April 24 - Tuesday "Orange juice anyone?"

In the 1850's California's Central Valley was a vast flat expanse that was the nearly exclusive home of thousands of birds. The whole region was called "Grass Valley" and that was probably all they thought the place was good for, however, a few enterprising farmers began to cultivate the land, using windmills to pump water from the aquifer below and diverting streams for irrigation. A few towns started popping up, but it was hard going for a small town without a good source of income.

Deborah Lazar takes pictures in a Grass Valley sunset

The main business in that region, other than gold mining, was logging but the logs were far up in the mountains and processing them was difficult. The problem was how to get the logs to where they can be processed and shipped. Since there wasn't a river nearby to do the job, they built one, above ground, to carry the logs over 60 miles out of the mountains! This is the famous “V” flume that terminated in Madera- the Spanish word for "wood."

Into this little town came many hopeful Californians looking for a good place to settle down.  For Solomon Lazar the year was 1886 - the year his first son, our grandfather William was born. Solomon had tried his hand at businesses in several locations. The last was Tulare, where several fires had destroyed parts of that town. Before that, he had been in the Oregon territories, Seattle and La Connor. But his fortunes proved illusive in those places and he returned to California to join with his true love and start again, this time in a little promising town called Madera that was growing by leaps and bounds.

That Madera, and the one Deb and I arrived in, are worlds apart, never-the less, they had many things in common. No longer a lumber town, Madera is still a working class town with many surrounding farms of almond, pistachio and olive trees, as well as miles and miles of vineyards. One of the largest plants is owned by Italian Swiss Colony. Some grapes in the valley are grown for the table, many for raisins, while others are used in port wine production.

We arrived in Madera late in the day, tired and ready to rest, so we looked for a place to stay right away. We got a room on the fourth floor of a large hotel, a nice high spot to see our surroundings. Before going up we had a nice talk with the desk attendant, whose roots we learned went about as far back as ours do in that town. In fact, her grandmother probably knew our grandfather!

Everything was going great, then, on the elevator, an odd thing happened when we met another guest.  At our floor Deb got stuck on the elevator trying to get her luggage together. The other guest, a man, was clearly a little tipsy and got off with me, even though it wasn't the floor he had selected. I waited at the door for her and he finally walked off down the hall. (This guy would prove to be a problem later.)

Downtown Madera

As the sun went down we went out to take a few pictures and get some of that Mexican style fast food available everywhere. With several buildings missing, the main part of town has the appearance of  a smile with a few missing teeth.

I had read that the main street used to have at least a dozen bars. Back then, there was even one establishment with a roller skating rink on the second floor where the whole building used to sway when it was full. It was a party town then, and we learned, it is a party town now.

We drove down D street and saw the kind of housing that might have suited the Lazar family when they lived here. There were a couple of Victorian homes still standing that seemed like they could have been a good fit.

House in Madera on D street

Back at the hotel we went to sleep with the window closed because we realized a group of people in the house behind the hotel hadn't finished their last drinks yet and were still a little noisy. We both managed to fight through the noise and catch a little sleep, but at 3AM the party went to a whole new level.

Despite her earplugs, Debbie was awakened by a few large thuds which she thought might have been thunder but on closer inspection she discovered that oranges from the trees were being hurled at the rails and glass door of our veranda. Then we heard the drunk guy in the room above us egging the people down below to throw more!

Deb is not one to take such insanity very long and soon she was on the phone with the desk who were not aware that it was going on. The pummeling and yelling continued for about a half hour but eventually the police came to make them stop and clean up the mess. Later we were glad that we were able to get the cost of the room reimbursed for our troubles. Thank you hotels.com.

Old vine at Ficklin Vineyard

So much for our wild night. On to the wine tasting! The plan the next day was to find a vintner using old vines in the same vicinity where Solomon had planted twenty acres of Malaga grapes in the early 1890’s. The area has a pretty lengthy wine tour, but Deb had looked Ficklin Vineyard up and decided it was the best one to see.

It turned out to be one our favorite stops on the journey. The people were so nice and the aged port wine, grown with very similar grapes as Solomon had planted, was very good. The owner had wild flowers growing between some of the oldest vines and we had a great time taking pictures there.

We also checked out the Historical Society Museum before leaving Madera and were given access to their treasures even though it was typically closed on that day. We got the full tour from a helper who happened to be there putting up displays. His help, and all that was preserved by the Historical Society added to our knowledge of that region immensely.

Our next stop is another crossroads-- the gateway to Yosemite, an old (possibly haunted) village, and the honeymoon spot of our great grandparent's great getaway.

Deborah at Ficklin