Forty years ago, we moved from Bethlehem Pennsylvania to Alhambra California. Since that time, we have left the state many times but never for as long as this past “gap year adventure”. We are now back in Alhambra, staying with some friends, and enjoying the sunshine, warm breezes and generally beautiful weather. This is a really nice change from the 20’s, 30’s and 40s we have had since about Mid December.
We flew from our east coast base, Springfield VA, into Los Angeles March 14th. We left Springfield where the high was low 40’s and we arrived in Los Angeles where the low was upper 40’s. What a difference 3,000 miles makes! Since coming to LA we have been taking care of medical appointments for general health, knees, eyes, teeth, etc.,
visiting our wine – we have a storage locker in Glendale where a LOT of wine is resting waiting for us to open a bottle or dozens –
going to restaurants we have enjoyed in the past, visiting with friends we have missed and in general relaxing and having an enjoyable time.
We arrived in town soon enough to visit with winemakers Denise and Kirk of WesMar Wines
from Sebastopol in the Russian River area wine region. This included having a lovely dinner at Bacchus Kitchen and catching up. The following day was the Family Wine Makers Tasting, which we attended. The dinner was the highlight – the tasting the following day not so much. The tasting featured some 80 or more different wineries but nothing that really stood out as being special – with the except of WesMar of course.
Several years ago, we discovered that our Doctor, Garry, had theatre tickets the same night as we did – and we would try and coordinate getting together prior to the play to have dinner. Thus started a friendship outside of the doctor – patient relationship that continued once he retired (3 years ago) and we had the joy of hooking up with him this trip! He travels more than we do – he was heading to Madagascar when we connected a year ago, since then he has been to Columbia (the country of) and several exotic places. He is an avid “birder” and both track’s them in his logbook and also takes wonderful pictures of many.
One of Janeen’s things she has missed the most is visiting and volunteering at the Huntington Library and Gardens. For the last 5 or 6 years she has been a docent in the Herb Garden and has loved the experience. She has already visited once since we got back but will be going a couple more times in the next week or so.
So, while there are not a lot of pictures to share, we are continuing our adventure. In a couple of weeks, we fly back to Virginia where we will stick around for a couple of weeks to celebrate birthdays of Terri and Jason and then head back to Illinois to visit with Janeen’s dad. After that the current plan is to head SOUTH towards Georgia! Only time will tell what actually happens, but stay tuned, more adventures to report on as we move along.