Refreshed and all traces of dank fog driven from our bodies by the blazing sun, we set off early to head south for wine country.

We left the 101 south of Willits and took the 20 south east towards Clear
Lake so that we would approach Napa Valley from the north. We misjudged how much petrol we had left and had a nervous 20 miles or so running on fumes until we found fuel at Lakeport. We stopped to stretch our legs and have lunch at Middletown. A delightful small towm and an an excellent lunch of finest Californian Italian food.

From Middletown we dropped down into the Northern end of the Napa Valley and drove through Calistoga and St Helena. Very picturesque but a traffic nightmare. The main road is a narrow two lane with enough traffic on it for a freeway. We headed east across the valley floor to the Silverado trail a road that runs parallel to the main 29 but has maybe a quarter of the traffic on it. You get to see the real beauty of the valley away from the heavy traffic and we called in at a couple of vineyards to look around the shops. Finally late in the day we drove up out of the western edge of the valley into the Sonoma Valley and back north west to Santa Rosa for our overnight stop.