Wine Country and Corvettes

April 3^rd, 2015 (Friday):

This morning we finished packing our belongings into the campervan and finished cleaning the studio we had been in all winter. We got our security deposit back which was great, turned in our keys and hit the road. After having a nice lunch at a Sushi restaurant off of Route 80 with Scott’s relatives we continued forward towards San Francisco. I wanted to see Napa Valley and Sonoma (“wine country”), so we went North West off of Route 80. There were rolling hills, vineyards, cows on pastures and several mansions to admire. We took Route 12 to go towards Napa and that road was especially beautiful (maybe because it was such a change from the major highway we had been on for a while).

Napa Valley had a nice downtown that we walked around…checking out the Napa River and a great Antique store. Many of the buildings there are being re-built so it feels like most of the town is under construction. However this quaint town along the river has great potential to be prosperous I’d imagine.

The town of Sonoma had free parking near a baseball field (a game was being played at the time), people were throwing horseshoes and kids played in the park. It had a very laid back, family-friendly feel to it. Yet, we were able to taste wine at a local winery which felt very adult-like to us. We tried several different types of wine (1 oz. purchases at a time). Sonoma has several historical buildings that are preserved and in the town center. There was a sign that states they do tours of the inside of the buildings however we missed the tour that day.

We made our way south down Route 101, crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco welcomed us with the sun setting in the distance and sail boats cruising below us. It was after 730pm when we entered the city and still did not know where we would park Vantastic for the night. We were hoping to come upon a Casino so we could park overnight there, sign up to be a rewards card member (earning free play and breakfast) however our Casino plan didn’t work out. We ended up driving all around the city for about 45 minutes until we figured out there are no large Casinos in San Francisco. We continued South another hour or so and found a Rest Area to sleep at for the night. There were about 15-20 other vehicles there where people had set up camp. Placing their shirts in the window for privacy and darkness. We had some free items we wanted to unload from the RV so we put a bag in front of the restroom area that said “FREE” and by morning everything was gone.

We woke up the next morning to 30+ Corvette cars surrounding our 1986 campervan. Scott had seen three when he woke up and then within thirty minutes, there were many more all around our campervan. It seemed as though they were going to be in a race that day. It was a neat sight to wake up to and watch them all merge onto the highway one after another. There is something powerful when you see people in numbers, whether they’re on motorcycles, sports cars, etc. What presence and attention they command.