Settling In at Angel's Camp

It's interesting to see the foothills of the Sierras, the place where the gold rush began. There are a few signs that someone was here digging up the earth some 100 years ago, but not much. The place, Angel's Camp itself, has been built up. But the better places to go are up north.

We went into Murphys last night for dinner. We had gone to lunch there yesterday, and snow (but mostly slush) was all around. Most of the snow has melted but Murphys is a higher elevation and so there's still a trace.

Dinner was at Noto's Tradizioni di Sicilia, a nice little restaurant down the smallish Main Street of Murphys. We were a little delayed for our reservation, but they assured us that wouldn't be a problem. Still, seating 5 people would've been a problem if we had come in at 7:30 pm.

We really had a feast. We had appetizers: calamari, a small bowl of soup (which Maryann shared, actually everything was shared), a couple of salads, and carpacho (raw beef marinated with capers and oil). We each had an entree, and several of those were shared. I had the traditional spaghetti, but I put my meatballs out on a dish because I don't ordinarily like meatballs. Those who tried them agreed with me that they were quite ordinary.

We also shared a bottle of red wine from a local Murphys winery. It was quite good. It had "zinfandel breaks" in it, whatever that meant. And she actually gave us a taste of two other wines; she said she could do that if the wine bottle had been opened.

Aija tells me it's a Milliniere Ghirardelli wine brand, a zinfandel. Ha.

So, it was a very pleasant evening, topped off by two desserts (a chocolate tart and a raspberry cheesecake, both of which were quite unusual and quite good). Then we went out into the cold night, found our way through the slush to the car, and drove the 20 minutes back to Angel's Camp.

Today is probably a lengthy visit to several local wineries for their Valentine's Day weekend.