BAKERSFIELD: The Top Ten Attractions

Last week, I saw a list of the most underrated cities in each state. A wine county up north was listed for California.  That's not even a city and wineries dot this state's map like measles. 

If you know me or are a long time reader of this site, you know what city I think is the most underrated and, no, it's not a joke (it seems every time I post something about this city at the bottom of the San Joaquin Valley, someone thinks I'm pulling their leg).

It's cheap, it's real, it's fun, and it's only two hours north of Los Angeles...Bakersfield.

Here are our top ten attractions in this city that is surprisingly full of them.

10. Take a hike along the Kern River in Hart Park.  When it's flowing good in the spring, you'll see a lot of kayakers challenging themselves in the rapids here.  It's a gorgeous, natural river in a woodland setting, still in the city limits.

9. CALM, also in Hart Park, is Bakersfield's zoo. Only animals that cannot be released into the wild (injured, pets, or too used to humans) are displayed here.

8. Wind Wolves Reserve, south of town, is a very large protected natural area with great hiking up into the adjacent mountains and a birder's paradise.

7. Tule Elk Reserve...climb up into the wheelchair-accessible viewing stand to see if you can see these miniature and endangered elk just west of town.

6. Minor league hockey at Rabobank Arena downtown. The Ducks minor league team, the Condors, play here during the season.

5. Kern County Museum, north of downtown on Chester, has recreated an historical village out of old buildings that were saved and moved here. Next on the list is the house that Merle Haggard grew up in, made out of an old boxcar, which has been moved here and restored. The oil industry section is not to be missed as is their collection of old, Bakersfield neon signs.

4. The Bakersfield Blaze is a single A minor league baseball team that plays in the ancient Sam Lynn Ballpark, just north of the Kern County Museum, also on Chester. (The Blaze discontinued operations in 2016. A new independent team has replaced them, the Bakersfield Train Robbers - Ed)

3. Bakersfield is huge in the world of Country music, it's basically Nashville west and even has it's own "Bakersfield Sound." The last of the true honky tonks sits on Chester in Oildale, across the Kern River from Bakersfield. It's Trout's.  Closed, June 2017. Try Ethel's Old Corral near Hart Park instead.

2. The city has three auto race tracks...a drag strip in nearby Famoso, a 1/2 mile paved track alongside I-5 west of town...Kern Raceway...and Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale.  We prefer the 1/3 mile dirt track of Bakersfield Speedway. The action is tighter and more exciting plus they have decent food and a nice selections of beers.

1. The Crystal Palace is the place to go for a more upscale country music show. This steakhouse and nightclub built by the legendary Buck Owens serves up hearty food and live country music. 

There you go, the top ten things to do in Bakersfield...and we didn't even get into the fantastic array of places to eat yet, either.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

CHEAP GETAWAYS: Budget Friendly Bakersfield

One of the things we wanted to do on this blog is to highlight budget friendly trips in this tight economy. 

We’ve been highlighting one of our favorite weekend getaways, Bakersfield, this week. We’ve also been telling you that it’s friendly on budget. So just how friendly is it?

Here is what you can expect to pay in 2018 for two nights in Bakersfield…

First, you have to get there. It’s approximately 120 miles from Los Angeles, so we’ll start from there. The two hour drive, using a car that gets 16 miles per gallon, will cost you $22.50 each way, or $45 round trip at the current $3 per gallon cost. Figure another 4 gallons for driving around while you’re there and the total comes up to $57.

Be sure to gas up in L.A. and Bakersfield, not in between where the prices can be significantly higher. Bakersfield tends to be a few cents less per gallon than L.A.

GAS - $57

Hotel – Our go-to hotel in Bakersfield is the Springhill Suites where, with a AAA discount, we can usually get a two-room suite for around $85 per night. This price includes a full breakfast. A quick search at Expedia reveals many other quality hotels starting at $50 per night, so a two night stay will be between $110 - $170.

HOTEL - $110 - $170

Food – Bakersfield is a food lover’s heaven and, apart from the hotel breakfast, one big meal usually is enough for us.  From a low of around $14 for stuffing ourselves silly at Los Tacos de Huicho, to a high of around $60 for two dinners and a bottle of wine at Uricchio’s Trattoria or one of the city’s famous Basque restaurants, you will never go hungry here. We’ll put it right in the middle, $30, for two big meals.  We’ll add another $15 for those of you who want to have a lunch between your breakfast and dinner.

