I’m in Arcata and anxious to get back on the road. So I’ve uploaded some photos from SF and all my currently written blog enteries a bit prematurely. I haven’t had proper time to edit photos, include them in the blog, or to do a proper spell/grammer check on the blog entries. I will… just give me some time. Until then you can read my rough drafts and check out a few photos on the Flickr site.

I don’t like planning… but I spent the day planning the rest of the road-trip. I just wanted to lay down a rough schedule, that was feasible. Unfortunately I don’t think there is any way I’ll be able to make it to Vancouver and then to Pennsylvania in time. I must be in Pennsylvania by Aug. 26th. On Aug. 29th, Elena will be flying in, and then we will be heading to the Adirondaks together with Matt and Em and a few of their friends. Many of which we’ve met before when we went to Vail back in March. They are all a fun group of people and we’re really looking forward to it. The need to be there by a certain date is good for me though, it give me incentive to keep moving. Regardless I planned out my “ideal” trip which involved driving 4-5 hours a day and driving up highway 1/101 all the way to Forks, WA on the Olympic Peninsula, then taking the ferry to Victoria island (British Columbia) and another ferry to Vancouver, then driving down through Seattle, through Yellow stone National Park, and on to Pennsylvania. Only that would take way to long… So I’m driving north until the weekend, we-evaluating and then heading east. As I say all the time, sure I could drive all those places in that time frame, but if I just drove 12 hours a day and never stopped to enjoy any of those placed what would be the point? So… we’ll see how fast/slow I make it northward and we-evaluate. I have a plan from Yellow stone to Pennsylvania, I just need to figure out how much I can squeeze on the west coast before I head east.

Tonight Jon and I went into Orinda for Sushi and had a great time. Amazing good sushi, probably the last sushi I’ll have for a long time…

(check back in a few days for photos, until then check out flickr)

Jon and I headed to Napa this afternoon. I’ve always wanted to go to Napa and never realized just how close to the east bay it was. It was a really nice afternoon. We went to 4-5 wineries. The first winery was so-so, they had one wine I’ve had and really like, but most were nothing special. However, I picked something up there for my girlfriend that I’m sure she’ll like. Hehe… reading this is going to drive her crazy. After that we went by Stag’s Leap Cellars, which is one of my favorites, where among other wines we tried a 1998 FAY Cabernet that was heavenly. At $90 a bottle though I passed on picking on up to haul around the country. The other great wine we had was a Syrah at Plumjack Winery, which Jon bought a bottle of and we drank at home that night. I picked up a bottle of Madeira (Similar to Taney Port) at the last winery we went to, V. Sutti. All the wines at V. Sutti were average or below average except for this which was pretty good. Anyway, it’ll do find cross country and hopefully will be enjoyed by all in the Adirondacks in a couple weeks.

Elena, don’t even ask… I’m not telling.