Cross Country – 8

Who doesn’t love Carmel, California? The weather is perfect, the scenery is spectacular, the shopping is really good (although Steve passed on the $1495 blue leather jacket that looked great on him!), the restaurants are great, and, there is always the chance that Clint Eastwood will show up! Our hotel was at the street just entering Carmel, so, it was perfect for walking downtown, which we did numerous times.

One has to stop at the Hog’s Breath Inn, Clint Eastwood’s establishment, even for just a quick drink. The weather was actually fairly cool that day, so, the fire was very pleasant. Following that stop we had dinner at Carmel’s Bistro Giovanni with a very outgoing proprietor.

From Carmel the next stop was Nepenthe, just south of Big Sur, for lunch. As suggested, we arrived just about 11:00 a.m. to get in line for seating starting at 11:30 a.m. We were again lucky and had a beautiful day. Upon our return that evening, we had another delicious dinner at The Flying Fish.

The next morning it was off to Yosemite National Park, which now requires that you have a pass to enter the park on the day/s specified. I had ordered it months before the trip as they go fast. We stayed near Oakhurst at the Sierra Sky Ranch. Just outside the rooms, there was a long wraparound porch that was perfect for sitting outdoors. Again, being lucky, we had wonderful weather.

From Yosemite it was on to Napa and definitely our worst hotel experience of the entire trip. I had reserved through Airbnb for a lovely large bedroom at the Meritage Resort. The host asked me to change to a studio apartment, assuring me that it would be lovely. Well, it was actually a time share situation, and, the resort assigns the accommodations. We were provided with a studio on the corner of the first floor with a great view of the maintenance carts with no recourse. Okay, the unit itself was just fine until the next night when we got new upstairs neighbors who had teenagers who made unbelievable noise from early evening until 3:00 a.m. in the morning. We called the management desk many times, and, they finally came to check and sure enough, the kids were making unbelievable noise. So, with about four hours of sleep, we made the longest drive of the trip the next day.

Now back to Napa. We spent the day in the Napa area, having lunch downtown and then driving through the vineyard areas. It had been years since we had visited, so, we should have expected that the area is more of a commercial enterprise than a charming vineyard area. However, the next day we went to Sonoma to visit a few vineyards with me as the designated driver and then to the town of Sonoma, where after a bit (maybe quite a bit) of shopping, we had dinner at a restaurant Oso Sonoma. We both strongly preferred the Sonoma region to the Napa region as, in our opinions, it still retained charm.

Leaving California and having thoroughly enjoyed our time there, one refrain of a song by the Gatlin Brothers still stuck with me: “All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name.”