Lotsa California

Yikes! We've fallen behind on the blog, again. Here's a quick summary of the weeks since Yosemite.

We returned to Pacifica - just South of San Francisco, where Ellyn's sister and husband live. Ellyn had lots of fun hanging out with Laura while Laura recovered from surgery. We went to Rosh Hashona services at B'nai Israel - Judea in San Francisco where Ellyn's Camp Swig friend, David Morgenstern, is now the cantorial soloist. The services were great and David's voice was a joy. It was also great to see David's sister, brother and father. We had Rosh Hashonah dinner at Laura's and Jay's with Ellyn's father and his wife also joining us.

While in the Bay Area - we had fun seeing: Lorna, Brian & Nina, Wendy as well as Ellyn's family.

Our next destination was Napa where we visited the incredible "dream home" of Joel and Jenlea as well as the Porter Family Vineyard owned by Geoff's former IBM boss, Tom and his wife, Beverly. Their son gave us the winery tour and we had a delightful wine tasting in their wine cave that had been featured on "Dirty Jobs." It was a nice reunion with old IBM friends and a beautiful day in the Napa Valley.

Yesterday, we headed toward Monterey and were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful New Brighton Beach State Park. The beach was great to walk on and we were suprised to see dolphins just offshore. We had a great campfire using our newpurchased enviro-logs. Ellyn found these at Home Depot and they solved several of the drawbacks we had with using regular wood - smoke getting in our eyes, restrictions on carrying a supply of wood due to insect risks, and concern about the "carbon footprint" of smokey fires. The enviro-logs burned very wood-like and are the same cost as a bundle of wood. Now we have a box of them in the car ready to use whenever we get the urge to have a campfire.

It's time for bed now - I'll finish about Monterey and the thrilling ride down the coast of CA in my next post sometime soon.