Page 167 - 2017 Travel Guide to California

DRIVE
»
TOUR
It may be tempting to cover
the Central Valley by zooming
along on Interstate 5, but
instead, take the slower
HIGHWAY 99—often referred
to as “California’s Main Street,”
and the very same road the
fictional Joad family traveled
in The Grapes of Wrath. Start
in oil-town BAKERSFIELD and
head north toward FRESNO,
MERCED and MODESTO. As
you pass from the San
Joaquin Valley into the
Sacramento River Delta, take
a jog over to Interstate 5 to pass to the west of Sacramento and into
Yolo, Colusa and Glenn counties at the north end of the great
Central Valley.
»
MUST
SEE,
DO
» Old Sacramento Underground Walk
along Sacramento’s underground sidewalks and see
doors and windows to buildings from old Sacramento
before the streets were raised to prevent flooding.
The Gold Rush may have made the city rich, but
more than 30 inches of rain in the winter of 1861
submerged Sacramento for three months.
› sachistorymuseum.org
» Bakersfield Sound Get to know the
distinctive country music style known as the
Bakersfield Sound, popularized by Buck Owens and
Merle Haggard in one of the best places to hear it:
Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace in Bakersfield.
› buckowens.com
» Wine Tasting Pay a visit to one of the 85
wineries in Lodi, with more than 100 varieties in
production, and producing more than 40 percent of
the state’s premium Zinfandel.
› lodiwine.com
» Middle Mountains Hike the Sutter Buttes,
remnants of an ancient volcano and known as the
“world’s smallest mountain range.”
› sutterbutteslandtrust.org
» Old Town Wander through the delta town of
Locke, the only U.S. town built exclusively by the
Chinese for the Chinese.
› locketown.com
A STATELY OAK TREE minds a vineyard
in the Central Valley, opposite; downtown
Fairfield, above; workers harvest
strawberries in the Salinas Valley, left.
2017 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A 165