CALIFORNIA TIME JUNE, 2017

By June we were across Nevada's Highway 50, The Loneliest Road in America and had arrived and set up camp at Fallen Leaf Campground in South Lake Tahoe.  It's such a gorgeous National Forest campground and was always a favorite of ours years ago. It was wonderful to find it still as beautiful, though camping in June meant it was much busier. We were able to reserve two different campsites for a total of five nights there, pretty good considering summer was coming on.

While in Tahoe we spent most of or time with my college roommate, Laurel Wilson. After 37 years we had finally reconnected through a search on Facebook 2 years ago.  It had taken us that long to get back out here to the west coast to actually spend time together.  The bonus was to have perfect timing...the weekend was Laurel's 70th birthday and her Retirement from teaching. WOOHOO!!!!

I was so excited to meet her daughter, Emily, at her party. Such a beautiful evening in Carson City, NV. I'm amazed at how easily we fit back into each other's lives and laughed almost as much as we had during college. 

 When we weren't with Laurel, we hiked around Fallen Leaf Lake

 We rode our bikes to the nearby Tallac Historic Site, visiting the preserved homes there from a century ago. Once the site of the "Grandest Resort in the World" it was the summer retreat for three of San Francisco Bay areas socially elite families.  Late afternoon shade hides the beautiful Baldwin home and Tallac Museum.

 The other two properties are the Pope Estate from 1894 and Valhalla, 1923. All beautiful with gardens and walking paths every where.

 Back at the campground the weather was perfect with blue skies and green grasses from all the rain this past winter. Lucky for us, we missed the snow that fell the following weekend!

 From Lake Tahoe we stopped in for a visit with Doug and Lily Lowe in Elk Grove. Doug was our architect for our Shell Beach home in 1978, and like other friends it had been a long time between visits and so nice to catch up.

Leaving there we made the drive all the way to Monterey Elks Lodge so we could spend a couple days with Maria and Frank Penner in Pacific Grove.  Always so wonderful to be with them in their darling little cottage.

 And of course, nothing better than a sunset at Asilomar Beach; so chilly but so beautiful!

Paul and Frank 

 The next morning we drove over to Point Lobos, this time we had our own personal docent tour of   the State Reserve, as Maria is now a weekly volunteer at the park.  She wanted to show us her favorite part so we walked all around Bird Island to enjoy the flowers, the animals, the fabulous views.

 

 And before leaving this gorgeous part of the coast we had dinner together at our favorite Pacific Grove restaurant, The Fish Wife.

 Before saying goodbye to Maria we had a fun time checking out all her projects in her darling Hobby House, she's amazing!  Even Foster found his old comfy spot near her work counter.

Paul and Frank...hmmmmm.

 But time was pushing us to San Luis Obispo and a major project of our own! After 6 years of travels it was time to return to our storage unit and sift through things we'd actually forgotten we had stored there.  Paul made our task easier by deciding to rent the empty unit next to our packed one and having the space we could separate items for different reasons...those to save, donate or consign to a local shop. It took us countless hours but when I saw the Uhaul filled with furniture and garden things I'd saved it felt wonderful to know most were going on to a new life somewhere, and we had reduced our "stuff" to half. So, with one more smaller unit rented, we moved our special things into a space half the size as we'd started.

 Unloading at Zoey's Consignment store in SLO, that felt so good.

We were so fortunate to be able to stay once again with Jim and Carolyn Park at their Orange Grove RV Park, right along the side of their home. It's wonderful for us to be so close to San Luis and to spend time with them and get to make some visits with friends we see only once  year or sometimes even less. Always a favorite, is being with these friends for Wednesday morning Breakfast Club!

Another wonderful visit was our evening with Peter and Linda Jankay where Peter showed us the nesting box in his back garden and the baby owlets living with in! What fun to take a peek at these darling creatures.

Besides dealing with our storage unit, another detail to take care of was to find a new home for Paul's grand piano.  Our sweet friend, Nelda, had been caring for it since we left in 2011. But now it was time to find a home where the piano could be enjoyed until that future date when we return to a "sticks and bricks" house and once have it with us. But finding someone who can accommodate this beautiful piece of furniture, isn't easy. After calling, and asking and looking, we finally decided to take the jump and put it up on Craig's List, hoping we could make a match for us and the piano.  Well, the stars were definitely in alignment for that to happen...within an hour or two of posting Paul received a phone call from a family interested in our arrangement.  Plus, they were once a school family of mine so we knew them! It couldn't have been better! They had already cared for a piano for someone who returned a few months ago so they were familiar for what we needed, and four days later the piano was moved! How lucky were we!

One afternoon we took a break from all the moving to ride past my parents' home in Shell Beach, still looking much the same. And then an afternoon drink with cheesy bread at our favorite, Spyglass Restaurant overlooking Shell Beach and Avila. This always makes our visit home real to me.

 My parents bought this home in 1967 and moved 6 of us from Stockton to the coast, the most wonderful experience for me at the age of 20. I only spent summers there before we married and later rented it from my parents for several years when they moved north for a couple of years and we moved from Pasadena to the central coast.

We planned our visit back to California to be there for my annual girlfriends' week, going on year 21 for the 12 of us. This being my 70th birthday, I got some very special treatment and surprises...a most wonderful camping themed party! Over our 21 years we have traveled as far away as Lake Tahoe but this year stayed so very close to hone with a beautiful house in Avila Valley's See Canyon.

The house had a lovely wooded setting and this screened outdoor dining table all set for the fun evening. Birthday parties with these wonderful friends are so fun...ribbons with my name, s'mores for dessert, a rendition of "My Favorite Things" with words to match my life, absolutely the best! 

 Swings, massages, horseshoes, walks to Avila Beach, laughing, eating, talking and just enjoying each other's company for four days makes this time together absolutely wonderful!

 But the days flew by and we had only two weeks to travel north to eastern Washington for my nephew, Zachary's, wedding the first weekend in July. Paul drove the RV to Ukiah while I was still in Avila then I flew from SLO to SFO on Saturday morning.

Leaving the coast and arriving in Ukiah was a huge temperature shock; from the comfortable coastal temps 75-80' to inland 107'.  But so worth it to spend time with my sister in law, Mary, and our nieces and nephew.  It's been a long two and a half years since we last saw them, and though we weren't staying right there with them we did get two evenings of fun together listening to all that was happening in their lives.

From Ukiah we took the highway north to Richardson's Grove RV Park. Though we'd left Ukiah at noon, road detours due to the winter land slides delayed us by several hours. But, by 7AM that next morning we were back on Highway 101 with a turn off to drive The Avenue of the Giants. Since the highway bypasses the drive through the redwoods, the beautiful and serene drive has few vehicles so we stopped along the roadside for breakfast among the giants. How tiny and insignificant we seem.

And, there's always another attraction to see along the 25 mile drive, like this redwood camper truck.

Again, another long drive but this time the scenery was spectacular bringing us back to the Mendocino coastline.  Our destination that night was Smith River RV Park to visit old friends from Shell Beach, Les and Rochelle.They invited us to join them for an evening of music from a local duo at their CD release party. We had a little more time together the next morning with a wonderful breakfast in their home and with this view from their gardens. So good to see them both again!

And in just another 5 miles we were in Oregon!!  

So a big good-bye to California till next summer...or before!