We arrived in Walnut Creek, CA (not of Little House on the Prairie fame, I think).  It was wonderful to share a home cooked meal in these lovely surroundings with Steve’s cousins and just chat about family and whatever came into our heads.  Steve got to catch up on all the family news and I learned a lot about traveling, since both of them are much more experienced world travelers than we.  They have a lovely apartment and gave us a bed for the night, for which we are very grateful.

Tomorrow, we head for nearby San Jose and Los Gatos where Donnie spent an interesting year during 5th grade.  My father was given a temporary job in San Jose at General Electric and he took the whole family with him.  This was the eventful trip on which we (me and two younger brothers) traveled across the U.S. by car from Lynchburg, Virginia with our parents, a tranquilized Siamese cat, a very sick female Dachshund dog, and her litter of 2 week old puppies.  Poor Pixie couldn’t nurse her babies, so my brothers and I took it in turns feeding all six puppies, whose  eyes were barely open, with tiny doll baby bottles and trying to keep the pups cool with the breeze from the open windows all the way across this great land.   We were driving the Southern route in late July with extremely high temperatures, especially in the Mojave Desert.  [Children, this was before cars had air conditioners and it was not pretty.]

I would like to see Los Gatos again, especially because this was the scene of my pre-teen suffering.  So much happened that year in that rented house.  It was hard to be wrenched from my friends and the culture that I had adopted in Lynchburg to live in this place where I knew no one, had a sick Mom, sick dog, and two little brothers to watch.  I chewed my fingers (yes, fingers), had my two adult eye teeth grow in on top of the baby eye teeth (yes, a trip to the dentist), and suffered mind numbing boredom (thank goodness for the bookmobile and horse riding lessons).  It’s possible that I was not very good company during much of that year, though. 🙂

After the San Jose area, we will continue toward Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast Highway and see if we can sneak some peeks of the beaches on either side of the closed road between Monterey and San Luis Obispo.