Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Napa Trip

We had a change of plans regarding leaving the Reno area due to the weather forecast.  Since we had to go over the Donner Pass and they were calling for snow on Thursday, we moved our departure date up a day.  Better safe than sorry is our motto.

As usual we didn't get an early start, but since we only had a 230 mile drive to our next stopping point, it wasn't a problem.  Rather than tackle the steep incline on US 50 toward Lake Tahoe we drove through Reno and connected with I-80 west and began the long drive to the summit at 7345 ft.  The motorhome ran fine and we kept up with the truck traffic and didn't have a problem doing so.  

I-80 was a great road for the most part until we arrived in the Sacramento area and there was a 15-20 mile stretch of highway that was by far the worst road we've been on for the last 20 years.  Even the worst roads in Alaska were better than this stretch.  

We found the Elks Lodge here in Napa and settled in for the night.  They have 12 rv sites.  We managed to snag the next to last one available and signed up for 4 nights.  The sites are close together and a little tight getting into. 

The traffic in Napa and surrounding area is terrible.  There are huge backups at all signals and it takes 4-5 light changes to make it through some of them.  From what we've seen Napa itself isn't a quaint town like one would think, but more like a long shopping strip.  The draw of the area is the wineries, rather than the town of Napa.  We hope to get out and check out some of the wineries in the next few days.

An added bonus is that an old high school friend of mine lives in Walnut Creek which is south of here.  We are meeting for dinner on Friday.  Bill and I sat next to each other on the varsity basketball bench our sophomore years.  After school he went to college and then a career in the Navy.  I moved to Washington, DC and worked for the Federal Gov't in different agencies.  We have only seen each other at reunions and such but have kept in touch occasionally over the years.   It should be fun catching up on what he has been doing all these years.  I know golf is an important part since he was the best golfer in high school.

That is all for us tonight.  Just another day on the road.   

1 comment:

  1. It's only 58 outside right now. Can you believe that? It's May and it's almost cold. And rain. Flagstaff got a whole lot of snow. Of course, since we're stuck here I am definitely not complaining. Don't taste too many of those wines. You could overload the rig with the bottles.

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