Saturday 24th September

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Today we had along drive of about 200 miles from Yosemite Lakes to Petaluma in Sonoma County. Before setting off the resident mechanic had to fix our leaking waste hose as we needed to dump again. The gasket we had bought was not quite the right one, but it was duly adapted and fitted - result no leakage. We still have a leaking fresh water hose; a new washer has not stopped the leaking from the pressure regulator. That looks like a job for tomorrow.

The way suggested by our tour booklet for today involved lots of travelling on toll roads and interstate highways, so our tour leader had put together an alternative route and that was the one we choose to follow. Initially we were travelling out of the pine forest area around Yosemite and then we saw a sign saying sharp bends for 5 miles. They were not exaggerating as we slowly snaked our way down and down, rock face on my side and blind bends to be crawled around. Of course we had to meet a concrete mixer and a large school bus (it's Saturday isn't it) as we descended, but we breathed in and managed to get through. Soon after that the scenery changed and we were driving through quite a dry brown landscape with very few trees, but still quite a large vista. We eventually reached a much busier highway, with a lot of traffic, which we hadn't experienced since leaving Las Vegas.

Thankfully we were soon out in the countryside again, which had now changed to orchards alongside the road, with the occasional stall selling produce ,so we stopped at one to buy some fruit:-huge plums, peaches and large juicy strawberries. They were not cheap, so far the food here is much more expensive than last time we were in the US. Soon after we spied the Western Railway Museum with a lovely big car park, so we turned in, as it looked a good spot to park for lunch. America does not appear to 'do' lay byes, certainly not around here and any they do are called drive outs and are for slow vehicles like us, to pull over and let the traffic behind past. We were not the only members of our party to stop here, one being there already and another arriving later, when we had gone into the museum. As it was a members day, they were running lots of old historic trains along the restored track of the Sacramento Northern Railway, so we had a ride on an old electric train restored to how it would have looked in the 1950's. After a look around at other trains and trams, we continued our journey.

We were now travelling through the vineyards, with row after row of vines stretching over nearby hillsides. There were signs to many different ones, some of them having chateau-like buildings visible from the road and many advertising free tastings. This is what we will be doing tomorrow, as we have a days excursion to 3 different vineyards.

The last part of the journey involved travelling along a very busy interstate highway, so we were very releaved when we eventually turned off it and found our campsite for the next two nights. This is a very busy site, probably because it's the weekend and there are many children around all enjoying the swimming pool, playground and petting corner. It's now very hot again, about 34 °C today, so will have to strip the bed of the 4 blankets we have needed for the last three nights!

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[BARBARA HARCOMBE]

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