August 10-15, 2015
Written August 10+
Written August 10+
Dear Diary, Friends, and Families,
Summer is flying by now. The hottest parts of summer weather are probably behind us and, on balance, it has not been bad at all. We are hearing from friends in Bavaria that they have had almost as hot a summer -- weeks on end in the 30sC (90sF) and very little rain. What is extraordinarily hot there is nice and cool in Fresno. And we will have no ice and snow to contend with in a few months.
Now that Marianne's heart difficulties seem to have passed, we have plans for an extended road trip, from mid-August through early October. We will be headed north into Oregon, Washington, and, maybe, British Columbia or Idaho and Montana. The goal is to reconnect with my friends and extended family, most of whom I have not seen in decades. But, before that, we needed to spend some time with the little local family.
We arrived at Sam and Ava's house, one they share with Gabby and Mamal of course, on Tuesday, looking forward to almost a whole week visiting. We will do the usual: play, talk, dine, and read stories. I can't think of anything better. We will have pictures, lots of pictures. Grandparents can never have too many.
From there it was head home to prepare for our trip to Oregon and Washington. Stay tuned.
John and Marianne
ps: On the way home, we stopped by the Romero Visitor Center, above the San Louis Reservoir. We wanted to document just how dry California is. The total capacity of the reservoir is 2,041,000 acre-feet. On this day, it held only 435,231 acre-feet, about 21%. The surface is over 100 feet below the top of the dam. Hopefully, we will see this lake grow in the next months.
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