We made it farther tonight than we had originally planned. We left Tahoe in the morning and drove a few miles through Nevada before getting back into California. The drive is long across the desert, and there are not very many towns along US Highway 395. It finally joined back up with I-40, and we felt like we were back in civilization, although it's still a long way between stopping points on I-40, too. We had planned on staying in Kingman, but it seemed early...

We drove across California from the coast to South Lake Tahoe with a stop at the Sterling Winery near Calistoga. The winery was definitely worth a stop even though it was a bit out of the way on the trip across the state and put us going through heavy traffic in the northern part of the Napa Valley. Philip likes their Reserve Cabernet so we wanted to stop and try out a few of their other wines. To get to the winery you must first ride their gondola 300 feet up th...

Spent three nights at the Glendeven Inn in the Briar Rose Room with a fireplace and a balcony with a view of the ocean. The inn is great and the innkeeper is really helpful, but getting there was a long trip over the mountains, across the valley and through the woods. There was no phone in the room, but there was a phone available for guests in the storage area. Since they had VoIP, they offered free long distance, too. The wi-fi service was difficult to use at f...