We should start a new South v. North, East v. West thread to duke this out among our American selves for as long as we want . . . meanwhile Ninth just wants a nice vacation!
I haven't been to CA in a while, but definitely drive up through Napa and Sonoma. I know, you are from France, why come to America for wine? But it's beautiful country and the vineyards are very close together along two highways (I forget the names--I think Highway 9 runs through Napa Valley, but Emily would know, and another Highway runs through Sonoma Valley). There's a little road that connects the two and right at the junction there's a place called the Oakville Grocery (in the town of Oakville!) that is (or used to be) really great--you can get very nice bread and cheese there and have a picnic with some wine . . . Yum.
When I was in college I went to California with my family and we managed to drive all around the wine country, San Francisco, Monterey and Carmel, the Redwood Forest, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe (which is beautiful--you should take a boat out onto it if you can, the water is crystal clear and incredibly deep . . . unless that is some lake on the East coast and I am misremembering
), and a ton of other places in just a week. (Oh, we saw some really cool Spanish missions . . . if you think everything in America is brand-new, go to one of the mission towns, which the Spanish settled when they had an empire here in the 17th century.) Of course, my father likes to spend the whole vacation driving, but anyway, if you have three weeks you will have time to see a lot. You should drive down Route 1 towards Los Angeles . . . it is very narrow and sometimes crowded but everyone drives it for pleasure because it runs along the coast and the mountains come right down to the ocean.
I'm sure any guidebook will tell you all of this, but I hope it helps a little. Have a good time!
