started the day by going to the Bale Grist Mill just north of St Helena. It claims to be the biggest overshot waterwheel west of the Mississippi at a whopping 36 1/3" diameter.
bit of a closeup of the waterwheel, look at the massive ring gear just inside the circumference of it. I wanted to take a look at all the inner workings, but it was closed for the season
we had to stop by the Mondavi winery, my wife got a bottle of white as a gift for her dad
there was just too much awesome architecture in Napa to photograph it all. This one is Peju winery where Liz got a bottle of red for herself (special occasion)
If I had a bigger shirt on, or a jacket, I might have tried to fit one of these under it . . .
one thing most of the wineries we stopped at had in common was sculptures in the courtyard or on the property, and lots of them
one last awe inspiring building before we left Napa - the American Culinary Institute Greystone
leaving Napa we turned north up the 101 and had good weather until the last 100 miles or so. With light rain turning to semi-downpour and the 4runner intermittently hydro-planing we made our way to Humboldt Nat'l park to find safe harbor for the night, unfortunately the Nat'l Forest park we planned on staying at has been closed since Labor Day (no mention of that on the website). So, tired and not wanting to drive further, we settled on spending more money on a private owned campground. If anyone ever heads up this way, you'll need to check out the drive up the 101 north of Layton during the day, there are redwoods literally lining both sides of the road and plenty of quirky stores with life size bigfoot carvings -- good stuff, but too far south at this point for us to revisit.