Weekend Edition

It's Monday (again) already and I have been away from the blog chore for three days. Here's a brief re-cap;

• Cait and Mike arrived Friday from Bozeman. Laughs all around.
  
• Saturday we drove to Danville for a wonderful post-nuptual party for one of Cait's closest high school pals. The Patient stayed home to continue packing up, and besides, he can't eat or drink at random, and his voice is in one of its periodic croaking modes, so what's the point in trying to socialize?
  
• We spent the night, drove back Sunday, and they took off home about noon. I then took up the packing, stowing, boxing up, etc.
  
• Last evening was devoted to that annual ego-fest, The Oscars. Not many surprises, although I thought Eddie Murphy should have won but was glad Alan Arkin got the nod, if not for this role then for many years of fine work. But basically I thought it was boring. Good Grief! You have an entire auditorium crammed with people who make their living "entertaining" us. I was not entertained. And one more thing: How in God's name did Al Gore get so fat?
  
• And here we are at Monday already. The Patient is in his usual pre-departure frenzy. He gets like that before going to the market; imagine what it's like for this 2-month trip!

We have packed the car and it is riding mighty low. But I think we got most everything in it. Now if we can just get over the Grapevine on our way to the Southland I will be happy. There is another set of mountains to go over between San Diego and the flats of the Imperial Valley (San Diego to Tucson on Day 3). After that it's a straight shot down the Mexican coast.

This is only a part of the "stuff" that we are hauling down. Don't you love the duck in glasses? He holds chlorine pellets and bobs around in the pool keeping things clean. He'll love it in Mexico.

And this is how it looks after a scientific packing effort by the Patient. That's everything except our suitcases which are small this year as we'll only be gone two months. The photo does show the flats of liquid supplement for the Patient, but it does not show the 8 plastic pink flamingoes that will decorate our tropical garden. It's a long story . . . We'll cram in the cold chest and be on our way!


I heard from one of our beach pals that he tried out his WiFi at my house and it worked perfectly. There should be good connection so I can bring you along on our beach adventure.

Tomorrow morning, rain or shine -- and we're expecting heavy rains tonight and tomorrow -- we're off. Next stop: Long Beach.