California Trip

Richelle and I went with Mom to California for convention last week. We spent the first night in Medford with Mom's sister and bro-in-law. A short hop for us, yes, but it was four hours longer for Mom. My aunt and uncle are showing their years and it's good to spend time with them. My cousin's daughter from Australia (their granddaughter) has been staying there since February to help with whatever. While we were there, she added changing the movement box in a wall clock onto her list. It was fun to listen to her Aussie accent and terms and to see pictures of their place in Australia.

The second day, we stopped in Alameda to visit my dad's sister in the care facility. She's in the final stages of congestive heart failure and it's only a matter of time before she's gone so it was a privilege to visit with her. She was very weak physically but still very alert mentally and we were able to visit for about half an hour. Two of her daughters were also there and it was special to see the surprise and delight on all three faces when we walked in. Not that we're all that special, we just weren't expected.

We spent that evening and night with my brother and sis-in-law in San Mateo. I'd not visited their home before so it's nice to be able to picture them with a background now when I think of them. We had a great time there. I got to play with his iTouch, Richelle went shopping with her aunty, another brother came for supper and we all visited well into the night.

Wednesday to Sunday we spent at convention where it started out hot in the lower 90s and got progressively hotter each day until it peaked at 105 on Sunday. Kinda hard on us poor folk from the cooler Pacific Northwest where our daytime highs were about the same as their overnight lows. I thought I'd kept to the shade most of the time but was evidently in the sun long enough to get a bit of color. It didn't seem to affect the local kids, though. They still spent time in the sun hunting and playing with the toads that seem to live under every bush in the garden.

My niece from New Mexico was there with her three children. I hadn't seen her in three years so it was good to visit with her and get to know her three very adorable children. I had a great conversation with her nearly-five-year-old. He'll probably never remember it but I will!

I love going to places where you have enough room to breathe deeply and swing your arms. I love the fields that start without fences to mark the boundary. I love the miles and miles of orchards. I love trying to guess what's growing (that only works when I have Mom with me and she can correct me). I love the rice paddies giving way to corn fields giving way to carrots, onions, tomatoes, grain, and cotton fields interspersed with miles of olive, apricot, nectarine and prune orchards, orange, lemon, and grapefruit groves, walnut groves, almond, and pistachio orchards, as well as fields of table grapes and wine vineyards. Makes a person hungry driving through there.

There's also mile upon mile upon mile upon mile of rolling desert with nothing but sage, sparse grasses, and alkali flats. Places where Mom said Dad would love to go rabbit or bullfrog hunting and spin cookies and such. Maybe that's why I love going there so much....it makes me feel a little closer to knowing Dad.