We went West to California!

Gentle reader,

First off, let me thank those that look at my blog and leave comments. I DO see the comments, unfortunately in most cases, there are no words. Just symbols. Your name or
Blogger ID is also symbols. So, if I wanted to see your blogs, I can't. Very frustrating!

As to the title of the blog, my adoring (and adored!) wife surprised the heck out of me by springing a week long trip to California! This occurred the middle of August.

My dad and his wife, she doesn't want to be referred to as "step-mother" live south of
San Francisco and my one-and-only (and therefore favorite!) Aunt lives north of the City.
She's in the county we lived in and loved from 1963 to 1971. Yes, that dates me.

To see glimpses of that county watch Robin Williams' movie JACK. The school we
(and HE) went to is featured as is where I graduated from the 8th grade.

It was a GREAT place to grow up and we did things no parent would let elementary
aged school kids do today. The boy next door was my best buddy and his family was very
out-doors oriented. I learned to hike and climb REAL mountains plus much more.

My dad is in his late seventies and frankly, not doing to well. All five of us descended on
them, in groups and all enjoyed the chance to visit and see and enjoy California.

We headed north one day, spent it in The City (what they refer to San Francisco as),
then in Marin County. We then went to my aunt's terrific home.

She and I have some rapport that transcends normalcy. She says we're, well it slips my mind how she put it, but it was a nice thing to say.

To put it mildly: WE LOVED CALIFORNIA! OK, so that wasn't so mild. First off, it took a while to sink in that we were actually there. The weather? Garden of Eden comes to mind. PERFECT! Cool (60's at night) 75-80 in the daytime. NO humidity! Loved that best of all.

The MOUNTAINS! We couldn't get over their ever-presence. Look just about any direction and there they were. I mean I climbed them as a kid, but that was DECADES ago!
Everywhere we went, we wanted to stay and explore. A week is just too short a time. We could easily move there and happily spend the rest of our days.

We've never seen so many FIT people. Everywhere were people on bikes, running and doing all kinds of healthy things. Expensive sports cars, check! Beautiful people, check!

I need to edit the hundreds of photos to make them loadable for this site, so stay tuned for that. OK, here's one, a very cooperative hummingbird.
Each way we had to land in Denver to catch a second flight. That worked well for us because we were ready to get out of that plane. Denver's new airport is HUGE! We got lots of exercise finding the correct gate.

Lastly on the first leg of our flight home from San Jose to Denver, I was in the middle, my wife on my left and a young Indian woman had the window seat.
We got to talking. She and her husband have only been in the US for a few years. She's an audio engineer with Apple. So, we had that to talk about. Then we talked about India. I referenced a book I'd read and she rattled off the title. Like that! I told her about Indian co-workers and neighbors and before we knew it, we were landing at Denver.
Made for a short but pleasant flight. To our surprise she asked if I had e-mail of facebook or something. I said, "You want my e-mail address?" "Well, yes, I wasn't certain myself until just now." So, I gave her both of our addresses.

Did she e-mail? No. Either she chickened out, came to her senses, or told her husband about it and he put his foot down. Either way, it was flattering that a woman young enough to be my child found me interesting enough to want to continue the relationship.

Fortunately for ALL. I am STILL very much in LOVE with my wife. Ain't no pretty face
ever gonna make me stray!

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Scott