FOOD - $90

Fun – There is a lot to do here for fun. Free stuff includes going to the Kern River east of town for some hiking and dipping your feet in the water (we won’t recommend swimming in this sometimes dangerous river). Many nature reserves, such as the Wind Wolves south of town, offer free wildlife viewing and hiking. You can take a drive up into the nearby mountains and search for Sequoia trees…the largest trees on the planet.

Professional baseball at Sam Lynn Park can be had for $8 per person. $5 will get you into the Crystal Palace to see the night's concert.  

FUN - $13 - $15 for two

So there are the prices for all you need for a good Bakersfield weekend, let’s total it up…a two night getaway to Bakersfield from Los Angeles, including a suite, food, gas, and entertainment, will set you back anywhere from $275 to $325 for two people.

Darryl

Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

Stay CALM and Enjoy the Animals: California Living Museum in Bakersfield, California

We've been out to the eastern edges of Bakersfield before, hiking along the Kern River. Today, we've found a new place to visit.

Past the biker bar and honky tonk known as Ethel's Old Corral and the police department's shooting range, along Alfred Harrell Highway, you'll find a green patch among the dirt brown hills with a large parking lot. If you're in the right place, you'll be at the California Living Museum, also known as CALM.

Watch the Video!

Basically, this is Bakersfield's zoo. This particular facility's mission is to care for only California native animals that can't take care of themselves. They may have been injured, raised as a pet or any number of other reasons that they can't make it in the wild.

We're talking black bears, longhorn sheep, eagles, hawks, and a host of other creatures.

It's a Friday morning. The parking lot is pretty much empty. I think we might be the only people here other than staff and volunteers.

Looking at the map, there's a crooked path that makes a loop around the zoo. It's well marked with what is and is not accessible. We'll follow that.

First up are the cats of California, the mountain lion and bobcat, but they're not on display today as the crews clean out their enclosures. Beyond that is a large hillside with a group of longhorn sheep that are feeding.

For the most part, they're content with relaxing and chewing although the big ram of the group butts heads whenever he thinks one of the other family members is taking too much of the meal.

Tim rolls gingerly down into a small ravine where a bridge allows him access to cross the creek at the bottom. On the other side, it's birds of prey. Eagles, osprey, and various hawks make up the population of this aviary.

Mustering up a brave face, he rolls into the reptile house to come face-to-face with the six species of rattlesnakes along with the many other non-venomous snakes from our state.

A pair of hyperactive chipmunks tumble non-stop in their cage in the middle of the room.

On to the mammals, which include mule deer, racoons, badgers, and a very sleepy black bear napping under a sprinkler.

It's on to the pond for waterfowl, a barnyard with domestic farm animals, then my wife's favorite spot.

The desert exhibit...half underground and half above...features tortoises, vultures, and my wife's newest friend, the barn owls.

She's specifically taken with one little owl the staff has told us is named Mr. Fuzzywiggles. He follows her around the entire enclosure, maybe mistaking her for a former caretaker or something.

Cleary, they form a connection but, although you can take many souvenirs home from the gift shop, Mr. Fuzzywiggles will have to stay behind.

One final outstanding plate of tacos and sopes from Los Tacos de Huicho, another night at the Springhill Suites, then it's just a quick drive over the Grapevine back home.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Pictures by Letty
Copyright 2014 - Letty Musick
All Rights Reserved

Back to the Streets of Bakersfield - Part 2

See Part 1 of this report here.

It's morning and, after having breakfast at the dining room of the Homewood Suites,we are heading out to do some thrift shop shopping. Bakersfield is loaded with second hand shops, pawn shops, and antique stores.

Watch the Video!

Before we get out of the parking lot, however, we notice a crowd of cars at the Kaiser Permanente medical clinic next door which is closed for the weekend. We head over to see what the commotion is all about.

The commotion is the Haggin Oaks Farmers Market, which sets up shop here each weekend. 

It's huge, full of organic produce, crafts, food booths, musicians, and even a couple of vendors for your pets.  There are so many free samples of food here we are wondering why we ate at the hotel.

While Letty ponders a few crafts vendors, Tim and I nibble our way through the fruit and food vendors.  We end up with a nice size bag of citrus, some summer stone fruit, fresh squeezed apple/cherry/pomegranate juice (will come in handy later for cocktails), and some craft items my wife picked up.

