Our California Road Trip: Days 1-3

13 Jul, 2018

Hello and thanks for visiting our site.

We recently completed our inaugural #acommonciderroadtrip where we traveled throughout our beautiful, amazing and oh so diverse state to introduce ourselves and meet our neighbors in all four of California’s major regions:  Central Valley, Desert, Coast (Southern, Central, and Northern), and Mountains.

We had only two weeks, so we obviously could not make it to every city, every location we wanted to. For those places we missed we’ll get to them on our next trip.  Here is a quick summary of our itinerary and list of places we did visit:

  • Days 1-3: Merced, CA farms; the Merced River and Yosemite Valley, Palm Springs (Central Valley, Mountains, Desert)
  • Days 4-6: Palm Springs Wind Farm, Joshua Tree area, Coachella, San Diego, Torrey Pines, Laguna Beach, Hollywood Sign in LA, Venice Beach (Southern Coast)
  • Days 7-9: Malibu Beach, Santa Barbara, Morro Bay, Davenport Beach, San Francisco (Central Coast)
  • Days 10-12: the Golden Gate Bridge, Muir Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, Redwood Forests on the Northern Coast, Fort Bragg, Crescent City (Northern Coast)
  • Days 13-15: Smith River, Mount Shasta, Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento and Auburn (Northern Coast, Central Valley, Mountains)

Along the way we took some amazing photos and videos that we would like to share with you over the next several posts.

Before we do we would like to say a big “Thank You!” to all the people we met;  who came up to say hello, tell us they loved our ciders or who asked about them, and especially to those who helped us in any way during our trip. (Let’s just say that Google maps wasn’t 100% accurate all of the time.)

Days 1 & 2: Merced Family Farm and on the Merced River
Day 3: Palm Springs Tram

So about our trip…

Day 1 – We started in Auburn, CA where we are based, then headed down Hwy 99 to Merced in Central Valley.

Our van is almost loaded…just one more cooler to go and we are on our way.

First stop, Merced in the Central Valley, a seemingly endless expanse of farms, both big and small.  We thought this would be a great way to start our trip as we use only the best, all natural ingredients for our sparkling hard ciders, and we have farms like the ones we saw in Merced to thank.

The trees are heavy with stone fruit!

We found the Merced Family (Organic) Farm and food stand right outside the town of Merced. It’s owned and farmed by the very friendly and always smiling Kay, and her husband Kao, who was a bit camera-shy.

At the Merced Family farm.
Kay was working in their field right next to the farm stand when we arrived. She very graciously allowed us to photograph her, her field and farm stand.

Day 2 Yosemite Valley and the Merced River

No tour of California would be complete without a visit to the breathtaking Yosemite Valley, and the Merced River that runs through the valley.  It was a very hot day and we were tempted to jump right in to cool down.  The closest we got to doing just that was watching the rafts of Zephyr Whitewater going down the river with their guests.  Maybe next time!

At the Merced River! It was so hot that day that we wanted to dive into the river but we had to settle for watching some folks go whitewater rafting. Still an awesome day!
Half Dome of Yosemite Valley
Bridalveil Waterfall of Yosemite Valley

Day 3 Palm Springs From Above.  Take the Palm Springs Tram to the San Jacinto mountain overlook for an awesome view of Palm Springs and Palm Desert.

Enjoying the view from the top of the Palm Springs Tram.

Palm Springs at dusk. Taken from the top of the Palm Springs Tram.We hope you enjoyed the photos and videos of our first three days.  We have a couple more places to visit in the area tomorrow before heading to San Diego and cooler climes!

Here are a few more photos of Days 1 – 3:


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