From San Francisco, we drove north to the California wine country where we stayed at the Marriott hotel in Napa. From Napa, we toured all around the Napa and Sonoma valleys. We stopped at number of wineries (Domaine Carneros, Beringers, Mondavi) and stumbled upon the California home of the Poughkeepsie based Culinary Institute of America which was previously the home of the Christian Brothers winery in St. Helena. One of the highlights of our stay here was a trip on the California Wine Train. This trip which featured a wonderful culinary style meal wound through much of the Napa Valley were we viewed many of the beautifully kept wineries.

From Napa we traveled north to the lovely town of Mendicino, here we stayed a a B & B called the Joshua Grindle Inn. The Mendicino area features a classic northern California coastline which is quite dramatic and beautiful with steep cliffs and a constant rolling mist. We also went to a terrific local theatre company production of a play called 'el.ee.mos.y.nary' (I won't try to tell you what it was all about). Here in Mendicino we were fortunate to be able to meet two of Jan's California cousins who Jan had not seen since she was a child. Marilyn and Robbie met us for lunch and we spent much of the afternoon talking about family and walking (shopping) around town. We also made arrangements to visit them again the next day at Marilyn's house in Willits as we left Mendicino on our way to the California Gold Country of Grass Valley and Nevada City. Fourtunately, Willits was right on the way for us and we were really glad we could stop and visit.

Our one night stay in Grass Valley featured a stay at the 'famous' Holbrooke Hotel (circa 1851). Several early Presidents (Grant, Harrison, Garfield and Cleveland) and famous folks (Mark Twain, Jim Corbett) stayed there way back in the gold rush days.

From Gold Country, we drove on to Lake Tahoe, Nevada (Mark Twain said 'in all my years and all my travels I have never seen a more beautiful place'). The lake and its surrounding mountains are truly spectacular. Here we stayed at the Tahoe Embassy Suites right next to Harrahs casino (about 25 feet) where we dropped a couple of bucks but saw a great show (Smokey Joe's Cafe). We drove around the entire lake (75 miles of one great view after another), took a boat tour on the lake and ate lunch one day at the Inn at Squaw Creek (a 5 Diamond resort) near Squaw Valley Ski area.

After all this, we headed back to the San Francisco airport with one last night at an airport hotel before flying home the next morning.

We were happy to be home but of course we can't wait to begin planning our next trip!!

As usual, the photos included are only a representative sample of those we took and most do not do justice to the many magnificent and interesting things we saw and did (and people we met).