Luckily, it's next door to the hotel and we've got a kitchen in our room. I stash the food in the fridge to retard the ripening until we go home. 

I drop Letty off at a Goodwill store on Coffee Road while Tim and I run the van through the car wash next door.

The afternoon is spent back at the hotel where we make good use of the pool lift and go for a swim. We meet a couple where the woman grew up here and her boyfriend was visiting from West Virginia. 

We talk and gossip about all the Bakersfield history and characters while having some rum and farmers market juice punches before taking a nap to get ready for the night.

Years ago, Bakersfield had one of the premiere small race tracks in the country, Mesa Marin, with a high banked, paved, 1/2 mile oval.  The relentless march of urbanization doomed the track, which is now a park for a new housing development.

About 15 miles east of where it was, a replacement was built far from the sprawl of Bakersfield in the oil fields off of Interstate 5 on the west side of the valley.  Kern County Raceway Park has opened this year to take the place of Mesa Marin.

Our choices tonight were honky tonking at Trout's...a nightclub in nearby Oildale...or the races. Since we're kind of early birds and the music would take us late into the night, races won over music today.

The facility at Kern County Raceway is brand, spanking new and spiffy. Handicap parking at the gate, liberal use of ramps and elevators, and perfectly placed wheelchair seating in the shade makes this a wonderfully accessible track. 

Letty notices that the initials, put on 5 foot lighted red letters on the top of the stands, are KCRP or K-Crap as she calls it. The track is not crap but the beer selection sure is...Bud, Bud Lite, Bud Lite Lime, and Michelob Ultra are the only choices here.

I told Letty you'd have a better experience if you drank water and hyperventilated.

The evening's festivities start off with a monster truck demonstration where a huge truck smashed three junk cars over and over again, getting flung higher and higher in the air with each pass.

The top class of the night, super stocks, run their main even next (I guess qualifying and heat races are held earlier in the day), followed by mini legends cars whose 8-12 year old drivers race on a small 1/8 mile track.

The kids are treated exactly the same as the adult drivers and get to take a picture with the leggy trophy girl and an interview with the on-track announcer.

Next come super cross motorcycles, basically Motocross bikes with street tires who race around a make-do road course and jump set up on the front straight. I found this race to be my favorite of the evening.

After all that, the open wheel modifieds take the track for their 30-lap main event which provides the only crash...a minor one...of the evening. 

It's a lot of fun and we call it a night after that. It's a very dark ride back into town.

In the morning, we head over to do some shopping. Over in downtown, we hit up a few pawn shops and a jewelry store and even find some things we want to buy but no one's in a mood to make a deal today. 

Next, we head over to J & E Restaurant Supply in Old Kern (the old downtown) where Letty scores with some kitchen items.

Tim and I again abandon Letty but leave her the van this time and we walk the sometimes rough streets of east downtown. A quick jump over to the next block along Mill Creek (a canal spiffed up into a nice little riverwalk) to 18th Street.

It's time to stop in with our friends at Mexicali for one of their wonderful margaritas in their friendly little dark bar. (see our video "Southern California's Top Three Margaritas" for more on Mexicali's version)

Eventually, Letty joins us where we walk nearby to Los Tacos de Huicho to have another plate of sopes and tacos to bookend this weekend.

What a fun place this is. Can't wait to come back to our friendly "home away from home."

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2015 - All Rights Reserved.

HUNGRY? The Great Bakersfield Food Tour.

“Try to stay hungry.”

“I just need a piece of bread or something…”

“I know, but just don’t go overboard…you’ll need your appetite.”

Watch the Video!

So goes the back and forth between my wife and I as we head on across the Tejon Pass, just north of Los Angeles. It’s been a long Lent and now we’re ready to break it. It’s time for a food-centered trip to one of the great, undiscovered food destinations in California…Bakersfield.

It’s mid April as we have an easy drive over the Grapevine. Sunny and warm, it’s the perfect weather for the wildflowers that paint the hillsides above Gorman. Still early for them, they’re just starting the show. Come here at the beginning of May and it should be spectacular.

First up, a snack to hold my wife and son over until dinner. Dewar’s has been in business here over a century making premium ice cream and candy. It’s great, delicious fun but the original location, with it’s tight spaces, is hard on a wheelchair. Fortunately, their new location is just about perfect.

