One Thousand Miles

One thousand miles, five nights, two friends, a rainbow and SNOW! We started our southward migration on Wednesday winding our way from the redwoods to the vineyards of Napa Valley. The grapes were all harvested and vines were glowing red and gold with fall leaves. We spent the night in Calistoga, a cozy little town away from some of the Napa bustle. Our short stay included dinner at Jole- which we give top honors for the wood-fired oven baked bread, excellent service and coconut cream pie.




The next day we found our way to Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa. We enjoyed the park's challenging mountain bike trails. I managed to get through the afternoon with only a few bloody scrapes. In Santa Rosa, we visited with our friends Ken and Kelo. We met Ken and Kelo on our Vietnam bike tour last year. Their home sits in the hills outside the city. A beautiful setting with lots of wildlife. We were hoping to see a mountain lion chasing down a pig, but everything was quite tame during our stay. Thank you, K & K, for the warm welcome, wonderful dinner and fun conversation. We were thinking of listing your guest house on Trip Advisor.




The next day, We lingered longer in the area spending the afternoon in Healdsburg- a lovely little hamlet north of Santa Rosa where a troll-sized cottage home goes for $650,000. I guess we won't be moving there!












That evening we spent the night in a truck stop near Lodi. Everyone had pulled off the highway because of heavy rain. It had been a long day and we slept through the storm. Our apologies to all of our other friends and family in NorCal. We will visit you next time.

From Lodi, we drove all the way to Palm Springs arriving past dark. We climbed into the Santa Rosa mountains camping for the night in the national forest. We were blessed with a rainbow early the next morning. However, shortly afterwards, our plan to drive further into the mountains was stymied by the winter storm that started dumping snow!




The snow and high winding droves us back down to the valley and eventually to the Salton Sea.







We discovered that almost no one goes to the Salton Sea except almost all the white pelicans that live in the US. It's not your typical sea, nor is the beach very appealing. But it was a nice venue from which to gaze at the snow covered peaks that we had fled.



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