Writers in the wild: Wine walkin’ in Downtown Truckee
This past Saturday marked 11 years of marriage for my husband and me and we thought the best way to celebrate would be to enjoy the Downtown Truckee Wine, Walk and Shop.
To avoid looking for parking, we decided to park at my husband’s office off Soaring Way and ride our bikes to Downtown Truckee. We rode along Brockway Rd before cutting into Truckee River Regional Park and enjoying the bike path that takes users down to the Truckee River. The short 3.5-mile, mostly downhill ride was the perfect way to get the blood flowing before starting the event.
The event, which runs from the Old Lumberyard all the way through Downtown Truckee featured 32 stops. A younger version of me would’ve tried to hit as many of those stops as possible but current me wanted to enjoy the festivities more responsibly. We picked up our glasses from the Truckee Welcome Center before heading next door to enjoy our first wine of the day at Engel & Völkers.
We then crossed the street to Bar of America. Our goal was to end at Chase International Real Estate where we could drop off our raffle tickets, while making stops along the way.
While the wine was the main event, many of the stops also served food and those stops were the highlight for me. From spanakopita at Bar of America, bread pudding at Wagon Train Coffee Shop, steak with house-made chimichurri sauce at The Social @ Matices to cinnamon roll popcorn, chocolate caramel marshmallow whisky bacon bark and pumpkin spice pretzels from Cherry Bomb Catering at Piper J Gallery, everything we ate was so delicious.
Because it was October, I dressed for fall weather, however Truckee felt more like summer that day. Luckily, Word After Word had a hydration station where they were pouring electrolytes. So we were able to rehydrate while browsing books and escaping the sun for a bit. I thought one of the coolest parts of the event was that it offered Designated Driver tickets. People who weren’t drinking could still enjoy the food and atmosphere and many of the stops served mocktails, all for half the price. It’s the perfect way to make sure everyone can have fun.
We reached our goal destination at Chase, dropped off our raffle tickets and began walking back to our bikes. We stopped into Drink Coffee Do Stuff to enjoy some iced coffees along the way then we hopped on our bikes and headed back to the car. I’ll tell you, the ride back up the hill was not as quaint and relaxing as the ride down but it was a good way to work off some of the food and wine.
All in all, it was an incredibly fun event. My mom and I have already started planning for a family outing to the wine walk next year.