West of the 99 on Rosedale Highway, just past the giant shopping center where WalMart is, you’ll find the new Dewar’s outpost just off of the corner with Callaway Drive. Not only a great, spacious ice cream parlor, you’ll find a museum of Dewar’s…and Bakersfield…history featuring ice cream making implements going back a century and a guitar given to them by local legend Buck Owens that Letty is standing in front of in that picture up above.

Apart from the giant tour buses blocking the handicapped spaces in the parking lot, check-in goes smooth at the Springhill Suites. Apparently, dozens of college swimmers here for a meet will be surrounding us tonight. Pray for us…

Unpacked and very hungry, we head out for our first meal of the weekend.

Bakersfield has a reputation for being gritty. It’s not a completely undeserved one. Walking the streets of downtown, you’ll have no problem spotting the homeless and others who are down on their luck. The blocks just east of downtown are dotted with halfway houses and rehab centers.

The city also is home to some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet and there’s a renaissance just over the next hump. New restaurants, art galleries, nightclubs are edging into spaces next to the old guard, Bakersfield classics. Come downtown on a Friday or Saturday night and the place is alive.

This is where we come for our Friday night dinner to Uricchio’s Trattoria one block west of Chester Avenue on 17^th Street.

We spend a lot of time in this city…a lot. Once we found out the charms and hidden beauty of Bakersfield, we fell in love with it and refer to our frequent stays at the Marriott here as our “timeshare.” Each visit, we try to find at least one new thing to try. This weekend it’s Uricchio’s.

Opened in 1995 by Nick Uricchio, his son Steve, and chef Raphael Hernandez, Uricchio’s serves high-end Italian cuisine in an updated space at very reasonable prices.

At the beginning of dinner service…5:00…we’re able to squeak in without a reservation. The server is very friendly and extremely knowledgeable about the food and the building itself. We notice that some of the windows, most etched with fine detail, have been replaced by plain glass.

Our server tells us that due the historic nature of the building, no one can create windows like that anymore so when one breaks, it can only be replaced by plain glass.

The wine is poured and warm, soft bread is served. Not too long afterward, our entrées appear.

Letty has the linguini pescadora which has seemingly every critter in the ocean swimming in its light marinara sauce. It is pronounced heavenly.

Tim has the manicotti, delicious crepe tubes filled with ricotta and topped with melted mozzarella. He opts to have his covered in meat sauce.  Again, a perfect dish with a nice bold taste to go with our bottle of Syrah.

I have a sublime veal saltimbocca with parmesan potatoes and a delicious vegetable medley on the side. I appreciate the restaurant that tries this dish and love the ones that get it right. Uricchio’s is one of the best I’ve had.

Each entrée is also nicely south of $20.

One meal down, we head back to the hotel to let the food digest and to watch our Angels beat up on the Orioles.

Did I mention we were sharing the hotel with hordes of college swimmers? Luckily, it only took one request to get them to stop screaming in the halls and after bedtime, they were quiet as mice. In the morning, however, these ravenous athletes decimated the hotel’s breakfast bar leaving us with just a cup of yogurt and a bagel.

Oh well, they’ll be checking out today and it’ll be nice, quiet, and empty at the Springhill Suites tonight.

Armed with whatever calories we could find this morning and with quite a few still hanging around from last night, we head south of town to check out another new site for this trip…the Wind Wolves Preserve, nestled up against the backside of the San Gabriel Mountains south of town.

Run by The Wildlands Conservancy, this preserve was purchased from the Tejon Ranch and contains some prime California Condor territory as well as ancient grasslands and canyons.

We don’t have time to go on a long hike and Tim is feeling some ill effects from the heat today so we keep near to the visitor’s center and hang out with a couple of volunteers there looking for birds and any other critters we can find.

About a hundred cliff swallows are flitting about, packing mud under the eaves of the building for nests.

A Bullock’s oriole sips water from a nearby pond before buzzing us up on the balcony.

Tim and I find a bee hive in the roof…hey, where’d Tim go?…as I see the wheelchair flying as far away from the bees as possible.

Some light hiking around the area reveals an algae filled pond with thousands of tadpoles waiting to become frogs. Out on the grasslands, larks sing relentlessly.

It’s back to Bakersfield where the hunger is starting to reassert itself. 5:30 and time for the next stop on our food adventure.  This time, it’s an old friend…Benji’s.

Benji’s is one of Bakersfield’s famed Basque restaurants.  On the edge of one of the city’s oil field no man’s lands, it occupies a corner on Rosedale Highway between an oil rig business and an auction.

