The rest of the trip

Friday we had a big dinner at Lorraine's. The other Smiths were there, too. I had a very nice long talk with Jeanne out in her new, cute Jeep. Bright red, of course. It was fun listening to her talk about how good her life is now. I'm happy for her. She's certainly earned it.

We had another awesome barbeque. After dinner we all went out to the fire pit for drunken reveling. It might be wise for them to build a rail around the fire pit. We almost lost Danny. Eric was very entertaining. Both of them.

Lorraine has been dealing with some problems with her job. During our visit she was going through some frustrating times but she was also taking steps to leave that job. I hope the next one goes well. She starts next week.

She's quite a woman. She's had a lot of rough times but she's come through it all like a champ. And she looks fabulous.

Saturday we went to the Lorenz's for a jam and barbeque. Michael joined us for that one. He was blown away by Amelia's bass playing. What a wonderful evning that was. The music was perfect. The food was awesome.

And, oh, what a nice group of people. We met Ernie Fosselius, the creator of Hardware Wars. He's been mentoring Amelia. For a little while (dang, I missed it. I left tp go pick up Lindsay) he was singing novelty songs and playing guitar.

Brian was there. We love Brian. We all swam for a while, which was nice. Hanging out in a cool pool drinking beer and listening to mellow music.

For dessert we had grilled pineapple on vanilla ice cream again AND S'mores. What a nice day.

Sunday we picked up Brian and went to Armstrong Woods. Then we drove to Duncan's Mills and ate lunch at the Blue Heron (sound familiar, Jeff?). There was a really good Grateful Dead cover band playing and there were bikers everywhere.

That night we had another nice dinner at Lorraine's. And that's the vacation. Next morning we left early and got to Michael's around 9:30. We visited with him for a couple hours and then left. The drive home was uneventful. It was a bit of a shock coming over the mountains and seeing all that smog. Sonoma County was clear and warm. SoCal is smoggy and HOT. Welcome home!

I'm still riding the wave. All those people inspire me. It's stupid that we didn't go up sooner. Thank you to Lorraine, Danny, Eric, Jesse, Lisa, Jimmy, Dave, Nancy, Amelia, Brian, Ernie, Michael, Terri, Mary, Jon, Jeanne and Eric. It was great seeing you all.