Our time in California started this morning with a stop that I've been excited about since, well since I first planned it. This is Lake Britton, and as nice as it is there's nothing particularly interesting about it except for...

...this seemingly uninteresting bridge.

Well this is the bridge used for the railroad bridge scene in Stand By Me :) A few days ago we visited Brownsville, Oregon where parts of the movie were filmed, but this was probably the most famous scene of the lot. YouTube video of it here. I never would have thought when first watching this at six-years-old that I would walk across this bridge myself some day! Times have changed since then however. The tree on the left has grown considerably larger, a new one seems to have sprung up on the right, but most of all the train tracks have been removed which kinda sucks. The track was decommissioned and removed just a few years ago.

Train tracks or not, it was very cool to see it in the flesh. Despite how it appears in the movie through camera angles and such, the bridge is not quite as high or as long as I had expected. In fact, I timed my walk from one end to the other at just two minutes. If the boys hadn't pissed around they wouldn't have had any problem ;)

Then again, it took me only a couple minutes because I don't have a problem with heights. Kristina on the other hand made it about ten yards across and turned back hahaha! The shot on the left is from the movie, and right is looking straight down between the sleepers (or railroad ties as they're called here).

It's a shame the trains no longer ply this bridge, but at least I avoided a scene like this...

Kristina avoided this...

And I avoided diving head-first down the bank just in time hehe.

After all that excitement the boys continued following the tracks in that direction, and we continued in the car :)

Trees come in all shapes and sizes, and today we drove through some of the biggest on the planet. Notice our car is completely dwarfed by the behemoth next to it!

This is Redwood National Park, one of a group of old-growth temperate rainforests totalling 133,000 acres along California's northern coast.

True that.

The park protects several groves of massive redwood trees, which can live for a whopping 2,000 years! Some of these trees, while the rest of us have been discovering electricity, landing on the moon, and killing each other, have just been sitting here.

Redwoods can grow up to about 367 feet (112m) in height and be as wide as 22 feet at the base of the trunk.

And a tree that large naturally has a large, you know, 'member'.

Fun fact of the day: I grew up in a suburb of Christchurch called Redwood, named after a large redwood tree which is still standing today :)

After spending the day amongst big trees in Redwood National Park yesterday, we had one more to see today.

This is the co-called "Chandelier Tree", a huge coast redwood tree standing 315 feet (96m) high, 21 feet (6.4m) wide at its base, and estimated to be about 2,400 years old! And, it has a hole in it.

Carved in the 1930s to allow a car to drive through it (barely), the hole is exactly 6 feet (1.8m) wide. I managed to squeeze the car through it with literally a few millimetres of space between the tree and the side mirrors.

Larger vehicles than ours managed to fit through however (with their side mirrors folded in), but based on the impressive gouge marks and paint in the walls and ceiling, many have failed hehe.

Today we spent the day surrounded by grapes and all things wine in California's Napa Valley, considered one of the world's premier wine regions (though it has nothing on New Zealand :)

The valley is thoroughly covered in 43,000 acres of vineyards, over 400 wineries, and almost 4.5 million tourists every year. Now that the summer is all but over and everyone is back at work and at school, these popular tourist areas are becoming less infested, which is nice for us long-term tourists ;)

Of those 400 wineries, 150'ish are walk-ins (i.e. no appointment or reservations necessary), and they come in all shapes and sizes including Castello di Amorosa here - a castle based on the 12th and 13th century time period.

We did a wine tasting at a more modern winery named after my father: Raymond hehe. Apparently this isn't the sort of crap you'd find at any old local supermarket, but rather only in and around Napa and at fancy-schmancy restaurants. Kristina left happy.

When Kristina and I were tripping around Southeast Asia four years ago, the 2011 Rugby World Cup took place (which New Zealand won :) Now here we are on another big trip, and it just so happens to coincide with the 2015 Rugby World Cup which kicked off on Friday in England. Today was New Zealand's first match of the tournament, which I managed to find streaming live online this morning. Argentina were our first victims with hopefully many more to follow. Given we are still ranked #1 in the world, expectations are high.

With that out of the way, we headed into downtown Sacramento for scout around. Sacramento is home to about half a million and is the capital city of California. We started here at its State Capitol Building (one of several we've seen on this trip).

The building is open to the public, and there just happened to be a free tour starting as we arrived, so why not.

