We made it to Sacramento in really good time
...and checked into a treeless, gravel lot at Cal Expo. It's a good location for us, if uninteresting and really hot. It was 110 degrees in the RV on the way into town. Apparently a heat wave hit here today.
Here it is, our spot in the 4-star Cal Expo gravel parking lot:
We drove out to Roseville and dropped by TLA, where Mark worked and continues to do contract work for. For the first time ever, Katie ran into Terry Lowell's open arms (she'd always been too timid before). It was really great seeing everybody there, and Katie didn't want to leave, since she had the full attention of sweet Anna.
We drove to see our storage unit and sign some paperwork there, and then visited our old neighborhood, and Katie got to play with Jenna and Jennelle for awhile. Jenna and Jennelle gave Katie a few stuffed animals to take with her, and two babydolls. They are such sweet girls, and play with Katie with much affection, despite an age difference (Jenna is in 3rd grade, Jennelle in 1st). We'll see them again Saturday afternoon.
Then we had dinner at Dos Coyotes, a place we used to go on Friday nights, and followed it up with Borders Books, also a Friday night tradition for us. We noticed that our neighbor has put his house on the market; it'll be really interesting to see what he gets for it, since ours is pretty similar to his.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
We visited Lisa, Casey and Kyle this morning. Katie and Casey played as if no time had elapsed since they last saw each other. Here are some pictures of them:
(Katie with her new bear from J&J; casey's bear is on the chair)
Kyle and his beautiful mommy
Casey gives good hugs
In the afternoon, we visited Sarah and her kids (Addy, Mason and new baby Ellison), and then headed over to Andrea's to see Nate. I wish I'd taken a picture of Katie and Nate together, since they were born on the same exact day, in the same hospital, but Nate looks a year or more older than Katie. He is very very tall. They played really well together, and we got to see Andrea's new, huge house, and her lovely big backyard. It's always great to chat with her, and it was fun seeing her new fruit trees and hearing about her plans for a veggie garden. She and Emily are my two friends who like savory salads as much as I do, so we talked food a bit. It's too bad to have to leave good friends behind.
Friday, September 30
Today I saw my dentist (ugh--I need a new crown; luckily there's no pain yet, so I can wait till we get settled in Portland) and then headed to see Emily and her ever-evolving house. Why didn't I remember to take pictures? It started out as a 900-sf bungalow circa 1919 I think, just 2 bedrooms and one bath, but on a double lot. In the four years since her son Joe's birth, they have added a master suite and laundry room, reroofed the house, remodeled the kitchen and moved an interior doorway... let's see, what else? Put up two fences (a drunk high school kid demolished their first one) and Em has put in a nice flower garden in front. Oh and had another kid and have another on the way. I don't think I could sustain a pace like they do, but they're getting a great house out of it, and someday they'll make a ton if they ever sell it.
Katie played with Joe and Barritt really well. I think she's just so happy to have friends again that she's on really good behaviour around them.
In the afternoon, we visited Mark's friends at UBORA, then had dinner at Bobo Cafe, a great, inexpensive Vietnamese restaurant with wonderful lemongrass dishes. I will miss them!
Saturday, October 1
Today we packed up the last (almost) of the stuff from the RV, except our food and bathroom stuff, and we'll be taking it to our storage unit, rather than leaving it in the RV, since the RV will be at Village RV, getting fixed for a month or so.
We drove it over and stuffed it in, then headed to our old neighborhood, where Katie played with both Jennas and Jennelle. We chatted with Dave and Natalie, and then the tenants at our house came out (the dad and his little girl Katie, who was a day away from her first birthday), so we walked over from the Paivas and met them. They were very nice and I'm glad to know them. Baby Katie is now the darling of the neighborhood, and Jenna and Jennelle put her into a wagon and started giving her rides up and down the block. Our Katie joined in, riding with the baby. Later we ate out with the Paivas at a new spaghetti place. It was a fun day of visiting and catching up about the neighborhood.
Sunday, October 2
Today we drove to Modesto, to visit Mark's brother's family. Scott and Cristie have a really beautiful home there and two fun kids, Ceara (7) and Sydney (5). Sydney and Katie play together really well. Here they are dancing:
They also have a huge collection of costumes, and they dressed Katie in many of them. Here's a couple shots:
Scott and Cristie are always doing something to update their house. Here we're eating lunch around a bar top that they recently made out of concrete. I was so impressed, because I'd just read an article about how to do this, in ReadyMade, and thought it looked too complicated for me.
After lunch, someone dug out the boxing gloves, and Scott gave some lessons. First he caught punches from little Blake:
Then from his sister-in-law, Carrie, who got in some good shots (maybe she's thinking, "that's for re-gifting my Christmas present!"):
It was such a fun day. Cristie's mom and dad came up, as well as Carrie, Fred and Blake. Carrie and Fred bought a gorgeous new RV while we were on our trip (now they'll have to try to hit more states than we did).
Scott had gotten burned badly back in February (you can see our Savannah entry--I think we wrote about it) His burns put him in the hospital for a week or so, but he healed so well you can't tell he had any to his face at all, and his hands healed so well that he never needed any grafts.
After pizza dinner, we watched some of the 49er-Arizona game, while Katie and her cousins had a bath (Katie's first since Chicago). It's sad to be moving even farther away from them, the girls seem to have so much fun together. Luckily, they've promised to come up and visit sometime. Maybe they'll come up in time to see our apartment.
