Day 4: U.S. and Canada West Coast Drive

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Old Sacramento and Napa Valley

We grabbed breakfast at our hotel in Sonoma, CA. then drove to Old Sacramento in Sacramento, CA. (The weather all day was perfect!)

According to this link, “Old Sacramento Waterfront is a unique 28-acre National Historic Landmark District and State Historic Park that lives in homage to California’s beginning with the Gold Rush of 1849.”

Old Sacramento is not a ghost town, but it did remind me of California’s ghost towns, which can be fun to visit. Growing up in Orange County, CA, we used to visit Calico Ghost Town every now and then (we even camped there), and I used to really enjoy going there when I was a child. If you like to visit ghost towns, you might enjoy Old Sacramento. Both of us enjoyed our time there.

Click here for a few free online maps of Old Sacramento.

According to this link (which has interesting information of some of the buildings in Old Sacramento), “California State Parks owns and operates a number of original and reconstructed buildings as part of Old Sacramento State Historic Park.”

Old Sacramento does not have a fee to enter. There is limited free on-street parking, which we had no problem finding because it was not very busy the day we went. We parked in a very conveniently located, free location.

From what we saw the parking is not that expensive there, and according to this link (which also provides a map showing where some of the parking is in Old Sacramento), “A number of Old Sacramento Waterfront businesses participate in the parking validation program. Stop by any participating business and purchase a minimum of $5 at their establishment. In return, the business will provide you with a validation coupon valid for $5 worth of parking.”

We arrived shortly before 11 a.m. and leisurely walked around the streets of Old Sacramento. The only buildings we walked into were candy shops and a restaurant.

They have a few candy shops, and we bought candy from two of them. The best priced candy shop in Old Sacramento also happens to have, by far, the largest selection of candy, and it’s called Candy Heaven. The salt water taffy selection is impressive! They sell Taffy Town taffy, which is very good taffy, IMO – good texture and great flavors; in fact, I think Taffy Town is the best salt water taffy I’ve ever had, and I’ve tried a lot of salt water taffy. (The cinnamon roll flavored taffy is sooo delicious!)

Something that’s great about Candy Heaven is that you can get however many pieces of each flavor as you would like, and you can try all sorts of flavors. We bought a lot of flavors and enjoyed eating them during some of our long drives we had on this trip – it was fun and tasty.

Enough about the salt water taffy. There is more to Old Sacramento than candy, but that candy shop did rank pretty high up there for me in things I liked about Old Sacramento.

They have restaurants and bars, various types of shops, an old style shooting gallery, carriage and wagon rides, train rides, a paddlewheel riverboat, The California State Railroad Museum, and other things.

My husband tried a 12 ounce cup of Clam Chowder from Railroad Fish & Chips. He liked it, but he didn’t think it was great.

You can see some of Old Sacramento in the photos below. In all we spent about an hour and fifteen minutes there.

After leaving Old Sacramento we grabbed lunch at In-N-Out Burger and grabbed drinks from Panera Bread because we are part of their Sip Club.

Then we continued our drive and headed to Napa Valley.

Our first stop in Napa Valley was Darioush. Unfortunately they were all booked for tastings, but they did offer us a free sample of their wine. The wine we sampled was excellent. Not only is their wine good, but the architecture, landscaping and decor are very nice looking and distinctive from other wineries. Below are a couple of photos we took while there. In person it looks much nice than the photos, and you have to try their wine to know how good it is.

After visiting Darioush we started to realize that every place we drove by either wasn’t open or they were booked. So we drove to Napa Valley Welcome Center at 1300 1st St #313, Napa, CA 94559 (they have other locations which are listed in this link that you’ll see if you scroll down.)

We thought for sure there would be some wineries open to walk-ins like we’ve experienced in Temecula, CA and other countries when visiting their wine regions. The man who assisted us at Napa Valley Welcome Center said that if you’re in Napa Valley on a weekday it’s best to make reservations ahead of time. And since it was already in the afternoon it was likely that most of the wineries were booked for the day. He recommended some places we could stop at to try some good food and suggested we try the wineries on Saturday (the following day.)

Visiting the following day wasn’t an option because we already had reservations that evening a bit of a drive north of Napa Valley, so we drove around Napa Valley, stopped at one of the places he recommended to try some food at, then headed to our motel in Red Bluff, CA.

After checking into our motel, my husband got some pretty good and well priced Chinese take out food and I got something I ended up getting a few more times in the days that followed – a green burrito (Bean & Cheese Burrito with Green Sauce) from Del Taco with extra green sauce on the side. Yummy! Del Taco is so much better than Taco Bell, IMO.

For anyone who loves Del Taco’s Green Sauce, or you’re curious and would like to try it but aren’t able to go to Del Taco, I came up with a recipe to make it at home because we no longer live near any Del Taco locations and I sometimes crave their green sauce. I’ve seen some copy cat recipes for it, and I can tell by looking at the ingredients that they are not going to be the same as the real thing. I think the recipe I came up with is just about the same as the real Del Taco Green Sauce, and my husband think so as well.

My personal recipe for Del Taco’s Green Sauce:

Two 7 oz cans of diced green chilies (Walmart’s brand because I’ve tried other brands and they just aren’t the same)

1 cup of water

2 oz jarred jalapeño peppers

3/4 tsp garlic powder

3/4 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

One very small dash of cumin

1 tsp distilled vinegar

Put all ingredients in medium saucepan and puree with immersion blender – it doesn’t have to be completely pureed, some chunks are good in it. Bring to a boil. Then lower temperature and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Bring off heat and it’s ready to enjoy.

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