We took the motor home up to mom's, to leave it for a week, ten days. We put the motor home to bed and packed and loaded the car for an early morning start to head to California via Sparks Nevada. We left at 7:30 mountain time yesterday morning Aug 19th and arrived at 3:00 pacific time. It took a total of nine hours to get here to include gas stops. The evening was spent with Diane and Chris, Russ's sister and nephew. We really enjoyed being here, as always just hanging out here with them is like standing in a field of flowers on a spring morning. We will be back next week. Today we leave for Vallejo California via the Sierra Mountains. Taco and Lucy have become quite the travelers.

We have arrived in Benicia at the Benicia Marina on August 20st (Friday) and are greeted by Suzanne. We are staying on Suzanne & Richard's trimaran. For our first night here we are having dinner with Sigmond & Carol from the fine sailing vessel Mary T. They are living in a house at the moment. Carol is an excellent cook and dinner consists of Chicken curry, curry cauliflower and rata which is a yogurt base with cucumber tomatoes dill and who knows what else, but it was good. The evening was filled with good food, good wine and good conversation.

Today is the farmers market in Vallejo. Suzanne and I headed over to get some fruits and veggies. The peaches and nectarines are all tree ripened and are mouth watering. The taste buds are in delightful heaven. After a couple of hours checking out all the vender booths and trying all the fruit we headed over to their storage unit. Suzanne needed to work on a couple of things. Richard made his famous spaghetti for us. No body can make spaghetti like an Italian. His spaghetti is the best we have ever had.

Sunday we slept in and Richard and Russ worked on battery and refrigeration issues. I lazed around reading a book and watching Suzanne buzz around the boat like a happy little bee. I sure got tired watching her. When she was finished we jumped into the car and headed over to try to get in touch with Mark another friend that is going cruising this year. Since Mark does not answer the phone you have to see him in person. We were lucky the truck and motor cycle were there. The odd of Mark being home were good. Now since he lives on his boat behind a lock gate at a marina, we had to wait for someone to let us in. Fortunately our wait was not long. We got there just in time. He was on his way out so we got to talk for a minute and make arrangements for him to come over Monday night. We were supposed to be at Kim & Henry's place for dinner at 6:00 pm. Since Richard and Russ were taking the dinner over to Henry's we were not concerned with being a little late. Also the football game was on and we all know how men like their ball games.

Monday the 23rd Mark came over for dinner. It was real nice to see him. We had dinner out side on deck. It was a real nice evening, the temperature was perfect. The plan was made to go to china camp the next day. China camp is a place in Marin. This is the place that at the turn of the century the shrimp industry lead by china men ran an operation gathering shrimp which they then sold at the market in San Francisco. Mark sailed his boat over and we were on the Aloha, Richard and Suzanne's trimaran. We all got together and had grilled yellow squash, zucchini, egg plant, leftover chicken and salad and of course a glass of red wine, with a full moon to boot. Who could ask for anything more? We made arrangements with Henry to drop our car off to him and he is going to get the transmission flushed and the oil changed while we are away from the dock. Henry has his own smog shop and friends that work on cars and can do anything that needs to be done.

We got up the next morning to a very pleasant temperature and a start of a beautiful day. The wind filled in early and we had a flood tide. So when you have huge tides and strong currents it be hooves one to take advantage of it. The decision was to pull anchor and head for home port. It was a nice sail. We were on starboard tack all the way home with the wind on the beam. Now this is not the norm here. It is usually on the stern going from China Camp to Benicia up river and on the nose from Benicia to China Camp (direction to San Francisco). We arrived at the dock and put the boat to bed and it is now 3:00 pm.

Richard decided that pizza would be a good idea for dinner and since we had to pick up the car at Henry's, we took pizza over to Henry's and were treated to a concert on his big tv and excellent sound system. Thanks Henry.

I am so sorry that I could not see all my friends. I did at least call. Next time, those of you that I missed I will see first.

Wednesday August 25th we left Benica and our friends to head to Sparks, NV. We are staying at Russ's sister's house. We had a wonderful dinner and watch some of those amazing and funny YouTube videos and just got real silly helping Russ do is first crossword puzzle. It was a real tough one. Diane, Russ's sister made it and she believes in challenging the brain. Friday we went for a picnic up at Galena Creek with Diane and Chirs. This is a real peaceful place. Chris, Diane, the dogs and I went for a hike. What a great day. We left Saturday mid morning and it took seven hours for us to arrive back in Salt Lake City.