We finally got going out of Petaluma and headed down highway 101. In my youth, there was no interstate 5 running north/south in the central valley of California. All traffic went up and down the state on 101. Santa Barbara, my home town, is on 101. LA is on 101. San Francisco is on 101. So, a thousand years ago when I was a bartender at Maud's in the Haight Ashbury of SF, I had to write a short autobiography for an anniversary party. Mine was "I've lived my life on highway 101". In those days I not only lived in cities along that wondrous road but I spent a huge amount of time traveling back and forth on it. It did sometimes feel like I lived on that highway. Now, I-5 is so much faster that we rarely take 101. It's a trip down memory lane for me when we do. I remember when the road north of King City was lined with huge eucalyptus trees as a windbreak. I was amazed to see that many of them are still standing, some with trunks 5'- 6' in diameter.

Our first stop was another trip back in time. Last winter while I was in Akumal I got an email from a long ago friend, Rachel. It was wonderful to hear from her and we have been emailing since. She now lives with her husband Bill in Paso Robles - along highway 101!

We pulled into the local WalMart and Rachel came down for a visit. It was so great, she is still beautiful, still funny and happy and full of great stories. We had a good time, she was amazed that RVers can stay at WalMart's. The next morning we went to breakfast with her and her husband Bill and then went up to see their house on a hill overlooking town. Beautiful house, they are doing some remodeling and it is going to be even more beautiful. Rachel weaves and works in fabric and yarn making incredible hats and clothes and art. Bill is a painter and his pictures are really wonderful as well. What a joy to reconnect with your past and it is even better.

From old friends to new friends. We left Paso Robles and drove on down to Camarillo to see our new friends Linda and Mando. We met them at the 50th anniversary rally for our type of RV, Lazy Daze, in Cheyenne, Wyoming last summer. We really enjoyed them and didn't want to lose contact. We parked at a little dog park right below their house. We had a great dinner, lots of talk and got to meet their darling grandkids and their parents. Mando made us waffles in the morning and we got a pic of him with his granddaughter Emily, Linda was not having any pics taken in the morning! I can relate.

From Camarillo we drove a couple hours into LA to meet my son and his wife for a Mother's Day lunch. Pretty clever of me, eh? Show up on Mother's Day! We parked the rig in front of Dupre's office right at the 405 and the 10, which was easy to get to and easy for us to get on the 10 afterwards to head to Cathedral City. Plus, I got to see his office with his name over the door, makes a mom proud!

It was a neat office, I like the industrial, loft look and they had fantastic desks and tables made from huge cable channel with glass on top. Very high tech, which is suitable as they are a high tech company.

We met Ginny at a Brasilian restaurant and had a great meal and lots of talk. They showed me pics from their recent trip to our condo in Akumal. I think they finally realize what a great perk it is to have a caribbean condo always available to them. I've been trying to tell them to go down there more often, I think it worked this time.

Ginny's parents live in England and a lot of their travel has been over there to see her family. She says she is going to check on flights from London to Cancun and see if they can't meet at the condo. She's not only an incredible athlete, she's smart too.

Have I told you Internet, that my DIL Ginny came in 8th in her age bracket at a recent huge triathalon in central Calif? There were 8000 competitors total. She's amazing. Dupre said that she would swim the entire width of the bay in front of our condo over and over every day. Awesome!

Sunday evening we were back at our spot in Cathedral City, we call it Baddog Parking. I got up on Monday and spent the day in the pond. We're finally warm, temps are perfect right now, about 100* in the afternoon but cool at night. I'm still sleeping with the down comforter but we either have to get up by 8am or turn on the AC since our bed is right under a hatch and we have no shade. The last 2 nights I vowed to just get up when it got warm in the morning but the lazy part of me turned on the AC and slept another couple hours. Maybe tomorrow...