Welcome to Winters 2021 — Page 5
Family adventure on the road to Esparto By Taylor Buley Publisher Amid the hot, final days of summer it was difficult to get the kids to agree to go with me. But, with the kerplunk of a de-energized television and the heavy sigh of a closed laptop, both of my children were in the air-conditioned truck and we were off on adventure west of Interstate 505 to return hours later only on the condition of a full stomach. As far as things usually go for the area, these days Esparto and its nearby neighbors are bursting with activity. With eyes open to seeing these new opportunities myself, and a hankering for a hamburger, my boys and I turned errands into an adventure with a car trip through Capay Valley. As we left northward, where County Road 89 stops pretending in Winters to be a highfalutin avenue, we were escorted out of town by the beautiful Hostetler almond orchards and the future raisins that line them. The first in a procession of wonderful opportunities to see firsthand the handiwork of our neighbors in our agriculturally-rich homeland. Next, we drove by a melon field with harvest seemingly underway. We saw hayfields and corn, unripe walnuts and dried up sunflowers. Some fields on Road 89 stretched verdant and replete with tomatoes; others laid bare, full only of opportunity. Driving beyond Park Winters, the famous event venue that approximates the Greater Winters Area’s northernmost boundary, my kids stare out the window at the rows of crops as we go onward to Esparto.
As we left northward, where County Road 89 stops pretending in Winters to be a highfalutin avenue, we were escorted out of town by the beautiful Hostetler almond orchards and the future raisins that line them. Agricultural well after agricultural well passes by, with an increasing number of trees joining them at high speed. The abundant land is abuzz with an abundance of pollinators, much of them imported by hive and visiting Yolo County today along with us. Our trip left Road 89 at Guy’s Corner, where the recent installation of a nearby roundabout has all but redefined the face of Madison. My kids were unimpressed at the renovation, but as I safely merged onto California State Route 16, I wondered whether the roundabout there vexed and confused its neighbors as much as the first roundabout had done so in Winters. With the migrant center in the rearview mirror, however, I soon shook off the wonder, reminding myself that I really need to visit La Plazita, the nondescript taqueria — that, ipso facto, I figure — must be amazing. Onward we drove, eyes out for change on our way toward Esparto, Brooks and Rumsey. Near another ugly Dollar General we passed by Manas Ranch Custom Meat Market, the final
Full Belly Farm/Courtesy photo
Sheep graze at Full Belly Farm near Guinda in the Capay Valley. caretaker of so many local FFA project animals. The hamburger cravings intensified. Our eventual goal was lunch at the Esparto eatery, Ravine on 16, opened up two years ago by James Kinter, son of Paula, who owns the excellent Road Trip Bar & Grill. Road Trip is a longtime favorite in our family as an adventure destination for soft serve ice cream, and, staying in the family, Ravine on 16 has become a favorite pitstop of mine whenever business calls me into Capay Valley. It serves Woodland’s Blue Note Brewery on tap and has a picture of Buster Posey on the wall. As you turn into town, to get to Ravine on 16 you pass the spectacular Tuli Mem Park, the multi-million public swim facility that also
opened in 2019. Its accompanying basketball court and baseball field, circular art installation and sculptural crane put a $2.9 million California Department of Parks and Recreation grant to good use. Across Yolo Avenue, the main street in Esparto where our roadway again masquerades as an avenue, you can see capital fundraising signage for the future community health center whose land was purchased by the Yocha Dehe tribe. Winters-born nonprofit RISE Inc. will work in partnership with Winters Healthcare on new community health services. The new facility, sited on roughly two acres, will join the 9-acre recreational facility to form a beautiful gateway welcoming roadtrippers to Esparto.
Our goal is not far past Esparto Park and the fire station, next to the bodega that sells the best candied calabasa (squash) pickled in piloncillo, essentially a Mexican brown sugar. It has been structurally renovated, too, expanded and opened as a kitchen, transforming into El Toro Meat Market and Taqueria. El Toro is also a great place to pick up local watermelon from Durst Organic Farms or two-for-a-dollar sweet corn from Simonis ranch. It is perhaps the best sweet corn in the world. We blew past our intended target, instead turning at the newly painted blue train across from Hog’s Canyon restaurant at the far end of town. Adventure called, I surmised, and we went onward on our roadtrip, toward Road Trip. Eventually we drove past that storied rest stop, too. We drove beyond the turn that, on another day, we might have taken to Dunningan or Rumsey or to brunch in Guinda at The Commons Farm Kitchen & Bar. Before returning to Esparto for our meal at Ravine on 16 — pizza and hamburgers with sippy cups and sustainable straws — and finally home, I thought to see what Cache Creek looked like these days. On the way we were treated to beautiful chaparral vistas dotted with roadside olives and hillside gall-covered oaks. As the road curves on its way to Cache Creek Casino it nestles beautiful, mature farms like Capay Organic, Taber Ranch and Farm Fresh to You. The new hotel is towering, and almost foreboding: the perfect adventure endstop and a signal for lunchtime.
