Quality Inn Petaluma

... of vineyards, grey green olive trees and dark blue grey violet sky. Sort of like a cool Cezanne in the south of France. Wonderful. Next up - Stonefields Vineyards -cosily built into the hillside with equally cozy tasting room with some great wines. At this point rain stops play but we toddle off quite happy with our spoils and spend the evening drinking them. Last bright morning we squeeze in a quick windy 4 km walk ...

... but it is a really quaint, lovely coastal town. Apparently it has a butterfly festival or something-there were butterfly banners and things all over. We stopped and had lunch at a Carl Jr. Burgers. Now I know why Americans are SO fat. We had the medium-fries, drinks. OMG-the burger was very good and HUGE. The serving of fries was huge. The drink was huge-I can't imagine what a large would look like-I'd have to have help to lug out that bucket of Dr. Pepper. Chinese hamburgers at ...

... a long period of time. When I first started planning this trip last year, I had planned on taking Hwy 1 north all the way into Oregon. In discussing my plans with the wonderful people on the Airstream forum I soon changed my route. North of San Franciso would be on Hwy 101 to Benbow, CA, not Hwy 1. The reason is simple, I'm too long to make a safe journey up that section of the Hwy. My trailer is 34' long, and add my Excursion and we're looking at close to 60'. This side ...

... we took a drive into the Wine Country and stopped at a Napa winery named Domaine Carneros. We tried the Pinot Noir sampler and had a cheese plate. The girls, well Sarah, enjoyed it. We packed back into the RV and headed back to the KOA. Driving an RV for things like this is such a waste on gas plus you have to pack up everything whenever you want to go somewhere.

... bought the digital camera - to party. I could sleep for a long time instead. On the next day, Saturday, we hop on the cars and after 11 am we were leaving for a beach. First time since I had arrived, we didn`t turn right, towards San Francisco, but left. We were passing resorts, golf courts, tiny towns, mountains, fields. The closer ocean we were, the more foggy was getting. "I`m going to get a beautiful tan then" - I was thinking. In fact, for the first an hour or so we were ...

... than your fair share of nut jobs wandering the street ... saw one guy so far gone he was threatening his bed roll with physical violence, and hugging a power pole. Heading out early tomorrow to Yosemite ... bit of a ride I suspect through morning traffic but hopefully I'll be travelling against the worst of it! Now I just hope the weather holds, got very cold today and supposed to be packing up sometime this week.

... Naslednji park je bil Yosemith park (za Borutove pojme najbolsi). Narava je tukaj dokaj podobna Julijskim alpam, samo da je kompleten park sestavljen iz granita. V Yosemithu je tudi najvisji slap v ZDA (cca 200m visok), ki ponavadi pozno poleti presahne. Midva imava pac sreco in tokrat ni presahnil. Mozno je bilo splezati tudi do mesta, kjer je voda iz slapa padala v tolmun. To pa sploh ni bilo enostavno, saj so bile skale mokre in izredno spolzke, tako ...

... donker toen ik aankwam. Gelukkig zijn veel winkels hier tot een uur of 7 of zelfs 10 open. Naar het winkelcentrum gelopen, op zoek naar de speelgoedwinkel.<br>Het Embarcadero is eigenlijk geen winkelcentrum zoals wij dat kennen. Het zijn namelijk 4 erg brede en hoge gebouwen, waarvan de onderste 3 verdiepingen als winkelcentra's ingericht zijn.<br>De gebouwen zijn onderling verbonden door middel van loopbruggen. Ook in deze speelgoedwinkel hadden ze veel van Gund ...

... but enjoyed every moment immensely. I have had delightful weather in San Francisco to date. Early spring is wonderful here. Compared to the dryness and heat of mid June 2004, everywhere is green and lush, and the weather is sunny during the days and crisp at night. Already I have been to the San Francisco zoo, but I have spent most of the time with family. The newest addition to the family, little Paris, is a darling, though ...

... not wearing a watch) that we rarely get to experience for more than a week or so at a time. I get almost the same questions from everyone when I talk about this trip... Here are the answers: Am I nervous? Excited? Both. I'm in an odd place-very anxious and excited about the big change that's ahead, but also very happy and content with my life as it is now. I'm not worried that I won't like traveling or my time spent away (I know it will be challenging at times, but also that I'll thrive ...