The drive to Carmel-by-the-sea took around 4 hours with a quick stop along the way for some tacos. We ditched our bags at the hotel and the hostess banned us from logging onto the wifi so we went for a walk down the main street to scope things out. The afternoon was still young so we followed this up with a run along the beach with a chilly swim (California seawater is a lot colder than we were expecting!). Van then found a great seafood place close by called Mon...

Lake Tahoe to Yosemite Valley We grabbed a flat white from Starbucks and then started on the road toward Yosemite in earnest. Van had her first go behind the wheel for the trip and was lucky to get some varied single lane driving through M*** Pass for a couple of hours. At Mono lake we stopped for a little ice-cream and switched drivers with Matty taking the Tiogo Pass leg. At the entrance to Yosemite National Park there was a kiosk where we had to pay a $30 veh...

Very quick hello and goodbye at Lake Tahoe. We picked up some supplies at the South Lake Tahoe township before heading to our campsite at DL Bliss and watched the sun slowly go down from the lakeshore beach. Highlight (other than the scenery) for Matt was the sausages cooked over the campfire (SO good!) and his Davidoff pencil cigars with some Napa Valley vinos. Smores for dessert were also a good idea. Quick run in the morning and a swim in Lake Tahoe was a good...

We managed to check out of our San Fran lodgings at a reasonable time and mosied our way up the road to Napa Valley. First on our wine tasting list was Jamieson Ranch which was a pretty huge establishment. We then swung through the Napa township to pick up some cheese and bread for lunch before making our way to Reynolds Family and Stags Leap Valley Cellars (reminded us of Craggy Range and was the first red wine to be rated better than the French from a blind tas...

Less than a week after returning from our action-packed weekend in Calgary/Banff we were again taking the early afternoon edition of the UP Express to Toronto Airport, excited to set off on our trip to the US and much in need of a decent break! Friday was a big travel day, with us boarding the train for the airport at 1:15 PM and finally arriving in our hotel in San Fran over 12 hours later. Our route took us through Salt Lake City airport where we had a relativ...