A big thank you to everyone for their kind offers - what hospitable people you are; I know that we're going to have a great time. We haven't finalised any arrangements yet but we'll probably be going the last two weeks in August, to fit in with school holidays. Joe, I like your suggestion of spending a couple of days in SF, then travelling for a while before renting a place - we've been looking at some cabins around Russian River - we certainly only expect to see a tiny fraction of what's available; after all, I've lived in the UK for 58 years and still haven't seen half of it!