Family Time

I am about to depart, once again, but this time from my sister and her son's family. We have had a wonderful visit and I hate to break the spell. It's been grand to have two little children in my world again, to be singing lullabies and reading them to sleep. They have worn me out in the pool. I want to stay and be their nanny.

Nancy and I took them down to Escondido today to meet another cousin, who has made an oasis with her husband at the top of a hill. Avacado trees and peaches, tortoises and chickens, heirloom tomatoes and eggplant - and special places to sit and rest or meditate. Bill and Debby do a lot of traveling and it is reflected inside their home. It was exquisite. Then it was discovered that Bill brewed beer and that the Stone Brewery was just down the hill and that was that. We were in our cars and gone. What a place.... Simone and Dylan played in a creek by our outside table while folks enjoyed brews at two large bars, inside and out. It was a stunning place and the hops were just right. My duck tacos weren't bad, either.

I guess it's hot everywhere right now. I hope everyone is enjoying the peak of summer. I occasionally have these moments when I realize that I could be listening to the news and plugging in and that I am not going to for the ENTIRE SUMMER. I do know that D.C. had an earthquake that woke Maggie up and that they may have finally plugged that evil oil spill. The Tour de France is on every night here so I am watching the most beautiful scenery one could imagine and there seems to be some kind of golf tournament going on.

Tomorrow I am going to make the journey from Laguna Niguel to Altadena, perhaps a one hour drive, and visit Debby's mother, Yvonne, sister to Aunt Zella, who I grew up living next door to in Crescent City. Zella and Yvonne have been icons to me all my life - beautiful, intelligent, cosmopolitan, active, passionate - it has been two years since Zella died, just after her 90th birthday, and it is still hard for us to reconcile that she is gone. I look forward to soaking up stories and history and, if I know Yvonne, some really good wine.

I spent quite a bit of time this evening organizing photos and I hope to post an album soon so you can see much more than I have shown you so far. Tomorrow is Day 20 and I begin to climb slowly through the state of California.