This is the Assembly chamber and elsewhere is the Senate chamber - the two houses of the Californian government responsible for arguing amongst themselves and occasionally passing bills to be presented to the governor for his approval to have them become state law.

Portraits of past governors line the walls, not least of Arnold Schwarzenegger who held the position from 2003 to 2011 hehe.

The view through downtown from the Capitol building, looking towards Old Sacramento where we headed next.

Old Sacramento Historic District (or just "Old Sacramento") was the original core of the city, and had its heyday during the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s. The area consists of cobbled streets and many historic buildings, some still standing from the 1800s and others reconstructed. It's become a big tourist attraction and contains numerous saloons, restaurants, and cheesy tourist shops.

With little else to occupy our time, we jumped on a steam train for a short ride through the city hehe. Video here, and another one here of the steam engine performing a "blowdown" to remove impurities from the boiler, which is a rather impressive sight and sound showing just how much pressure these things produce.

This big blue beauty is Lake Tahoe, a huge freshwater lake buried in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America, the second deepest lake in the US after Crater Lake which we saw last week, and the sixth largest lake by volume in the US after the five Great Lakes. The lake is cut in two by the California-Nevada border, and is a major tourist attraction throughout the year for both states. We happen to be staying on the Nevada side.

Kristina managed to hook us up with a couple of free nights right on the lake, complete with pools and hot tub out the back, private beach on the lake, and an onsite casino hehe. Casinos are illegal in California but not so in Nevada, so the Nevada side of the lake is full of them.

Just like Cater Lake, Tahoe is also crystal-clear but unfortunately bloody cold given its altitude.

Anyway, we spent the afternoon checking out the little towns around the north of the lake, and ogling at the multimillion-dollar homes that line it. This place for example is right across the road from the lake and goes for about $3 million. Cross the street however and you're looking at anywhere from $10 to $20 million. Location, location, location.

We ended the day with food and bubbles on the lake, and now we're off to the hot tub :)

Another stunning day on the lake! Today is officially the first day of autumn up here in the north, but you wouldn't think so looking at this which is all good with me - the longer we can drag out the summer on this trip the better. This is the northern edge of Lake Tahoe where we're staying, but we spent the day checking out the rest of it.

The lake is 22 miles (35km) long and 12 miles (19km) wide, so there's plenty of it to see.

I mentioned the clarity of the water yesterday, but due to man-made pollutants the clarity of the lake is steadily decreasing at a rate of about a foot per year. Just another example of us ruining the planet, slowly but surely.

Nice day for a bit of that.

Also a nice day for a bit of sitting of your butt and breathing it all in.

The lake shore has some stunning beaches, though many of them are private for residents only.

While walking back to the car after eating lunch about half a dozen cop cars, fire engines, and ambulances went screaming past. So, as I do, I chased them ;) Based on the only witness at the scene, a 16-year-old girl had been cleaned up by huge truck while cycling in the cycle lane. I suspect she pulled out of the side street on the right without looking - I see that often; some cyclists seem to have a false sense of security about cycle lanes and neglect to slow and look for traffic. If I had a dollar for every time another cyclist had cut me up in this fashion while I'm cycling along, I'd be rich. Anyway, her bike had clearly gone under the wheels of something very heavy and its frame had snapped clean in two. The girl on the other hand had been thrown clear by the impact and landed 'safely' off the road. She looked pretty banged up but there didn't seem to be a lot of urgency to rush her away, so I'd say she'll be fine. As for whatever it was that hit her, it was nowhere to be found; the driver likely had no idea he'd hit anything.

From the top of the lake to the bottom, this is Emerald Bay, and the only island in the lake - Fannett Island. There's nothing particularly interesting about it, other than it's the former home of Captain Richard "Dick" Barter. The eccentric captain was an English sailor who decided to move here in 1863. He built his own tomb and chapel on the island with the intention of eventually being laid to rest there. However, he was lost in a bad storm in 1873 and his body never recovered. So much for that. Prior to that, he got caught in another bad winter storm, and subsequently cut off two of his own frost-bitten toes. He kept the toes and would show them to guests hahaha! So that was Dick.

We did a short hike above Emerald Bay intending to go see a waterfall, which turned out to be bone dry hehe. Oh well.

So that was Lake Tahoe. Tomorrow we'll go somewhere else :)