Napa to Yosemite

Top temperature: 104 degrees fahrenheit (hot!! in degrees celcius)
Mileage driven in USA: 1025.
Sunburn: coming along quite nicely (i keep calling colin a red neck).
Accidents: knife or otherwise: nil.
Insect bites: 1 each only.
Beard: Colin's is now as long as it was before he shaved it all off in L.A. I still don't have one!


Firstly a big thankyou to everyone who sent birthday greetings to colin. Much appreciated. So the birthday was spent in Napa valley and, as you can see from the photos, we were mostly drinking wine, and really nice wine at that. We did also manage to head up the valley during the daytime to Robert Louis Stevenson State park where we did a great little walk. Well it was great until Colin pointed out I had just stepped over a snake. Thank god i never saw it but i was a bit freaked out nonetheless. Probably not as freaked as the snake who nearly got trodden on by my size 8's!! Then in the evening we went out for an enormous steak for Colin's birthday meal.

We spent 3 lovely nights in Napa at a gorgeous B&B which is the last of the Napa photos. Apparently it has recently been filmed for a TV show which will be shown soonish in the UK called "Three in a bed". If anyone should happen to notice when the show starts being aired could you please let us know, as we promised the owner of the B&B that we'd email him if we heard anything.

The wine tour was great. Bought a few bottles to help out the Californian economy, of course! Now we're in a motel in a small town a short drive from Yosemite and not much happens here so the wine is perfect for nights in.

We're in a place called Mariposa which is about 35 miles from Yosemite park entrance. We drove there today. Even when places are not far away, it seems to take a long time to get to them in the states as the speed limit is 55mph on most roads. However, the drive into the park is so nice we don't mind having to do it for 4 days.

Went into Yosemite valley today which was so spectacular i don't think even the photos will do it justice - even the one Colin photoshopped to try to look like the original Ansel Adams one (for anyone not familiar he is famous for his photography in this area). Apart from it being summer instead of winter and the trees being bigger i think you'll agree there's not a lot of difference. It really is incredible here. You can't imagine how enormous the mountains are, and the giant redwood trees. The photo Colin posted was taken in Big Trees park (bet they thought long and hard about that one!) on the way to Mariposa where we did a 7 mile walk which was fantastic, if a little dusty.

Tomorrow we have booked some horses to take us around to give our legs a break. I have decided i would like a clean horse who is friendly. Colin just wants one that is not stubborn like one he rode when we went on holiday in Devon a few years ago. Seriously, it just wanted to eat grass, thats all! We'll let you know how that works out. Hope you're all enjoying the blog and photos.