AMADOR COUNTY RURAL COUNTRY LIVING: Enjoying Live Music In Amador County And Beyond In Northern California

At one point or another my family and I have been coming to Amador County and the surrounding area of Northern California for about 24 years now. The very first time any of us came to visit this area was when my parents went on a mini getaway by themselves when I was at summer camp all the way back in 1998. Since then, we had come back to visit the area so often and started to like it so much that we eventually decided it was the perfect place for us to move to after my dad retired from his job as an I.T. Specialist with the United States Department of Justice. 

Fast forward to the year 2019 and that is exactly what we did. Looking back to that time, I guess it was a good thing that we made the move up Amador County when we did because it wasn't very long after that when the world was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 

Luckily for us we already had over a full year under our belts as new residents of the area to have new experiences and memories before everything would be completely shut down for a long period of time. One of our favorite activities that we had started looking forward to doing every year since our very first visit to the area was to see the various musical concerts that were held at local wineries and other venues that featured some very famous big name bands as well as some very good local groups and musicians.

During a normal year, the various concert events that make Amador County and other parts of Northern California a fun place to be usually begin in the Spring and go on well into the Summer months. 

One of the first concerts we went to after we first moved to the Northern California area before the start of the pandemic was to see the Quebe Sisters in Sutter Creek. The Quebe Sisters are a western swing band that came to the area in March of 2019 to do a performance at the Sutter Creek Theatre. 

The first time we had ever heard of them was when they made an appearance on the Marty Stuart Show on RFD TV and we really liked their music by the end of that show. By the end of the show in Sutter Creek, it turned out to be another good one and my dad Darryl was lucky enough to get a picture with the band members after it was over.

The next big music event that we found ourselves at was a performance of the Legends of Country Rock concert tour in August of 2019 at Helwig Winery in Plymouth, California. At this concert there was a grand total of three very well known bands from the '70's who were considered legends of country rock. They were Poco, Firefall and Pure Prairie League It turned out to be a very good concert overall. 

Pure Prairie League was the first of the three bands to take the stage. They played a lot of their big hits such as Amie, That'll Be The Day and Let Me Love You Tonight. 

After they finished their set, there was an intermission period during which preparations were made for the next band to take the stage. While all of this was happening, my dad was once again able to get a picture taken with the Pure Prairie League band members. 

After the conclusion of intermission the next of the three scheduled bands to take the stage was Firefall. They are known for the song called Just Remember I Love You, which they played, among other tunes as well.

Since they were the second of three bands to perform that night, that meant we were in store for another intermission period before the performance of the third and final band of the night that was Poco. Up to this point considering that the first two bands put on a very good performance overall we had high hopes that Poco would be just as good or better than the first two bands. We soon found out though however that the last band of the night would fall well short of the standard of excellence that was set by the first two bands. 

If I'm not mistaken, I think there may have been a few concert goers who left the show a little early after Poco took the stage to do their set. I'm pretty sure we stayed all the way through to the end of the concert but that didn't change our opinion on which of the three bands had the best overall performance. Our final ranking for best overall performance at the 2019 Legends of Country Rock concert had Firefall take the number one spot followed by Pure Prairie League in the second position and Poco in third.

With the Legends of Country Rock concert in our rearview mirror, the next big concert on our 2019 live music itinerary took place at Harlow's Restaurant and Nightclub in Sacramento. It was there where we saw a band called Gaelic Storm in October of that year. They are a Celtic music band that was formed in Santa Monica, California in 1996. We were first introduced to their music a few years ago when we started watching one of their performances that was on the AXS TV channel. After we started to watch that particular performance, we started to really like the kind of music that they played.

Fast forward to now where we are now settled into the Northern California area, my dad noticed that they were going to be playing a show in the Sacramento area at Harlow's. Since we now residents of the local nearby area, it was an easy decision to say yes and get tickets for the show. The only downside was that it was going to be quite a drive going from the countryside into downtown Sacramento. The good thing though was that the concert was at the beginning of the week on a Monday night if I'm not mistaken.

When we finally arrived at Harlow's we saw that it was a very small establishment that had the vibe of some other small music venues in the L.A. area such as the Troubador. By the time the concert got underway it looked like there was standing room only with all the people that were inside. 

Before Gaelic Storm took the stage there was a kids dancing group that performed as a warm up act. While it was nice to hear and see them perform the number one reason we went there was the for the Gaelic Storm main event! Once the festivities were underway we were treated to a very good show! Lead singer Patrick Murphy and the rest of the band did a great job of interacting with the crowd and keeping us all entertained. 

Whenever they did a song of their that was a good one to dance to, Mr. Murphy would refer to it as a standy up song or something like that. One of the band's songs that I really like which they played that night is called The Night I Punched Russell Crowe. It is one of the bands funniest songs which was also inspired by a true story in which the lead singer punched actor Russell Crowe in the head while working at a bar in Santa Monica because Mr. Crowe refused to stop smoking a cigarette while he was in the bar.

After the concert was over we made our way back to where our van was parked and made our way back home after another satisfying night of music and fun. Since we made the move to Northern California, the three concerts that I have just described in great detail above are just a small sample size of the bands that we have seen since then. 

The list of the other bands that we have seen perform since then consist mostly of some very good cover and tribute bands. Those bands are After Dark, The Kool Shifters...

...Petty Or Not (a Tom Petty tribute band)...

...On Air...

...The Rusty Rockers...

...and Funky Tim and the Merlots. We have seen all these bands play live at one time or another at local venues such as the Helwig Winery in Plymouth, the Italian Picnic Grounds in Sutter Creek, the Amador County Fair in Plymouth, the Kennedy Mine in Jackson, the Lodi Grape Festival and many more places. Ironstone Winery in Murphys located in Calaveras County also has a big amphitheater where they put on live concerts with big name bands such as Train and REO Speedwagon but we have not yet seen a concert from there up to this point.

Now that we are getting back into the swing of things to start 2022, we are looking forward to going to some more concerts and music events over the next few months as we head into the 2022 Spring and Summer seasons in Amador County and beyond!

Tim Musick
Copyright 2022-All Rights Reserved.       

  

Christmas in the Capitol: A Floating Dinner in Sacramento

(Note: This is what we do every Christmas. This year, we're not staying at a hotel, we're driving over from home for the day. Merry Christmas! -Ed)

We must like this hotel, we've stayed here repeatedly over the last decade and a half. At first, it was called the Hallmark Suites. Great free breakfast bar, cocktail lounge, and pool area. Nice two room suites.

It became the Sierra Suites after that then changed into a Hyatt House. All still the same but looking a little worn at our last stay a couple of years ago. Soon after we checked out, it closed down and underwent a year-plus renovations and reopened a few months ago as a Doubletree Suites.

Watch the Video!

Nice location across the street from the Sunrise light rail station, giving you easy access to downtown Sacramento to the west and the even nicer Old Town Folsom to the east.

This time, I was offered a two story loft unit with two bathrooms, mobility access, and two bedrooms each with a king size bed, for the same price as the two room suite we had before.

Well, I can't pass an offer like that up...

After checkin, we take our delicious Doubletree cookies with us to our room in the next building. 

 
The room is indeed spectacular. A large living room with a sink, fridge, coffee maker, and microwave welcome us as we enter (I could picture the sink area being a kitchen before the renovation. Comfortable sofa, deskchair, and large tv dominate the rest of this room.

Beyond that is the downstairs bedroom with it's king-sized bed and bathroom. Funny thing about this accessible bathroom...it is very large but has a tub without a shower on a hose and...no...the management has no bathchair they can put in there. There's a grab bar next to the toilet and a roll-under sink and no door.  I mean none...no sliding door, no curtain, nothing.

(Management offered to move us to a smaller room which would mean Tim would have to move to the sofabed instead of having that large king to himself)

Upstairs is another bedroom with another king bed for Letty and I. Another bathroom up here is smaller and more spartan but...get this...it has a walk-in shower! Swap the tub downstairs with this one and the room would be close to perfect, except for that missing door downstairs.

We do travel with a spare shower chair on road trips for just such an occasion but the room is just too darn nice and big to move to a smaller version. We'll see about some other arrangement for compensation later.

I go to a nearby Wendy's and we feast on Christmas Eve around our hotel room table on some hot 'n juicy burgers while watching old movies on TV. It's a very comfortable, cozy, and low-key evening.

In the morning, we head to the lobby for a light breakfast. In it's previous lives, the hotel had a great, free breakfast bar. The buffet and omelet station are still here but for a price now. A "Continental" buffet is $12.95 and the full buffet is $16.95. A bit much since we basically just want some bagels and fruit.

It's very slow on Christmas morning. The hotel is mostly empty and nobody is eating. The counter guy makes us a deal...pay for a continental buffet, which he'll knock 10% off of because it's Christmas...and we can all share it.

That'll do (pro tip: don't be afraid to negotiate a better deal when you've got the upper hand).

We rest up and clean up (Letty and I have excruciating back pain today we think that was brought on by the uncomfortable couch in the Marriott we stayed at on the way up here) before loading up and heading to Old Sacramento along the riverfront in downtown.

On arrival, we have about a half hour to kill before our reserved time, so we head over to Candy Heaven, a large candy shop known for their generous free sample policy. Sample we do - we even sampled the chocolate covered crickets - and buy some candy for later. (Note: free sampling has been suspended to due Covid-Ed)

It's time to eat so we head over to the Delta King, an historic paddle wheeled river boat permanently docked here. We're shown to a nice table and settle in to eat.

