Napa. Sonoma. Every California wine country traveler knows about these. But what about Santa Clara? Even the winery owners there agree that they’re not a destination wine region.

South of Silicon Valley between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range, Santa Clara Valley has a Mediterranean climate perfectly suited to viticulture. Grapes love the temperature difference, warm days and cold evenings, and thrive.

Native Americans called Santa Clara the valley of the heart’s delight. Casa de Fruta in Hollister, CA, planted its first vineyard in 1908 to make fruit wines, like plum and pomegranate.

In Gilroy, the scene of most current Valley wine production, locals planted apricot trees in the 1930s and sold prunes. Now 18 of Santa Clara’s 23 wineries are here. The 2nd one we visited, Fortino, was the 1st winery here in 1970. The family had been producing wines in Calabria, Italy, since the early 19th century and is now in its 4th generation of passionate Gilroy wine-makers.

As Ruth & I talked to Lee Rodrigues behind the crowded bar as we sampled Fortino’s uniformly excellent wines, I asked Lee which one we should make sure we tasted and he said Charbono. That I had never heard of this grape was understandable since less than 100 acres in the entire state of California are planted with it. The standard practice in the SCV is that wine tasting is free if you buy a bottle. We bought a Charbono.

Ruth & I were lucky that we got lost and accidentally visited Thomas Kruse Winery before finding Fortino. While Fortino has a restaurant, hosts weddings, etc., Kruse is a far more modest operation founded in 1971. Its tasting room was full of wine barrels instead of couples from Cupertino down for a Sunday afternoon outing. Using sustainable farming practices, Kruse quietly produces dependable wines of limited production where we learned that some of the Santa Clara winemakers came from Croatia.

We asked volunteer server Lee at Fortino the name of the “other” great winery in Gilroy and went straight to Satori where after a 5 minute conversation I really admired Tom Moller, the TO in Satori. A self-described Silicon Valley brat, Tom told his wife that he was thinking of buying 20 acres in the Gilroy area and completely upending life-as-they-knew-it. “Only if it’s fun,” was SAndy’s only stipulation. Now bearded, long haired, and happy, Tom told me that 2004 was his first good year and that now he’s earning gold medals. I asked him which wine he was most proud of and he said, “my 2009 Jubilee Cabernet Sauvignon.” CS, he explained, is the trickiest wine to get right. We bought a bottle.

Three days later we stopped at Solis and talked to owner/grower Vic Vanni who told us that his very traditional looking 46 acres had been part of an old Mexican land grant, Rancho de Solis. He taught us how to pronounce Solis correctly (So-lease), told us that his family has been involved since 1980, and mentioned that his Zin won Double Gold at a recent wine competition. We bought a bottle.

Closer to San Jose but still in the Valley, the towns of Saratoga, Morgan Hill, and San Martin also have wineries. You might find Santa Clara wines in Santa Clara Safeways, but not in your local supermarket. You still have to go there to experience them. For now.

Hank

As the 19th century westward migration following the discovery of gold became a rush, the need for an all-weather road, a southern route to California, increased.  President Buchanan hired Navy Lieutenant Beale to survey and develop a road following the 35th parallel as closely as possible. The assembled team included 25 camels from Egypt &/or India.  Part of Ed Beale’s instructions was to test them for military use.

The Beale Wagon Road that resulted was the “first federally funded wagon road in America” according to one display in Arizona’s Route 66 Museum. Like the further-north Oregon Trail, sections of it are still visible to travelers trying to see what’s left of 66.

Next the railroad came through.  The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe connected to the Southern Pacific and  hotels and restaurants with Harvey girls sprang up along the route.  All of this is very well covered in Kingman’s Route 66 Museum in the Powerhouse,  a visitor center that also includes Kingman’s Chamber of Commerce, 2 model trains, etc.  Begun in 1907, the Powerhouse was supposed to supply power for mines, a trolley system, etc.  But now it entertains tourists.