Long home to shepherds, the area is known for this unique style of dining. The most famous of the city’s Basque restaurants is Noriega’s, an old boardinghouse in the old downtown area east of the current city center. Most people know it as the place where everybody sits at long tables, passing dishes back and forth family style.

At Benji’s, you sit at your own table but you still share the dishes among you, and what dishes they are! Seating is prompt. The dining room opens at 5:30 and not a minute before, however the bar is open and you’re welcome to enjoy a soothing glass of wine or a strongly mixed picon punch before your meal.

Once seated, your server will take your drink order then give you a basket of crusty French bread, accompanied by their spicy, warm salsa and butter.

A big tureen of thin, vegetable soup is next, served with a plate of beans used to thicken it up. It’s all made from scratch and is incredibly delicious…much more than the thin broth would indicate.

The salad…another large bowl to be shared by all…arrives. In all of my life, I have never had a salad and house dressing better than they make here at Benji’s. Fresh produce, along with a plate of ripe tomatoes and onions, and their creamy house dressing make this a dish I could make a meal of.

Along with the salad course comes the pickled cow’s tongue. If you’ve never had it, what a treat you’re missing. Beefy and covered in a slightly tart sauce, this delicacy will have you asking for more.

Next comes the main course, with green beans and fries, your entrée is served. That is a ton of food so we do what most people do now and order one entrée with the rest of us getting the “set up.” The set up is the entire meal as described above, less the entrée. Our one entrée tonight is a big, medium rare rib eye steak that we cut into thirds and share.

We are completely, satisfyingly stuffed. Dinners here are also reasonable, most entrées between $14 and $20 with a set up going for $13.95.

Dinner over, we head to the other side of the freeway to Sam Lynn Ballpark and spend the evening watching the local minor league team, the Bakersfield Blaze, win over the San Jose Giants.

The Blaze is now affiliated with the Cincinatti Reds and we get to see a true superstar, Ken Griffey, Sr., take the field as he is now managing this team.

(Note: The Blaze discontinued operations in 2016 - Ed)

Game over, it’s back to a very quiet and empty hotel to sleep off the day.

Sunday morning dawns and we pack up to get ready for the trip home. After checking out, we head across the street to Costco to gas up, down the street to Cruz Thru Car Wash to get the dust and bugs off of the van, and then to the food highlight of any trip to Bakersfield for us.

Back across town, on a quiet side street off of busy Union Avenue, sits the little neon green building that makes the best food in the world. No longer visible to customers since it’s been moved back in the kitchen, marinated pieces of pork slowly spin on a vertical spit known as a trompo. A large onion sits on top of the stack as the heat makes the juice trickle down the side as it all slowly cooks.

The cook takes a tortilla, quickly fries it on the lard coated flat top. A sharp knife is used to carve the cooked pieces of meat off of the trompo and placed into the tortilla. This shepherd’s style of Mexican pork is known as al pastor and no one does it better than Los Tacos de Huicho, the little taco stand that could, sitting here in this bright green building in the rundown neighborhood east of downtown.

We have been known to drive out of our way to make it a meal at this place and wouldn’t think twice about the two hour drive from L.A. just to have some.

The taco comes plain, meat only, on the tortilla and you finish it off at the condiment bar next to the counter. Here, you’ll find chopped onions, cilantro, pickled and fresh radishes, deep fried jalapeño peppers, green salsa, red salsa, and…the star of the bar…their absolutely breathtaking creamy, spicy, guacamole. For me and the al pastor, it’s onions, cilantro, their fiery hot red salsa, and the guacamole.

That’s one heck of a taco for only 99 cents (now $1.09 - Ed)

In addition, their burritos, sopes, and other dishes called gringas and mulas, are very good. There is not a bad thing on the menu here. One item I get that grosses a lot of my friends out are the tripas tacos…intestines fried to a cruncy bite wrapped in a tortilla. It is another taste I’d drive two hours for.

For some reason, this little Mexican restaurant in Bakersfield also makes some of the best seasoned French fries you’ll ever find.

This will pretty much be all the food we need today…two burritos (one chile verde, the other bean and cheese), two tripas tacos, two tacos al pastor, two carne asada sopes, and an order of fries.

Filled to the brim, it’s back on the 99, heading for home already making plans for the next time.

Darryl

Copyright 2012 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved