The Silk Road, Road Trip, and other things

So much to catch up on.  The Textile Guild met for our quarterly on Shaw one month ago on February 20th.  We saw some beautiful tapestries and textiles from a trip member Joan Christoferson made to China, Tashkent, Samurkan etc on a Silk Road Tour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road

The following week, my father had an operation to remove part of his colon.  My brother Jeff and I stayed with him during his hospital stay.  And when he got out of the hospital my sister Rosalie brought him up to the island to recuperate. Here's a picture of him haggling with a local farmer at the Saturday Farmers Market.  He stayed in our little cottage for ten days and then we took him back to West Seattle on our way South on the road trip we have been planning for quite some time to see Roger's brother Guy's new home near Sacramento.  Before dropping Dad off, we stopped by Bjorn's so Dad could see little Audrey for the first time. 

After leaving Dad, we drove to Raymond to see our friends' new home.  (I know, not the most direct way to Sac but we don't get off the rock very often.)  Brent and Kathy bought an old dairy farm right on the Willapa River.  The house is over 100 years old and needs a lot of work, but its got good bones.  And everyone needs a project, right?

Pouring down rain from Raymond to Sacramento--only it was snow when we were near Mt Shasta.  But once we got to Brenda and Guy's, everything was good.  We took in the California State Train Museum.  http://www.csrmf.org/ which may have been the real reason for the trip.  Then Guy and Brenda showed us the town of Folsom, closest town to their home in El Dorado Hills. 

After a great visit with Guy and Brenda, we drove west toward Alameda, where my niece Bina and her family reside.  But first we stopped at Village Homes, an ecovillage prototype near U of C at Davis.  70 acres of permaculture!  http://villagehomesdavis.org/

We got to Alameda and the historic home that Bina, Joe, and Ovid call home.  Spent the next couple days walking everywhere (Alameda is VERY FLAT).  It was good to spend time with Bina and Ovid and see where Joe is working in a factory that is working with kites that propel boats up to 30 mph!

I had planned all the trip down to Alameda, but none of the trip back.  It was all ad hoc and turned out to be fabulous.  First we stopped in Petaluma, to see college buddy Nancy's new venture, a pizzeria start-up with her son-in-law, Raphael.  Hence, Rafy's!http://www.yelp.com/biz/rafys-pizzeria-petaluma

We found ourselves in Sonoma County and went to a winery that Brenda and Guy recommended based  on "biodynamics".  The winery was in Glen Ellen and is called Benziger.http://www.benziger.com/winegrowing/overview 

But the real find was that Benziger winery was surrounded by 180 acres once owned by Jack London and turned into a state historical park.  We visited the "Wolf House", a huge rock mansion ruin in the woods that burned down before London ever moved in.  And the farm where he experimented with radical farming techniques that seem very organic today.  http://www.parks.sonoma.net/JLPark.html

By this time we were running so late we decided to add an extra day on to our trip.  We stayed the night in Ukiah, Ca then drove through the "Avenue of Giants" redwood forest and got to drive through a Redwood tree, just like my family did back in the 60's on my last road trip to California.

 We also stopped in Arcata in Humboldt County
http://www3.humboldt.edu/engineering/sites/www3.humboldt.edu.engineering/marsh/index.htm
where an old lumber mill was turned into a wastewater treatment marsh and wildlife sanctuary.

At this point we were undecided as to which way to head up North.  We could head back to Yrika from Eureka and attempt the Siskiyous sans snow this time (we hoped)  But that highway was closed due to slides.  We could go through the Redwoods from Crescent City to Grants Pass like we did 18 months ago and then head to Crater Lake and Bend.  But then we decided to skip the whole mountain pass thing and hit the beach at Brookings, Oregon. 

The next day we drove up through Myrtle Point and stopped in Remote at a covered bridge to eat lunch.  Then we drove on to connect with I-5 at Roseburg.  Five grueling hours later, we were at my sister Jeannette's in Olympia.  She was good enough to put us up for the night AND cook dinner for us.  We easily made the 2 pm ferry the next day and arrived home safe and sound.

No time to do anything but regroup and repack.  I'm on to a Basket Weaving Retreat in Port Orchard in three days.  http://www.nwbasketweavers.org/retreat2010/index.html