Northern California Day Trip

The gloomy days got to us.  We had to get out of the house.  But – what to do?  We finally decided on an afternoon drive up to the little town of Williams, California and it’s great local dining hole – Granzella’s.  If you are going north on I-5, this is a “must stop”.

The weather was very gloomy but we did see numerous interesting things on the drive up.  There are lots of Almond  and Walnut orchards,

vineyards, and tons of rice fields.  These pictures are not very easy to see because it was a very gloomy, overcast day.

We were amazed at how many rice fields there are in the northern central valley.  After we got home, I did a little research on growing rice.  Did you know that the fields are flooded to about 5 inches deep, then sowed by airplane, and remain with 5 inches of water in the fields until such time as the rice is ready to harvest.  The fields are then drained and dried out enough to enter with the harvesting equipment.  The rice is then processed and dried until ready for sale or shipment to end users.  Here is a grain processing plant at Sutton, CA.  These are some huge drying/storage bins.

This facility is operated by Trinidad Denham Corp whose headquarters are located in Denver, CO.  This company is the largest packer of beans, rice, and popcorn in the U.S.

Anyway, back to Granzella’s.  We have been stopping here off and on for about 10 years.  It has always been a good place to eat.  It recently burned down (2007), but was rebuilt and it is better than ever.  The food was always outstanding and now the new facility also looks really nice.  The clientele looks to be a mixture of locals and road traffic from I-5.  The restaurant is only about 200 yards from the freeway.

They have a very nice deli counter, lots of specialty items, a great selection of olives and wine, and two dining areas.  The first is the regular dining room and secondly, they serve food in the bar.  We like to eat there.  The bar area is lined with mounted heads of big game shot by the original owners.

It was about a 5 hr. ride from start to finish.  We had a great lunch and saw lots of nice farm country.  It is always fun to drive through small farm towns to see what is unique about each one.