In my last text I forgot to introduce my fellow companion, my lovely sister Liina. We have been talking about this road trip for ages, since I was fifteen or so.. And this summer we finally had the chance to take this 1 month vacation.
So there we were at the airport, planning this trip and talking what we want out of it.. and Liina said "Well actually I'm looking forward to cheap outlets and shopping" and there was me thinking that this trip was about sisterly bonding. :)

Anyways, to Lassi (or anyone else) who thought that we'd be at each others throats from day one, I can happily tell you that we haven't had a single fight, or at least not yet!;) It's been smooth cruisin for the past few weeks and like one guy at a wine tasting introduced us to his friend "two country loving Finns, driving down the west coast". Yep, the only music that is played in our car is country and we're so lucky that there's normally at least 3 different country channels to choose from. :)

Okay, maybe I better continue with the trip now.. So after Mendocino we drove to the Yosemite Natural Park. We stayed at a cozy Yosemite Bug hostel and decided to hike up to Glacier point (2,200m) the highest point in the park with magnificent views. The map said that it's a 4 mile trail and I thought "that's no problem, a nice walk through the forest.." Well it was no trail I'll tell you that, it was a bloody 4 mile climb!! (Well ofcourse you could've assumed that it was uphill since Glacier point was so high..) We finally did reach the the top, admired the view, took a few photos, had a snack and headed back down. While walking downhill we run into a black bear!! It was only a little one, but as Liina managed to scare me, the mother wasn't probably too far.. So we didn't stick around for photos, just carried going down hill, with a bit faster pace. After we reached safe ground we went for a cooling dip in the river and headed back to the hostel for an early night.

After Yosemite it was time for a few relaxing days in the wine country. And it was as good as we hoped for (or as "Sideways" let's you on). The first day we visited winiries in the posh Napa Valley and the second day was even better in more chilled Sonoma Valley. We rented bikes and had a fab day, cycling from one winery to antoher.. Got to taste some really delicious wines.
Now we are sitting in an internet cafe in San Francisco and I might have to go back to the hotel to get more clothes, since no one told me that it's "cold" here! Or so it feels, after being inland with a baking heat, somewhere around 35-40 celsius. I'll tell later you the tales of San Francisco...