Murphy's, California

I never really imagined that I'd be the wine tasting kind of person. I don't even remember it having crossed my mind, but ever since our first wine tasting trip to Murphy's, California, we've both been hooked. 

We somehow wandered into a wine tasting event in the spring where you could buy a wine glass or not and go tasting around the town with mostly no tasting fees. It was the perfect first experience with no worries about the cost and the opportunity to taste and discover our own tastes, in our own way. 

The Murphy's downtown is basically a long street filled with cute shops and decent food to visit in between all the drinking. We took our time making our way down the street and still managed to get tipsy.

Although we didn't end up buying anything, their shops are interesting places to explore. They range from crafty knick knacks to clothing boutiques to sweet shops and toy stores, a pretty standard selection for tourist destinations but enjoyable nonetheless.

We had lunch at the burger joint in town that had a laid back atmosphere, a notch or two above chain burger places. Their burgers were pretty good, nothing crazy or very experimental, but I remember really liking their French fries. 

We really enjoyed their wine selections. The town had a range of wine and a variety of different types of tasting rooms to experience.

We enjoyed taking a walk around the neighborhood, admiring all of the small house architecture. They also had a small park and gazebo, the perfect place to takes breaks if you happen to have young kids with you.

We thouroughly enjoyed the town and especially the wine. It was an ideal first wine tasting experience.  

Grover Hot Springs, CA

Fall has rolled around, although it's difficult to tell here in Sacramento, and we wanted to squeeze in a last camping trip for the summer. 

We has planned on visiting Pinnacles, but  the weather report said it would be in the nineties when we were there, so we decided to change gears and quickly research a new place.

I'd desperately been wanting to fit in some fall color this year so we headed out to the Sierras and lucked out that there were openings at the Grover Hot Springs campground. 

It was a decent campground, with flushing toilets and coin operated showers. We stayed at sight 74, next to the trickling stream in plenty of shade. There wasn't much privacy, but we expected that and didn't spend too much time in camp.

We did a lovely 5 mile round trip hike that took us up to the Hope Valley Overlook. At the base of the trail is a small cabin community for renters, called Sorensens. The cabins were surrounded by brilliant yellow fall color, with a walking path and seating running between them. Each cabin had their own hammock, tempting me to see if anyone would notice me hanging out when I wasn't actually staying there.

The hike itself rose around 1,000 feet, starting off amongst the beautiful fall color and leading to an impressive overlook of Hope Valley. From there we could see the spots of yellow and orange littered around the whole valley. The hike was moderate, elevating our heart rates, but not pushing us very hard. 

After a quick decent back into Sorensons, we took a drive around the valley, getting some more impressive views of fall colors and giving James a chance to take some photos in the light of the setting sun. We saw quite a lot of photographers taking portraits in the trees.

The next morning we did something uncharacteristic of us, and slept in. Then we headed over to the developed hot springs. It cost seven dollars to get in and had two pools, a changing room, shower, and bathroom. Rinsing off before hand and swimsuits were mandatory. 

There was one hot spring pool, enriched with minerals, that ran between 102 and 104 degrees farenheit. It was three feet deep and had seating all around the pool. Next to it, for when the heat got difficult to bare, was a regular swimming pool that quickly cooled us down. 

It had great views of the mountains, but the pools weren't shaded at all, which was a complaint of James, since he doesn't handle sitting in direct sun very well. 

Aside from a few kids, we were easily the youngest people there, so apparently it isn't a very hip thing to do, although we enjoyed it. Still, we prefer undeveloped hot springs, but it was the perfect little getaway before the cold sets in.