My husband and I are looking forward to an extended weekend trip next week. We’ll be heading south to do a little winetasting and winery touring in the Napa and Sonoma valleys, a trip that’s a pretty easy six-hour drive from our home here in Southern Oregon, down Interstate 5 and then along the north end of San Francisco Bay. We took a similar tour last year at about the same time of the year and found that it’s an ideal time to enjoy the area without fighting the hoards of visitors that clog the highways and tasting rooms during the summer months.

Even though we will have officially crossed over into spring by then, we are keeping a wary eye on the weather forecasts for next week. No matter where you live in the U.S., spring can bring some pretty unusual and unpredictable weather. In the last few weeks tornados have wreaked destruction from Alabama to Michigan while record high temperatures have bathed large sections of the country, with places like Chicago and even North Dakota (!) hitting 80 degrees or more.

Meanwhile, we here in the Pacific Northwest, after having an unusually (comparatively) dry and warm winter, saw snow in the lowlands and a succession of storms trying to make up for the lack of moisture in the previous three months. And so Harry and I find ourselves paying extra attention to next week’s forecast. You see, we have a 4,300-plus-foot pass to negotiate on our journey south, and the stretch of roadway within the first hour along our way could be the make-or-break segment. All it takes is a quick, heavy snowfall over a few hours to close Siskiyou Pass, or at least leave traffic at a miserable crawl behind hundreds of chained-up semis creeping along.

We’ll definitely make our way to wine country, but we’re just hoping we won’t lose several hours of pleasant time in the vineyards to misery on the road south. Here’s hoping your spring break travels go smoothly!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor