Based on a tip from our friends Ted & Kat, we decided to skip Lake Tahoe for now and head back west and north to California Gold Rush country! It seems there are several old-west style towns built during the gold rush of the 1850's and now several good wineries dot the area. We headed to Sonora to make our base and found a quaint (and cheap) bed and breakfast called Pesce's Garden. It didn't seem like much at first glance but we had an entire apartment with a full kitchen, wireless internet and a large, lovely veranda overlooking the side yard. Fresh flowers filled every room - and as luck would have it, the owner just had a graduation party on the premises and told us to help ourselves to the leftovers - all the snacks, cake, and drinks you could imagine, plus tons of fruit. Not a bad find! On our way to Sonora, we passed through Jamestown and pulled in to take a look but were suprised to find Main St. closed - turns out there was a big Harley Davison motorcycle ralley in town today so we had to stop and walk around to check out the bikes and their... well... interesting owners! On Sunday, we headed to Columbia, an entire town restored and turned into a State Historic Park. We strolled Main St. and stopped for a pint of local brew (Snowshoe Ale) in the saloon. Next, we headed up the road to Murphy's, another Gold Rush town but now center of "California's second wine country." We hit a couple tasting rooms and got a tour of impressive (and well marketed) Ironstone Winery. The Ironstone owner is an avid collector of Gold Rush memorabilia and there were a lot of artifacts to see including the largest single chunk of gold leaf found in one piece - he outbid the Louvre to keep it in the area and now has it on display in a vault on the property. We bought a couple bottles and retuned home to make dinner in our apartment and sip wine on the side porch. Tomorrow, Aili has a conference call so we'll be laying low for the day, resting and catching up on e-mail, then heading north on Tuesday - destination still TBD (ah, the freedom of unscheduled travel!). Until next time...