RV Lifestyle The Other Shenandoah Valley The beautiful Shenandoah Valley stretches 200 miles across the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains of Virginia. A lesser-known Shenandoah Valley in the Sierra Nevada foothills also offers country roads with breathtaking views and charming postcard-perfect farms. This undiscovered California gem features rolling, golden hills studded with majestic oaks and rolling vineyards producing exceptional full-bodied wines. The sun-drenched hillsides, warm daytime temperatures and volcanic, decomposed granite soils are ideal conditions for producing top-quality wine grapes. Home to some of the oldest vines in California, the wines produced from the vineyards in the Shenandoah Valley are renowned for their intense fruit and deep colour. The valley offers unique tasting rooms and outdoor event venues, bed and breakfast inns and relaxing environments for locals and visitors alike. Villa Toscano Winery brings the essence of the beautiful Tuscany region of Italy to California. Many of their full-bodied wines are crafted from century-old vines. Borjón Winery is a dynamic, Mexican-American, familyowned winery with a range of European-influenced wines including Italian, Spanish and French. Helwig Winery offers sweeping vistas overlooking lush vineyards and breathtaking views of the Sierra and Coastal mountains. A visit to Cooper Vineyards is a visit to one of California’s most charming family wineries. Dick Cooper, whose family originally arrived in the Sierra Foothills in 1919, is generally considered Amador County’s “Godfather of Barbera.” Zinfandel might be Amador’s heritage grape, but it is a grape that does well in other parts of California. Barbera, on the other hand, makes a red wine that many of today’s wine lovers believe grows better in Amador County than just about anywhere else in the world – even as well as in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, where the grape originated. Please note: Touring California Gold Country travel experiences will conclude in a future issue. Jackson Nestled between the 1,200- and 1,600-foot levels in the Sierra Nevada foothills in the “Heart of the Mother Lode” is the historic town of Jackson. The city that producedmore than half of the gold pulled from the Mother Lode is home to the deepest mines on the continent – the Argonaut and the Kennedy – both in excess of 5,000 feet deep. Once the richest mining area in the Mother Lode, today Jackson’s main industry is tourism. The Argonaut operated until 1942, reaching a vertical depth of 5,570 feet via a 63-degree shaft and produced more than $25 million in gold. The Kennedy has approximately 150 miles of underground tunnels, a great deal of surface equipment (which once included the famous Jackson Gate elevator wheels) and miles of flumes. The total production was $34,280,000. The Kennedy was closed in 1942 by order of the government while in full production. The early gold rush camp-turned-city was, like so many other gold rush towns along California Highway 49, destroyed by a raging fire in 1862. The city was rebuilt with as many as 42 of those Civil War-era buildings still standing today on and around Jackson’s Historic Main Street. At the turn of the 19th century, Jackson had about 3,000 residents with three churches, three newspapers, four hotels, five boarding houses, two candy factories, cigar and macaroni factories, eight physicians and two dentists. Visitors can explore these historic buildings and artifacts among the many shops, restaurants and lodging facilities that include the iconic National Hotel. Jackson is full of unique gift shops, antique shops, restaurants, museums, parks and historical sites such as the Kennedy GoldMine and the former home of Armstead C. Brown. Constructed in 1854, this 15-room classic Greek Revival dwelling now houses the Amador CountyMuseum. Exhibits feature a fascinating array of artifacts and items from the county’s early mining days. These scenic “Civil War”-era buildings have been well preserved and are a photographic opportunity, as well as being an incredible wealth of historic information. The sidewalks on Main Street have many bronze plaques laid into themwith historic references to buildings and activities of days gone by. Jackson, at the heart of the Mother Lode, will be one of your favourite stops…one you will return to again and again. Website: vogeltalksrving.com E-mail me at with your comments, issues and topics that you’d like to see addressed on this page. vogelontheroad@gmail.com 26 | www.snowbirds.org
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzMzNzMx