Vintage Inn in Yountville was lovely - thanks for the recommendation - although they tried to charge me $139 for three telephone calls of three minutes, four minutes and six minutes duration.

Even with the favourable Canadian/USA dollar exchange rate at the moment, I thought that was somewhat usery, particularly considering we were phoning home from Italy earlier this year for about $5 per call!!!

So I talked them down on the phone bill by 50% which is obviously the portion they were taking for themselves with the phone company getting the rest.

We're warned to watch out for those kinds of charges using a cell phone but it was totally unexpected on a hotel phone.

Didn't wreck my trip or anything. Just pushed my eyebrows higher in astonishment at the sheer audacity.

Loved the place though. Nice, quiet little town and we did some walking around. Drove up to Clear Lake as well via some back roads. Then over to Sonoma.

Otherwise, great trip. Great hotels. Great experiences as usual and the run was very memorable. There's a tunnel in Monterey and its quite a sight to see thousands of people in there all yelling at the top of their lungs to create the effect of honking a car horn!! And then running along the crashing ocean on a sunny morning.

I love California generally and would love to have that winter home within a few blocks of the ocean in Pacific Grove or some place like it. In the USA, you can deduct mortgage interest from your taxes which appears to have the effect of pushing real estate prices higher than might otherwise be the case, clearly encouraging longer, higher-ratio mortgages and minimal principal repayment.

You can tell from my grey hair that the Golden Years are getting closer but it appears I can buy a lot more home on the beach in New Zealand or even Australia if I can tolerate the plane ride. A few of my clients have done that as well. But its tempting to drive. A large number of my clients head south for a few months each year.

We did a lot of driving. Nice weather. A few traffic jams that one had to have a sense of humour about.

Sidenote - Got back and, for the first time in 30 years of driving, finally hit a deer early yesterday morning on the four lane south of Calgary at about 80 mph. The deer came right out of the morning sun at my 10 o'clock. I never saw a thing until it was right beside me.

That kind of wrecked my day.

Fortunately, I think, it appeared to be a glancing hit - blew the driver side mirror on the hot rod through the side window, exploding me with glass to the extent I was picking the stuff out of my mouth - but said deer trotted off into the ditch and hopped a fence into a field. It was only when I got home that I saw two smaller streaks of blood on the side of the vehicle so Abby and Keeper and I went back to see if we could find the deer but nothing.

I guess I'll never know its fate.

And back into the rat race today!!

Rick C
www.goldentales.ca

Glad you had a nice time. I stayed at the Vintage Inn in 1992 and it was expensive then, I think the prices have more than doubled since 92. We drove to Sonoma first then over (took backroads) to Napa. We drove up to St. Helena and then we went back to Sonoma. We put over 1,000 miles on the car in a week. My cousin and her husband live in Benecia, CA, back then they lived in Pacifica (not real nice) and the houses were going for 350,000. Did you drive to CA? Sorry about the deer. I know a teacher that hit one, it went through the windshield and nearly kicked her to death. Two men had to kill the deer.You were lucky.

I think the Vintage Inn was about $430 a night. Stayed two nights. Great breakfast provided and they also provide a great afternoon tea service. Restaurants and bakery a few minutes walk away.

Surprised to see Napa so overrun and commercialized. Maybe I shouldn't have been. We didn't spend much time there.

St. Helena was also a nice little town. Those twisty, turny backroads out of the valley were somewhat reminiscent of the road to Hana on Maui if anyone has ever done that. 600 curves in 40 miles. I had fun on it but Carol looked a little worried.

Yes, deer through the windshield and landing in your lap is more the norm than my experience of a glancing blow. Most cars have low rider hoods that scoop them up and deliver them into your lap, which is why I prefer to drive the blunt nosed Durango in the early morning darkness of winter on my trip into work from the country. I know I'll live through it. Someone smacked into a moose at high speed in the dark of morning near our place a few weeks back and the front of their big one ton truck was totally destroyed but it looked like they survived with no injuries.

Had the Chrysler 300 C this time, however, and it was broad daylight, although the low sun of morning. Total surprise. Animals tend to transit in the early morning and early evening. This was a little late in the morning for this guy to be wandering around.

Hopefully, the deer is fine.

Rick C
www.goldentales.ca

I agree, we liked Sonoma better.

Glad you had a such a good trip! I was at a hotel last weekend for a dog show & was just wondering how hotels were doing with losing all that money on telephone calls with everyone using cell phones now - I guess they make up for with just a few calls here & there. Crazy!!!

I live on a windy mountain road & we see deer get hit all the time and I get teary every single time. It's just a horrible sight to see. Luckily, I've never done the hitting, but we see them dead or injured several times a week. I have those deer alert things on the front of my car - not sure if they work or just coincidence that I've not hit one? A friend of mine got in the middle of an elk herd crossing the road - completely totalled his Durango. I did have an elk jump over the hood of my SUV last year - scared the crap out of me! I would have thought I imagined it except I had several other people in the car with me; no one said a word for several minutes!

My best friend was taking her teen-aged son out to practice driving their van. While legally stopped at a traffic light, in a suburban area, their van was hit on the driver-side door by a leaping deer. It scared them out of their wits!

Luckily no one (except the van) was injured, and the deer went on its way.

Regards,

PJ

Gruesome thread hijack . . .

Worst road I ever saw for animal corpses was around the LBJ Ranch near San Antonio, Texas. Bodies everywhere along the road. Remarkable.

There was a deer nosing around Susan Marie's back yard when we were there. Smaller than we see around here but cute.

Males are on the move this time of year and aren't really looking out for what they're doing. There was someone else at the police station filling out the same report I was. Her deer died although, realistically, I should assume mine eventually did anyway. They're unfortunately easy to kill. And then, with myself in the passenger seat, Carol had to slam on the brakes to avoid one on the way home.

Yeesh. I'm getting jumpy.

Rick C
www.goldentales.ca