Unfortunately we forgot to fill the car up with petrol too though, so halfway over a range of mountains the fuel light came on and we had a tense half an hour as we freewheeled down the hills into Calistoga in the Napa Valley. A gas station materialised and we set off again into row upon upon row of vines and Wine Country worked it's peculiar magic.
We checked into the El Bonito motel to find the largest beds ever slept in by man.
And, of course, because it was Wine Country there were complimentary glasses and corkscrew where the complimentary miniature soap would be in the other places we'd becme used to.
A quick tour round the Beringer winery later and we were sitting on our porch drinking one of the bottles we'd just bought, watching the hummingbirds flit around in front of us.
It really is a beautiful place and we headed into town to sample the local night-life. For the first time we felt like we were in a real town with real people our own age and we find a nice bar with live music and a pool table.
This being America the group we ended up playing pool with were Australian, but we got on famously, argued about cricket and drank tequilas. One of them, Dan, was a vintner over to learn his trade who had a bike to get around. Of course, this meant we had to do bunny hops in the street and generally arse about. Though when Dan got on he pedalled twice, rode into a wall and fell off, which of course we found hilarious and walked off into the night laughing our asses off. San Francisco tomorrow.