Just as we were leaving, Cristie gave us two big bags of clothes that Ceara and sydney have outgrown. Katie wanted to stay up late and go through them all, but she fell asleep on the way home, pooped from a long day of playing.
Monday, October 3
Today, Mark and I saw Dr. Lin, our GP. I wish we could bring him with us, he's always been so proactive about my health, ordering an EKG and heart monitor when I had palpitations, removing moles whenever they start looking irregular, getting me an early mammogram, even diagnosing me with some spine curvature. Somehow he always gets my insurance to pay, too. Oh well, this time he couldn't! But he gave Mark some free samples of his Lexapro, and some free birth control pills for me. Together those saved us $300 if we use them all, which is more than we paid to see him. I remember back when I worked at Sutter in the recruiting department and we recruited him and his wife.
Next we looked through the great clothes from Ceara and Sydney. There are lots of things Katie can use this winter; what she can't use, we put in a bag for Emily's daughter. We loaded the car for (hopefully) the last load going into storage, and then headed over to TLA. I'd forgotten to give Ale the specific time we'd arrive, so we didn't get to see her and Veronica there. When we got to TLA, we heard that there had just been a shooting at another civil engineering firm, Carter Burgess. One gal at TLA knew the suspect (a rather odd webguy) and another woman knows the poor victim, a draftsman who interviewed at TLA awhile back.
While at TLA, Katie spent the whole time with Anna. Here they are together. I had to take a picture before Katie would agree to say goodbye:
Next we dropped off the extra clothes and an extra moving box at Emily's house. Here are her kids and Katie, in front of her sweet house:
Then we headed to Royer Park to see Lala, Lalique, Robyn and Tavyn one more time. Here is Katie with Lalique and Lala:
We used to go to Royer Park about once a week; it's one of the best parks for kids near us. It has huge trees, since it's about a hundred years old. There used to be a tiny zoo there, with a couple of bears and some other animals. Years ago, though, the other animals found homes in other places, or else died. By the time Mark and I moved to Roseville in the mid 90s, there were just the two bears left, in tiny pens made from cyclone fencing, beside Dry Creek, which, ironically, floods every few years. Finally a ten-year old boy started a campaign to relocate the bears and get them better digs. He raised tens of thousands of dollars, and was very successful. I wish I could shake his hand.
Em told me that recently some man was caught trying to lure kids into his car from Royer Park, so we were extra vigilant watching the kiddies this time. Lala told me all about how wonderful it is over at Bev Bos' preschool, where I had wanted Katie to go (the waiting list was too long to get her in before we left). Lalique loves it there, and Katie would have too. Bev has the place set up to maximize childhood and learning. There are old typewriters and adding machines to take apart, a tree fort with various paths leading up to it, lots of stations for painting and drawing, an indoor loft with a sky-tunnel leading to it, an indoor rope swing, and always neat projects going on. When we visited, the volunteer parents had brought inside about a ton of dirt so kids could dig and build on it. It's a haven for kids.
Also we heard from from Lala that her brain tumor hasn't come back and she's feeling great. She looks beautiful as always. She and her husband are both actors, and come up to Ashland to see the Shakespeare Festival sometimes. Maybe we'll drive down and see some plays with them next year.
Finally, we drove out to Folsom and had dinner with our good friends Mark and Karen Olson. They're the ones who we saw in Chicago. They took us to Qdoba, an amazing Mexican place just a short walk from their house, where I had a fabulous relleno (stuffed with walnuts and raisins and beef, with a creamy sauce on it and pomegranite seeds. Sounds weird but it was great). We'll miss them a lot, but since they travel a lot, we may lure them up for a visit.
Tuesday, October 4
Last night was our last night sleeping in the RV until Christmastime. We dropped it off this morning at Village RV to get the gray tank replaced, the fridge fixed, the dash a/c fixed (hopefully), and a few other small things taken care of. When it's done, Cristie offered to drive up and get it and store it for us at her folks' place until we fly down at Christmastime. Bye bye, RV. I took a goodbye shot of it, waiting its turn to get fixed:
Then we met with our financial guy, who told us he has a client who just started a trip around the world in a sailboat (when we'd left last year on our trip, we'd had the number one hairbrained plan of all his clients. now they've assumed our position). Next, we stopped for the guaranteed last time to deposit yet more stuff into our storage unit, and then headed to Mark's dentist, who gave him a clean bill of health.
Now we are driving to Bishop, about 300 miles southeast of Sacramento, on the eastern side of the Sierras, to see my aunt, uncle, grandmother, cousin and maybe some other relatives for a couple days. My grandmother is 81 and has diabetes and heart problems, so this might be our last visit. Of course, I've been saying that for years and years now, so we've had lots of last visits. She made a tape of songs for Katie when Katie was just a baby, and I'm playing a CD of it right now. Her voice is very pretty, and Mark and I smile when she gets some of the lyrics reversed in Oh Susannah and Farmer in the Dell. A couple years ago, Katie and I drove down and Dorcas gave Katie a painting lesson (Dorcas is a painter). I videotaped that afternoon so I'll never forget it.
The aspen trees are turning yellow and orange over Monitor Pass, and the cottonwood trees are starting to turn too. It's a beautiful, clear day. We'll probably arrive at Aunt Jeanne's house between 7pm and 8.