A West Coast Fall
Hello from the sunny West Coast. It seems it is time again to send out a little update, and I must admit to some inward groaning when it comes to writing another letter. Nevertheless, here I am.
Fall has settled upon us, and I can’t help noticing all its lovely details. The hills and mountains are once again taking on a subtle green tint, and the cows are back on the knolls grazing peacefully. The trees in the city have changed to every shade of the autumn palette and are dropping loads of leaves. The vineyards are showing off their autumnal finery as well. Geese are honking their way across the painfully blue skies. Nights are chilly, days are warm, and the golden evening sunlight catches in the amber leaves still clinging to the trees. I simply adore fall afternoons and evenings. We’ve been packing plenty of cozy picnics and heading to the park. (Nobody said soup couldn’t pass as picnic food.) Brent will be sure to have a thermos of freshly brewed coffee tucked in somewhere too.
Last minute, I threw together a few clothes for the four of us and we headed out on our Sonora tract route. Fall calls for a drive over the Sonora Pass, you see. The colors weren’t quite at their prime, but they were delightfully close to it. I could hardly believe that we were still in California. The Sierra Nevada Mountain range presents plenty of astonishing beauty. Especially when grandeur mountains are a patchwork of yellow and orange trees, creeks are gurgling off to find the sea, deer are grazing at the edge of the shady wood, and far off waterfalls are tumbling silently down rocky mountainsides. We drove the June Lake Loop, which was one of my “must-see before I die” places, before ending up in Mammoth Lakes at our motel. (June Lake Loop is a sixteen mile scenic drive through California’s Eastern Sierra Mountains that winds around four alpine lakes. June Lake, Gull Lake, and Grant Lake. The drive is nicknamed the “Switzerland of California”.) Brent used his credit card points to book us a cozy little stay at the foot of Mammoth Mountain. There was fresh snowfall on the mountain peaks around and the air was quite chilly. We went for a stroll across town and found ourselves some supper. Spent the evening in the hot tubs and heated pool and didn’t even think of complaining about life at all. After a seventy-dollar breakfast the next morning, we put out some tracts in the little town there and began a rather long journey home. (And yes, we personally paid for the seventy-dollar breakfast for y’all this time, as we nearly choked at the price of two plates and some coffee.)😂 The route home took us through Yosemite. We didn’t stop for more than a stretch of the legs or the relief of bladders. Hopefully one day we’ll make it back to explore a little more. We drove in the park for over two hours, so we saw a lot of the beautiful scenery Yosemite has to offer.
The pictures above are the Sierra Nevada Mountains and June Lake Loop.
We met our friends, Jeremy and Vicki from Livingston, at Dell’Osso Family Farm. A fun-packed evening of hay rides, train rides through the orchard, pig races, apple cider doughnuts, etc. We went to this place last year and I believe I expounded on it, so I’ll spare you this time. It is a huge place packed with all kinds of fun things, and you really need five plus hours there to take it all in. Jeremy’s invited us to their age group’s fall supper a couple of weeks later. That was really fun. We got to know more of the Livingston couples, plus got to spend the night and Sunday at Jeremy and Vicki’s. Good times.
We ran out of rainbow-ed tracts, so West Valley kindly offered to help us rainbow a bunch more. We went up there Sunday morning and attended church, lunch at Troy and Kayla’s with the Paradise unit, and tract packing at church in the evening with abundant snacks afterwards. Austin and Brianna Giesbrecht from Brooksville are the house parents at the Paradise unit right now, so it was a good time catching up with some home folks.
Our Napa Valley tract route was calling our names this month as well. There is definitely not a prettier time of the year to visit Napa Valley. It was perfectly splendid weather and the vineyards were dressed in their best autumnal colors. Some vineyards were a crimson red, others were yellow or orange, and some were a deep burgundy and purple color. I was thoroughly captivated. Such a picture to see those vineyards rolling away over the hills toward distant mountains in perfectly manicured rows of yellow, orange, or red. The neatly kept old homesteads are so full of charm and character. I could just drive and look for days. A lot of the vines were still hanging with heavy clusters of dark purple grapes. We found lunch at an old-time diner where you walk up and order outside and then eat on picnic tables. (Napa Valley is full of sumptuous restaurants that we can barely afford to drive by and look at.)
Curt and Lois gifted us a rather large crate of Granny Smith apples from their tree. Brent has been busy drying apples these days. We also went up to Apple Hill one day. It’s basically a bunch of apple orchards up in the mountains with lots of little places to stop for apple cider, doughnuts, and apples. We strolled through the orchards and picked some of our own apples. And here I am going to say it… they were the best apples I have ever had. 🤓 A perfectly delightful fall activity, to visit Apple Hill. There were also some chestnut orchards up there. Have you ever walked under rows of chestnut trees? It’s quite enchanting.
Timothy and Allie and the girls came for a visit over school meeting break. It was a very short visit. We fairly panicked over planning out the days and trying to make the most of our time together. We must see and do, but we must also just be. And all that in scarcely five days. Elliot had looked forward to Alaina and Lili coming to visit for a very long time. He had restaurants he wanted to take them to and parks and ice cream shops etc. Olive was very loved on, kissed, squished, and coddled. We packed a lot of fun in, but all too soon they were gone.
We are well into November now, and have been welcoming some mellow rain and slightly lower temperatures. We attended the Glenn/Princeton fall benefit supper. Made ourselves right at home at Shawn and Eddie’s for Friday and Saturday night. We spent a low-key Saturday at Shawn’s, taking ranger rides, eating taco truck tacos, and picking mandarin’s from the tree. Saturday night we went to Travis and Caitlyn Amoth’s for supper. Sunday, Brent grilled pork chops at Shawn’s for the family.
Our homeless friend, Tommy, got kicked out of his bus station home and we have not been able to find where he’s sleeping now. Brent’s going on a hunt today to find him and maybe buy him a coffee.
Our little Ezra Dean turned two on November thirteenth and Bennie and Sher came to help us celebrate. Where does the time go? He was just a baby when we came to California. Now he’s talking a blue streak, wearing big boy shorts, and copying everything Elliot does. They are two mischievous peas in a pod, and everywhere one goes, the other isn’t far behind. I found them on top of the van in the garage the other day. They had stacked up a pile of totes, got their blue stool set on top of the stack of totes, and then climbed onto the hood of the van to the roof of the van. There they sat, pleased as could be. (We won’t think about what could have happened if they had fallen onto the concrete below.) That day when Brent came home from work, he couldn’t get the garage door to open. I couldn’t think what could possibly be the problem. Brent worked with it for some time and finally gave up. It was around 6 o’clock in the evening and we couldn’t leave the house with the van stuck in the garage. Finally got a repairman to come out around 8 o’clock and he had to do a reset on the garage motor. Turns out two little boys who happened to be on top of the van pushed the wrong buttons on the garage motor that is on the ceiling above the van. That little escapade cost us $99.
We are headed to Ballico this weekend to spend Saturday night and Sunday with Bryce and Janae Friesen. So I’ll just be over here packing clothes again.🥱 (Not complaining, because we love to go. But the packing clothes part does get old.)
Keep praying for the work in California.