What this Museum is good at is telling stories, like the one about C.C. Pyle, winner of the 1928 Los Angeles to New York footrace that used Route 66 as far as Chicago, its terminus.  With his $25,000 prize, Pyle bought a car and drove back to Oklahoma.

What it’s not especially good at is reducing clutter, refreshing its exhibits, and creating a watchable film.  The prairie schooner and its migrating mannikin family looks like it has been untouched since installation, and the current film as one exits is like watching Grandpa Jones old films of his heyday trips to the West Coast 2 or 3 generations ago.

I did, however, love the Burma Shave Tribute.  These fun and funny signs accompanied many roads from 1925 to 1963 when Phillip Morris bought BS. “The chick he wed-let out a whoop-felt his chin-and flew the coop-Burma Shave”.

I also was impressed by the 1950 Studebaker on display and its historical significance.  The only company that spanned the era from wagons to cars, South Bend, Indiana’s Studebaker Corporation lasted for 114 years.

Route 66 was totally paved by 1938.  Folks with foresight realized its importance to the coming war effort, and many training bases popped in the West, especially in California, because of Route 66.  Convoys were not an unusual sight for travelers from 1941 until World War II’s end and beyond. Fifteen years after Pearl Harbor the Interstate Highway System was proposed and 66 began its slide toward nostalgia.

Hank

In the visitor center of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the Sonoran is called the “patient” desert.  Some of its animal residents wait all day for the sun to go to become active,  and flora & fauna thrive during two intense periods of rain.  That the Sonoran has 2 periods of rain each year makes it unique among U.S. deserts.   In July and August it averages three and a half inches of monsoon-like precipitation, and about another inch and a half falls more gently in November and December.  This makes it the richest desert in vegetation and earns it a second nickname, the Green Desert.

A distinct species of cacti, the organ pipe for which OPCNM is named (see photo above) is similar to yet different from the saguaro, which also thrives in OPCNM.   Both grow in columns but the organ pipe can produce 20 or more over a normal 150 year lifetime.  If you want to stay in the U.S. and see organ pipes in relative abundance, you have to go to OPCNM.  Because they’re especially sensitive to frost, they only grow here.  Far more common in Mexico, they only made it north to Arizona about 3,500 years ago.  Also not fond of heat, the patient organ pipe’s first flowers appear around age 35 and bloom only at night.  Is it worth the trip to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to see them?  Yes.  Overall, it’s a 4 Compass experience.

Outside the Kris Eggle Visitor Center 17 miles into the Monument is a tribute to Park Ranger Kris.  It describes him as”…gunned down while pursuing members of an alleged drug cartel who illegally crossed the border after committing a string of murders in Mexico.”  At the time of our visit, one of the center’s doors had been broken by intruders and part of the park was closed for security reasons.  As Ruth & I took the Ajo Mountain Drive, helicopters circled overhead and rangers were in evidence.  A number of allegedly drug filled bags waiting to be picked up had been found in the area.  We were stopped and questioned by border control agents both entering and leaving the Monument.  Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument shares a 30 mile border with Mexico and contain 150 miles of illegal roads. Did we feel unsafe? Never.

A UN designated International Biosphere Reserve for almost 40 years, Organ Pipe today means 312,000 acres of well-protected (in every way) Sonoran Desert and an excellent visitor center.  OPCNM’s non-human residents include exceedingly rare pupfish which swim in a small pond on a well-tended, informative trail behind the center.  The patient kangaroo rat in this one-of-a-kind dessert never drinks water.  All its moisture is provided by a diet of mesquite beans and grass seeds.

The border town of Lukeville 5 miles south of the vc isn’t worth driving to unless you’re going into Mexico, need gas, etc. but the mining town of Ajo north of the Monument is stop-worthy.  The Ajo Mountain Drive, a 21 mile, one-way journey on a well-maintained dirt road is a Best-of-Monument, 5 Compass stunner.  Allow at least 2 hours.

Hank