric seems to be escalating as voting day nears. It is no wonder that their voter turnout is declining since one is left to wonder why it is worth voting for any of the candidates with so many flaws. We have seen a little of this in Canada but it,s nothing relative to what is going on right now, it is downright nasty. so hopefully this particular trend will not proliferate up north.

After leaving Washington we drove to the Reno / Tahoe area. Prior to arriving there we came across many signs for Bunny Ranches in Nevada but we didn't see many rabbits in the area so we're not sure what that was all about :) Reno was looking tired so we continued on to the Lake Tahoe area. Between Reno and South Lake Tahoe we took the scenic highway to Virgina City and Carson City, old gold rush towns with many of the older buildings still intact or rebuilt to look like it was in the late 1800's. We continued driving up the west coast of Lake Tahoe (back into California) where there are several ski resorts (Heavenly and Squaw Valley being the largest ones) and some gorgeous vacation homes. We did a short hike at Eagle Falls that had some nice views overlooking the lake.

With rain in the forecast we decided to head further south in California. We left just in time, encountering some wet snow in the mountains (8,000 feet elevation) that turned into light rain as we descended into the valley around Sacramento where we were able to stay ahead of the weather front hitting most of the west coast. My navigator discovered a large wine area (Paso Robles) that we had not yet encountered so that has been our home for the past few days. There are over 200 wineries in the area specializing in Rhone style wines and Ports. Our storage space is filling up fast! The RV park that we are staying at (Wine Country RV) is well maintained with a great hot tub and is situated in the middle of many nearby wineries so we are enjoying life very much right now. After a full day of wine tasting yesterday we decided to ease up today with a late morning visit to SummerWood Winery (excellent) followed by a round of golf at the well named Chalk Mountain so we had a triple play today with wine, golf and a good hike. We are off to the hot tub shortly.

Tomorrow we have another golf game scheduled and then we will head over to the coast to San Luis Obispo which is about 200 miles north of Los Angeles.

Wine & Golf

We have spent the past 5 days at the southern end of Washington State in the Tri-Cities area.......Richland, Kennewick and Pasco, seperated by the Yakima and Columbia Rivers. The combined population of the three cities is 250,000 people and their main claim to fame, other than the wonderful wines produced in the area, is that the atomic bomb was created here (in nearby Hanford). The majority of all plutonium used in nuclear weapons was generated here but following the end of the Cold War the focus changed from the creation of nuclear weapons to the disposal of nuclear waste. A huge new plant is nearing completion, 9 years after it was started so there is obviously still a lot of nuclear waste that will need to be disposed of. Many of the people we have met down here work at "The Site" or industries supporting it. We passed by a recreational area called Atomic Bomb Park and a high school whose team nickname is the Bombers.

The Horn Rapids RV Resort has been our home, a wonderfully kept park with a nice hot tub that we have been using every day. We spent the first two days touring the many wineries in the area. Our favourites were Terra Blanca, Hogue, Kestrel, Mercer and Willow Crest. The van is now comfortably stocked for the next few weeks. Hopefully the glow in our cheeks after consuming several bottles is a result of the quality of the wine and not the soil from the Site! The past two days we golfed at Horn Rapids and Canyon Lakes (great track). Tomorrow we will play Columbia Point and then head out of town. The weather has been lovely...........18-20C with sunny skies but the forecast changes to cooler and wet starting Friday so we plan to head south and west along the Columbia River gorge with a close eye on the weather.

On The Road Again

Following two wonderful Thanksgiving week-end's, the first in Whistler with the Hevey family, and this past w/e with our young adults, we left home in search of warmer weather. Yesterday we had a beautiful 8 hour drive to Spokane, Washington, thru B.C. and Idaho, arriving in plenty of time to enjoy dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, The Onion (great burgers).
Today, we played golf at the recently renovated Liberty Lake G.C. accompanied by 20C and sun. Tomorrow we play at The Creek at Qualchan, another favourite. The price to play (at both courses) has risen to $27 pp, 20% higher than what we paid a few years ago, but no Canadian could ever complain about the cost which would be at least $100 for similar courses in Canada.
After our game tomorrow we're going to head down to the Tri-Cities area (southern border of Washington state) for some more golf, hiking and wine tasting.