Off to California again --- this time to deliver birthday greetings in person to Denise and Dan and create a few new memories with longtime friends. I can think of only one bonus, however, a 6 am departure for Cincinnati may have over later flights: a beautiful view of dawn over Ohio --- if you can stay awake. In the pre-dawn darkness, sinuous ribbons of valley fog tricked us into thinking an Amazon-like maze of rivers had inundated Ohio.
From touch-down in LA until lift-off in San Francisco 10 days later, California’s weather lived up to its bright and sunny reputation.

Our short stay in LA was just long enough to catch up with Denise and Dan, both of whom have September birthdays. It was great to see them both. A blessing any parent would understand, these two are in good health, well-adjusted and productively engaged in their separate careers. (Thankfully, that applies equally to Greg.)

Denise has just turned 30 and is still happily employed as a police officer for the city of Redondo Beach. So, what better place than Redondo’s harbor area to properly celebrate this watershed event?
Unlike her twin brother, Greg, whom we saw in May, she thinks 30 is a fine age. Greg, however, needs some time to be convinced.

Dan’s birthday is on September 25 so ours was a get-ready-for-the-big-day reunion. With the fall term just underway, he’s working furiously at Laureate Education as an online course advisor.
He doesn’t look overworked to me!

Somehow, we also managed to squeeze in lunch with Clinton and Janice and breakfast with our hosts, Warren and Sue (Patty’s college-mate), accompanied by Jim and Karen (Sue’s sister). Without a doubt, good friends are a treasure.

All too soon we took leave of our hosts and their warm hospitality and were off in our rental for a drive up the coast. Enhancing that drive were short stops at Oxnard’s Heritage Square and Santa Maria’s Waller Park as well as a repeat visit to a favorite of ours, the Oso Flaco Lake Nature Preserve near Guadalupe to watch the bird life and explore the beach.
Morro Bay makes a wonderful lunch stop and a picturesque place to stroll. For a weekend, the town was surprisingly uncrowded.

It was a long time ago that we last drove California’s scenic central coast . With the state’s burgeoning population, I couldn’t help but imagine it must be completely paved over with houses and freeways by now. Happily, though, much of the coast highway remains just the same as in years gone by. The coastline is just as stunning, the bridges just as graceful, and traffic --- on this mid-September weekend, anyway, --- no worse than I remembered.
After many brief stops, we lingered long enough in Big Sur State Park for a vigorous hike over hill and dale to Pfeiffer Falls. Inexplicably, a photo taken there, slightly into the sun, produced a striking but totally unexpected result:
I call it, “Heavenly Streamers”. Now, I understand why some folks compare walking in the woods to being in church.

With overnight reservations in Monterey, we hadn’t intended to visit Carmel. However, because traffic was dead-stopped on the highway and the dinner hour fast approaching, a U-turn led to our first drive through this pricey, boutique-filled village. Fortunately, the backed-up traffic cleared over dinner, allowing us to reach the hotel as planned.

Two unusual sound effects are now part of our memory of Monterey. One was the playing of “Taps” at 10 pm, coming from the Presidio. We learned next morning that this is a nightly occurrence in Monterey. The second was the all-night barking of sea lions down in the harbor. We’re fairly certain THAT is a nightly performance, too, perhaps year-round. Thankfully, our heavy-duty ear plugs made Monterey’s night as peaceful as Pennsylvania’s. If you want to know whether “Reveille” was played at dawn, you will have to contact the tourist bureau.

The real payoff of our stay near downtown was a delightful morning walk around historic Monterey, the capital of Alta California under Spanish rule. Down at the waterfront, pausing for lunch and photos, we discovered the boisterous sea lions have made themselves right at home on the breakwater.

Later that Monday we added another discovery when we stumbled into the nearly deserted Santa Cruz beach boardwalk. After Labor Day the usually-crowded amusement park is only open on weekends. D’oh!

Finally, in Pleasant Hill we linked up with my high school chums, Jim and Dave, and their wives, Karin and Judy. Over the next several days this mini-reunion brought many laughs, joking, kidding, toying with computers, enjoying good food and even getting some exercise. Besides shopping in Berkeley, there was a stroll along the Martinez Regional Shoreline where this photo was taken,
hiking in Briones Regional Park and exploring Rose Hill Cemetery in the Black Diamond Mines Preserve. It was there we scared the bejabbers out of a rattlesnake just off the trail! Our frantic six foot leaps into the air were intentionally designed to chase it away. ---> : )

John Muir’s house in Martinez, where the naturalist lived for 24 years, was another destination. Although the growing season was nearly at an end, some yummy concord grapes and tasty blackberries could be had for the picking by anyone not troubled by stained hands.
And thus did I relive memories of my only other visit with my parents decades earlier. All I remember of that long-ago visit is the bags of fruit we took from the orchard, a practice allowed at the historic site since the fruit is not actually harvested. The authorities do frown, however, on visitors climbing into the trees. Dang! That’s where the best fruit is!

With Dave as our guide and driver, all six of us enjoyed a day’s outing in Sonoma Valley, just west of better known and busier Napa Valley. The outing gave us ample time to savor the local wines, dine on some delicious Mexican food
and tour the town of Sonoma along with its historic mission, San Francisco de Solano. Founded in 1823, this mission was the most northerly of California’s 21 missions and the last to be built.

All good things must eventually come to an end and this trip was no exception. However, besides happy memories, it did generate ideas for future trips to California. Our use of BART from the suburbs to San Francisco Airport and Delta’s flights through Cincinnati made for smooth and pleasant travel --- something we really should do more often.