 

This is becoming a tradition for us to come up here and have Christmas dinner on the boat. It's the only time each year the restaurant here serve their turkey dinner.

It's among the best turkey dinners I've ever tasted with a perfectly roasted and juicy bird, stuffing, mashed potatoes and vegetables. It's delicious and filling (that's why we went light on breakfast).

While the entire menu is available, I come strictly for the turkey dinner. Letty and Tim will digress to other menu items such as cioppino, pasta, or even fish 'n chips.

Tummies sated and spirits high, we head back to the hotel to enjoy the rest of the holiday together.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved

Rolling on the River: Exploring the Sacramento River Delta

The farmland rolls away as far as the eye can see. Lazy, seemingly pristine waterways snake through the region, hemmed in by levees to protect the valuable crops below. Grapes ferment in barns while visitors sip tastes in local tasting rooms.

This bucolic area between California's capitol and the coastal mountains blocking the bay area belies it's importance to this very heavily populated state...it is the main water valve for fresh water for the entire state.

It's also very environmentally sensitive. Take too much water from the rivers that drain into it and you get salt water from the ocean seeping in, affecting crops, migrating fish and birds, and poisoning the soil. This is magnified during drought years and deferred maintenance on the levees, canals, and pumps can also wreak havoc.

Today, we'll leave the controversy behind to spend time we've never had to finally explore this region a little deeper.

Our first stop will be to get sustenance for the day. There are a number of old little towns, below the adjacent waterways and protected by levees in the region. Isleton was founded in 1874 with wharf as a steamboat stop between San Francisco and Sacramento.

It was (and is) a heavily agricultural region and, soon, canneries opened up with a 90% Asian workforce. Divided into mostly Chinese and Japanese neighborhoods, you can still see that influence today in the small downtown that looks like a preserved Gold Rush era Chinatown.

Many of the Asian-American families here have roots in the town going back over a century.

Peter Low and his wife, Yee, don't go back that far. It hasn't been quite 40 years since he immigrated from Canton, China and became a dishwasher at the town's Hotel Del Rio. He developed quite a knack for making prime rib and eventually opened his own place two doors down, Peter's Steakhouse.

That's where we're having lunch today.

We enter through the accessible back door by the bar, steps away from the top of the levee. The first floor dining room opens up beyond that and we select a nice table near the front. In summer months, there is an outdoor deck to dine on with great views of the river and the delta beyond. The restaurant has installed an elevator so that guests with mobility issues can access the upper floor, too.

Letty gets a prime rib sandwich while Tim and I each get a prime rib dip. Ours came with fries while my wife went with the clam chowder option. It's all very good but Letty says the chowder is just "ok."

Back in the van, we head over to nearby highway 12 and make a stop at the Delta Farmer's Market. This year-round produce stand benefits the Discover the Delta Foundation.

On this winter day, there's not a lot of fruit...some citrus and grapes, mostly...but there is a lot of veggies and baked goods. We pick up some oranges, mandarins, and snacks for later.

Back on highway 12, we cross the Rio Vista drawbridge where large container ships come in from San Francisco Bay to unload in the Port of Stockton. Keep going, and you'll eventually end up at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield but we're turning right on highway 84 at the other end of the bridge.

Continuing on highway 84, eventually we come to the Real McCoy. It's part of the highway but it's a ferry...one of only two publicly operated river ferries left in the state of California. The other is the J-Mac, on the other side of Ryer Island (where the ferry we're on is taking us) but we'll have to be content with this one as the J-Mac is out of service today.

The Real McCoy operates every 20 minutes so we wait our turn for about 7 minutes before boarding. It's a quick, free trip to the other bank of the river.

Now, it's a somewhat hair-raising drive on narrow, winding, levee top roads until we get to Clarksburg and a stop at Bogle Vineyards to taste some wine and pick up a few bottles for home.

This used to be a reliable, free tasting room but now charges $8 (now a Covid-inflated $20) per person for tasting...refundable if you buy at least $20 for each. We negate this a bit by sharing sips from one tasting glass and then buy a few of the moderately price bottles to meet the threshold.

It's also a good stop for accessible bathrooms and there's a lovely picnic area outside by the grapevines if the weather's cooperating.

With that, our day out on the Delta is over and it's time to head back home.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2019 - All Rights Reserved

Meal Replacements

I'll be honest. There's really very little I miss about living in Southern California. The traffic, the trash, the crowds, the crime, the grime...not one bit. A few things...family and friends, mostly...I do miss. 

One thing is the wide array of great food we had easy access to while living there I miss. I've made it my mission to find replacements of our favorite foods up here in Northern California.

