Finito

Now it seems like our vacation was over so fast. We're home but not especially happy about it, although our soft bed feels good after those strange motel mattresses that are never quite right. Even fancy restaurant food gets old when it's your only option. On our last night in the Napa Valley we were happy to eat a dinner of deli fried chicken and salad in our room. Hey-- Napa Valley wine makes anything taste better. The alarm went off too early this dark morning, but it's good to be safely home.

When we left Calistoga on Friday and started to climb up the mountains, the fog lifted and it became one of those exquisite, golden California mornings. Balloons rose above grape-filled vineyards and palm trees. The hills and mountain oaks were glowing. With regret we left it all behind and drove on without much to say to each other.

After winding 75 miles east in Little Beep, the narrow 2-lane road finally ran into I-5 near the town of Williams in flat central California. There we jumped on the conveyor belt north, joining the herd of furiously driven cars and trucks. John said it's exactly 775 miles from our house to Dr. Wilkinson's parking lot in Calistoga-- which is about 700 miles too far.
When we take this fast route north on I-5, there's a highlight in the olive-growing area near Corning, California. The Olive Pit has been there since 1967, and I remember stopping back in the 1970's when it was the only place at that off-ramp and you could see the sign for miles around. Now the store is dwarfed by fast food joints, motels, gas stations, mega stores and so on that have sprung up around it. But the old Olive Pit store still does a great business with tour buses and loyal customers who drop by every year or so to stock up.

How many types of olives can you imagine? How about stuffed with almonds, jalapeños, mushrooms, garlic, onions, peppers, dried tomatoes, capers and more. Giant green olives filled with all types of rich, creamy cheeses. Wine cured, French cured, Sicilian cured, Cuban and Mexican style; smoke, vermouth and Cajun flavored. Black kalamatas big and small, dried Greeks in oil and olive salad mixes with picked vegetables. It's heaven on earth for olive lovers because the selection is mind-boggling and the prices reasonable. We get carried away but justify the shopping spree because "we don't come this way very often." True- not often enough. Here's John headed to the car with a shopping cart full of olives.

We stopped at the Pit on the way down and the way back, and bought so many jars the girl at the cash register gave us a free gift! Heavily laden with olives, we continued up I-5 past Redding along to Lake Shasta and then Mount Shasta-- one of the prettiest areas in northern California. There are beautiful, lazy views of the mountain right from the car window and we saw the top had acquired a dusting of snow while we were in Napa. Fall was in the air, and we had the last picnic lunch at a freeway rest area. When we got to Oregon that evening, it was time to pull out the jackets.

Mt Shasta

The closer to Seattle the darker the sky, but luckily we didn't have to navigate bumper-to-bumper traffic in pouring rain. When the car was finally unloaded at home, we turned the furnace on. It was summer when we left. After weeks of drought, on Sunday morning the rain finally fell on the parched grass and plants. It was a nice sound waking up in our own bed.