Playing Tourist at the Bradley Lodge

After buying a new car on Tuesday I put it to the test beginning Wednesday. I started my nearly 500 mile "test drive" to Napa on Wednesday morning and ended today after spending time with friends at the Bradley Lodge. After two days in Napa, I met friends on Thursday evening at my parents' house and headed to the Bradley Lodge to play tourist for a few days.

Friday we drove down to Murphys for the day, visiting Mercer Caverns, downtown Murphys, and Ironstone Vineyards. The caverns are always impressive, lunch at Firewood was tasty, and Ironstone was a great place to finish out our day with a little bit of wine and I got to show my friends the giant piece of gold they have in their museum, while also showing them the beautiful grounds of the winery and amphitheatre.

On Saturday we took a shorter drive down to Big Trees State Park to see big trees and drove down to Beaver Creek for lunch and exploration. Once back at the Bradley Lodge we decided to go to the pool and then met up with my parents to head down to Arnold for a Saturday night concert in the park to listen to Chains Required, who we had heard open for Shane Dwight at the Ironstone Fourth of July celebration a few years ago.

After packing up on Sunday we took one last field trip to the Sierra Nevada Logging Museum and White Pines Lake. It was my first time going inside the museum and it was fun to read about some of the equipment they had and to find out there was a chainsaw with the same name as my brother.
Photos for those with iPads.