Delta Asphalt Sloughs

Last weekend on the delta was one for car based exploration.  We drove up Saturday morning by a different route that took us past all the windmills near fairfield to approach Rio Vista from the West.  Once we were through Rio Vista we decided to take a scenic drive instead of heading straight to the boat.  I forgot the camera so I will try to add some links...  we drove up to Walnut Grove and Locke. 

These places both have a lot of history to them and were home to a lot of the Chinese who originally built the levees.  There is still a large Asian American presence in both towns and there are some interestring historical spots in both, but particulary Locke, which has kind of an eery feel and is definitely a throw back to another era.

We noticed an ice cream shop (Mel's) in Walnut Grove and stopped in for a scoop.  We noticed some people eating sandwiches and Matt remarked that they looked good.  One of the patron's turned to us and gave his sandwich a rave review and said the roll was especially excellent, so we decided to get a sandwich for later as well.  Well let me tell you, these folks do not mess around.  I ordered a single scoop on a cone and there was so much ice cream on there I had to act fast before I lost any of it off the sides.  Matt got his single in a cup and I think they mounded up about a pint of ice cream in there.  He couldn't even eat it all.  When they realized we were going to share the sandwich they threw in a second bag of chips.  We ate the sandwich later and was indeed delicious.  I think it was called a Hog's back (named after a local landmark) and it had bacon, I think ham AND turkey, cheese, various veggies.  The roll was a type I was not familiar with and cannot remember the name of but it was good and was not soggy even though it was awhile before we ate the sadwich. 

We headed back down 160 and stopped at the Ryde Hotel, which we had noticed on the way up.  The place has a lot of history, it was built in 1927 and had a speakeasy in the cellar back in the day.  We checked out one of the rooms and are considering a visit at some point, or at least going for brunch someitme.  It is right on the river and has beautiful grounds. 

We finally got to the boat sometime in mid afternoon and spent awhile cleaning it, then decided instead of hot dogs for dinner we'd walk over to Alebrijes at the Lighthouse, right next door.  We had a fun time and they had a great band.  Unfortunately we could still here the band quite well when we were back on our boat trying to go to sleep but oh well...

Sunday we decided to try someplace in Isleton for lunch.  We went to the Levee Cafe.  Matt absolutely LOVED the Chile Colorado that he ordered and my BLT was good.  It was a very "hometown" kind of place, nothing fancy and just one person taking care of the whole room (not that they were busy at 2 on Sunday).  Matt wants to go back and try some more of their Mexican Specialties.  I'd love to try their breakfast sometime.

So as you can see we mostly drove and ate our way across the delta.  Next weekend we are letting Joe and Carrie use our boat as a home base for playing with their ski boat so we are going to visit Coyote Point for the first time since June!  We plan to take the boat to Stockton on 8/20 for an overnight and to fill up with diesel at the Chevron station there, which has really good fuel prices.