Hamburgers are not a problem. In 'n Out was my favorite cheap hamburger and there are pleny of locations in our new neighborhood, too. Eureka! had my favorite burger, period. They just opened one up in Roseville. Each of those would take us a 30-45 minutes to drive to. 

A bit of a hurdle but not a major one.

There are also a lot of good burgers right here in our county that are very good, too...the whiskey burger at Hotel Sutter, Giant 88 Burgers, Helwig Winery, End of Nowhere (pictured)...so burgers are covered.

Phillipe's French dip is another story. They're very unique (they invented it) and not even in L.A. can I find something like it. We do have a lot of very good French dip sandwiches up here, almost every restaurant makes them and many of them are very good examples but just not the pre-dipped (or double-dipped) ones you get there with their proprietary, house-made hot mustard on every table.

I think this one is just too much of a one-of-a-kind to find but the wide variety of great dips here sure do their best to make up for it.

Our favorite pastrami sandwich was the pastrami dip at The Hat, which is a legendary one. The Capri Deli in Covina was just as good. We've come close with the Frosty Queen...which has locations in Sacramento and Manteca...but it's more like the Kosher Burrito style of pastrami, a really legendary greasy spoon joint in a wooden shack that was part of downtown L.A. before it was torn down and replaced with the CalTrans building.

I'm very happy to find this sandwich but still looking for one like The Hat.

I thought the hardest to replace was going to be the absolutely stunning array of Asian food we enjoyed. We lived in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley, which is probably the main location of the Asian immigrant population in America. We had Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Nepalese, Indian, Japanese cuisines and more. Hundreds of them, with some of the most delicious and spicy flavors you could imagine.

Well, I'm happy to say that...with a little research and patience...we're making great progress on that front. 

For a more traditional Chinese dinner...the kind we used to enjoy at Golden Dragon in Arcadia or Phoenix Garden in San Dimas (neither of which survived the pandemic)...Sacramento has the institution that in Frank Fats. It's very good, too. Their honey walnut shrimp is as good as any shrimp dish we've had back in L.A.

The xiao long bao (pork soup dumplings) at Din Tai Fung in Arcadia are world-famous, and justfiably so.

Luckily, the same dish at Journey to the Dumpling in Elk Grove is just as good.

Their honey walnut shrimp tastes just like Frank Fats, too.

For ramen, my favorite was the spicy tonkatsu ramen at Daikukoya. This Little Tokyo restaurant had another location in El Monte that my wife and I would frequent.

We've replaced that with several versions here, the best being at Yume in Lodi, which is just as good as Daikukoya, maybe even a bit better.

There was another very local, very good ramen place in Sutter Creek but they went under during the pandemic. We also found this version at Umai, in Sheldon (part of Elk Grove) that is like a corn chowder based ramen that was very different but very good tasting as well.

I really loved the been tendon noodle soup that we would have at 88 Noodle in Arcadia...

...and the pho that we'd have at Pho Lemon in Monrovia.

Just up the hill from us, we found a one-dish-for-all solution with the beef tendon pho at Vermicelli in Martell.

What I'm still looking for is a replacement for the outstanding dan dan soup with housemade and hand-pulled noodles, like they have at Noodle St. in Monrovia (Journey to the Dumpling has a version but nowhere near as good), a really good hot and sour soup, and a replacement for the Hollywood Noodle Thai soup that they have at Hollywood Noodle in Temple City.

Pizza is so subjective. There are all kinds and a lot of good options. Our favorites in Southern California were the thin-crust pies at Casa Bianca with their anise heavy housemade sausage in Eagle Rock, the pepperoni/sausage/bacon version at Red Devil in La Verne (photo at top of post)...

...and the deep-dish Chicago style pie at Tony's Little Italy in Placentia.

While we haven't found a Casa Bianca replacement, yet, the pizza at Chicago Fire...a small chain here in the area...

...and another great deep-dish pie at Chicago's Pizza with a Twist, an Indian pizza joint, in Folsom, replace Tony's version just fine.

While their style is just a little different than Red Devil, the pizza at Gold Dust Pizza in Sutter Creek is just as good. Especially when you can eat your slice with a cold beer on their patio along the banks of the town's namesake waterway.

Last, the prime rib at the Bull Pen, a dive bar in Redondo Beach, was the best in Southern California. I never thought I'd find one as good up here.

But I was wrong. Not only as good, but cheaper at Sportsman's Hall in Pollock Pines, Diamond Springs Hotel in Diamond Springs, and even at the greasy spoon environs of the Old Well Cafe in Drytown, who all make a very good prime rib dinner.

We're almost there with finding all our favorites up here, give us a little time and we'll not have anything to miss from our old home.

Darryl Musick

Copyright 2021 - All Rights Reserved