On Monday, Nov. 9, I flew to Yakima Washington where my friend Louise picked me up and took me to her home near Zillah. I took this picture a couple of years ago while visiting. Her house is below the big white one on the left just above her reddish orchard of organic bosc pears.
She had had a house party the weekend before with lots of food left over. We ate well. Always lots of pears. Here is beautiful Louise in her beautiful kitchen.Off to Seattle for a couple of days and stayed with Nadine and visited with Lani, and Emily. I met Aimee at the Best of the NW Arts and Crafts show and walked miles and again ate very well.
On Sunday morning, the 14th, off on the Coastal Starlight train to California. I arrived in Davis the next morning and had an enjoyable day with my cousin Gillian. We spent a couple of hours in the UC Davis Botanical Garden, a Native American art and crafts show on campus and an afternoon at thrift and junk stores..... found a little treasure.
A few images from the Garden:
These were beautiful.... reminding both Jill and me of O'keefe's paintings of them.
We could see many of these night herons in the trees. There are lots of them and other birds that have become a problem, upsetting the ecological system.
I was quite impressed with the mosaics on three sides of this restroom in the garden.
Here is a close-up of one of the walls.
I met Aimee at the train station in Davis on Monday morning (she had left on Sunday) and we rode the rest of the way to Berkeley where we stayed with Aimee's old UCBerkeley college friend Charley.
Charley makes some really good wine and we helped him with bottling. We also helped him drink some.The Berkeley hills are beautiful. Walking and looking at gorgeous house and gardens was a delight. My last day there ( Sunday) we went to the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens and it is now my favorite garden.
This is "Charley's tree" He brought the seeds (or maybe it was the actual tree) back from New Zealand years ago.
On Sunday afternoon we drove over to San Francisco and walked around the Golden Gate Park and enjoyed the art and an organ concert at the Legion of Honor Art Museum. We had previously gone to the city on BART and walked for miles.... ate well there too, both times . Also visited and went shopping with relocated Alaskan and blogger friend Aurora in Berkeley, and to 2 other concerts.
.... a view from our last walk in San Francisco.I flew all the way home on Monday..... was a little doubtful getting out of Juneau, but the visibility got good enough about the time I got there.
So here I am home.... I am about use to the cold again. I didn't go outside until we went to friends for Thanksgiving dinner. It's blowing and raining now, pretty dark at 4 AM.
