Playing Tourist

July 28, 2013, Sunday Day 58

Today was our day to play tourist.  Jacque and Lynn had the day of from wine tasting at the Pilot Peak Winery as their partners Nancy and Len told them to enjoy themselves.

Lynn served another great breakfast and we lounged around till about noon and then, what do tourists do in wine country, go wine tasting.  So off we went to Pilot Peak to be treated as tourists.  That's what we thought and for the most part that's what we did, except for Jacque, she forgot she had scheduled a 1 PM meeting with a local group looking to do a fund raising at the winery, so we lost Jacque for a while.  They do it up right with a wine tasting in the winery, then down to the terrace for additional wines and some snacks prepared at the winery.  All free in hopes that you will purchase a few bottles of wine to take home with you, which most people do.

Tourists also visit the Empire Gold Mine located in Grass Valley.  It operated from 1850 until 1956 and produced more than eight billion dollars in golf by today's standards.  They say that there is more than 80 percent of the gold still in the ground.  A mine car can haul out a ton of rock and they say that there is one ounce of gold per ton of rock.  The State of California has done a great job of keeping up the grounds and making them very attractive.

Then it was off to downtown Grass Valley to visit the tasting room, which Pilot Peak shares with two other wineries.  It was set up very nice with Lynn participating significantly in the making of the decor.  What better than a Bloody Mary at a local downtown hotel and bar that was once visited by one of our great presidents that I can't remember.  Then Lynn knew of this local brewery that has good beer and nice ear rings, so we went there for a beer.

Then it was the great Lefty's experience.  We should have known something was wrong when the sign pointing to Lefty's was a right hand.  The bottom line is we waited for food for over two hours and got steamed in the process.

Please note this is a right hand

We went over to Maria's which was about five minutes away, we got there about 9:30 and were seated right away.  My drink was served within 19 seconds and our meal was served within minutes.  Life is good.