Family and friends

I have to correct the opening of my last blog post.  I said "I'm baaack", when in reality it is the blog that is back.  : )  Lee and I are still in California, and plan to return to Philadelphia towards the end of April.  It is hard to believe we are more than half way through our year-long odyssey!

I had stated that Lee and I would spend the holidays with friends and family, and so we did. 

Facebook has helped me reconnect with cousins, colleagues and friends, which made it easy to find people once I arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area.  One day I received an email from Lucy, whom I worked with over 25 years ago at the Contra Costa County Library System.  She sent me an invitation to join a group for lunch, held biweekly, of people I had worked with all those years ago.  Of the 10 people at the luncheon, I knew 9 of them!  It was so much fun to see them all again, such a treat for me.  Most had continued to work for the library system, and had retired within the last couple of years.  All baby boomers, like me.  Can you believe it?  25 years later? 

I saw my cousins Kim, Heidi, Geof and his wife Jamie, and my Aunt Joan.  Below is a photo of my cousin Kim and I, when we met for  dinner one evening in Concord:

Lee and I spent quite a bit of time with my sister Corinne, who took time off work while we were here.  I also saw my two BFF's, Nan and Laurin, whom I have known since sixth grade on Maui.  They both live in the SF Bay Area now.

On this particular day, Corinne, myself, Nan, and Lee hiked in the hills of Lucas Valley:

We looked down at the George Lucas buildings that are located in the valley.  It was from this facility that the original Star Wars movies were created.  I learned something new - Lucas Valley was so-named long before George Lucas came along.  Interesting, huh?  The bright spot in the center of the photo is a pond, which feeds a man-made waterfall half-way up the hill.

On January 2, Nan, Laurin, Corinne, Bob (Laurin's husband), Lee and I stopped for brunch at Nan's, then drove off in two cars to meet at Muir Woods.  Muir Woods is a beautiful place, a grove of redwoods, sacrosanct, as magnificent as any cathedral.  The last time I visited the grove there were about ten people and just a few cars in the parking lot.  This time, there were hundreds of cars parked up and down the canyon road on either side of the grove, and people walked a mile or more to reach the woods.  We decided to bail.  I couldn't imagine all those people in the grove - it's not very large to begin with.  So we drove back to Mill Valley and walked around its charming town center.  We found a grouping of redwoods behind a directional sign, and took a photograph to commemorate the day we did NOT visit Muir Woods:

As you might imagine, Lee and I have learned many things about each other on this trip.  One thing that I found surprising is ... cats love Lee!  My sister has two cats, and she sometimes watches two cats for a friend.  Four cats in a condo!  Can you imagine?  I took this hilarious photo of Lee surrounded by three of the four cats.  Who'd a thought?

I have one last set of characters to introduce you to.  The KOA Kampground in which we are staying happens to have a menagerie of animals for its petting zoo.  Peacocks, a Guinea hen, goats, donkeys, a sheep and chickens.  They are all very friendly.  During the holiday season they reminded me of the creche scene with its menagerie of farm animals.  Here are a few of them (I can't help myself - I love animals of all kinds):

So cute!

Some day I want to have a couple of goats.  They have personality plus!

One last note: an update on my Nikon D60, which you may recall I dropped into the ocean at Cape Disappointment, Washington.  I sent the camera and the lens to Nikon.  The camera came back to me labelled "Beyond repair"  ~sigh~  But they were able to fix the lens, so that's the good news.

The next edition of the blog will be from:  Monterey Bay!