Welcome to Wine country

We've been in wine country for three days now. It's a very beautiful part of the country and the wine is good too!

Some of the vineyards are very elaborate. The picture below is Rodney Strong, and we were impressed with their estate wines (wines sold only at the vineyard).

It's a good thing we were on a tour!

The picture of the grapevine shows how knotty and gnarled they get as they get older -- this one is over 100 years old.

The picture to the right is a cork tree. The bark is the primary source for wine bottle corks. They begin producing the cork bark at 40-50 years and can live productively for about 300 years.

Overall, our favorite winery is the Trinchero Vineyards. We've liked Trinchero wines for many years, and found out today that the Trinchero Family Estate is very large and encompasses Trinchero, Main Street, Sutter Home and Folie a Deue -- Menage a Trois.

Some of the vineyards are very small, with 10 acres and some are huge with over 1,000 acres. Many of them don't make wine - they just grow the grapes and sell them to other wineries.

There are hundreds of wineries in the area and they each have a different "personality".

We learned that the way to make a small fortune in the wine business is to start with a very large fortune and watch it shrink!

We had lunch in the city of Napa. The police had streets blocked off because someone put a live grenade in the bushes in front of a building just outside the restaurant. The buildings were evacuated and the bomb squad arrived and exploded the grenade, which made a big bang! Everyone was excited!

Tomorrow we are leaving for Yosemite National Park. We hear some of the roads are still closed due to snow, so we plan to have an adventure!

Love to all.

A note about the roads

For the past four days we've been travelling CA Hwy 1. It's the twistiest, turniest, most up and down road we've been on for a long time.

We travelled highway 1 from Newport Beach all the way up to the Redwoods. Today we came back down to Santa Rosa on Hwy 101. This is a picture of our GPS. The yellow line is 101 and the red line is 1. It was quite a drive! But Beautiful!

As we got close to Santa Rosa the roads got really busy because 2nd leg of the Amgen Bicycle Race ended in Santa Rosa this afternoon. Lance Armstrong is 10 seconds behind the leader right now.

Avenue of the Giants

Today we drove through the Redwood Forest. It was awesome! The trees are huge and beautiful. They grow straight and very tall and very old. The picture to the right is the road through the forest. The picture below is me at Founders Tree.

I'm standing next to a tree that has fallen down.

and Neal is hiding. Maybe he can work part time as a Keebler Elf???

This video is very interesting, but it's sideways and I could not figure how to turn it, so you'll have to turn your head sideways. Sorry

Today we saw hikers, bikers, cyclists. cows, sheep,
old hippies with peace signs, wild turkeys, a golden eagle
and lots of scenery but no whales. We tried very hard, but we did not see any whales. Might be the wrong time of year.

We stopped at a winery for a wine tasting, which was very good, then drove the most twisted road we've ever seen.
Cheers!







We did see some big trees. We are getting into the Redwood forest area, so we had to have a picture going through the Chandler tree and we got our picture taken inside a hollow redwood log.

Tonight is to rest, and tomorrow we explore the redwood forest.
Toodles......

Golden Gate Fog

Hi there! Today feels like a slow day, so we stopped early to watch the race, wash clothes, enjoy the pool and rest!


The weather around San Francisco is foggy and misty, so most of our pictures did not turn out very well. To the left is half of the Golden Gate Bridge. The picture below is typical of many of the houses around San Francisco -- it's so wet that many of the houses have moss on the roof.






In central and northern California we see lots of organic farm stands, hikers and bicyclists. We have not seen very many fast food places. There are more surf board shops and spas than there are restaurants!

The views along the coastal highway are spectacular but Neal says it's ruining his gas mileage!


We've now driven 3,805 miles. It's a great experience.


Tomorrow we will be on a search for whales as we head north to Redwood country.

Elephant Seals

These Elelphant Seals are molting, and while doing that they lay around on the beach looking a lot like beached manatees.

There are hundreds of them. Some of the younger males fight, but that's about all they seem to do. In the video clip below I tried to capture their sounds.

Travel Day to Watsonville

What a Travel Day! We left Newport Beach early this morning to avoid the LA traffic. We avoided the traffic, but not the smog!

We are travelling North on Highway 1 and the views are terrific!

We saw a jay and Neal found a friend.

We were stopped four times for reconstruction of the road. The southbound lane of the road washed out and they took it down to one lane while they fix the road. It looks a bit scarey!