October 27 - October 31st - Time in Mountain View, California

My Blog Reflection

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself. 

Groucho Marx

October 26, 2024 - Arrival in Mountain View, California

For supper Adam made a charcuterie board for us. Here are pictures. 

October 27, 2024

While we hung out at the house with the granddaughters and watched football, Adam made homemade pasta for supper. We had bowtie pasta, cavatelli, and meat ravioli. All were delicious!

October 28, 2024

I went with Annie to drop the girls off at school. Wren goes to pre-K at one school and Violet goes to a different school closer to home. Here is a picture of the girls with Annie ready for school. It’s chilly in the morning here in Silicon Valley.

Here is a picture of the school yard at Wren’s school as kids wait to enter their classrooms. It is organized chaos. They wait on geometric shapes by class until the teachers come out to get them. Being California there are no halls ways . All of the classrooms just open to the outside.

Adam and I then made a trip to the hardware store to purchase hooks, etc. in the stairwell we then hung the picture we brought out in the truck bed. Annie picked this spot to hang the picture so it could be viewed from a distance. Here is a picture of the picture hung in place. The picture is over 50 inches wide, thus the need to bring it out in the truck.

October 28, 2024

The four of us walked downtown for lunch at Limon, a Peruvian restaurant. Kelly and I had never tasted Peruvian food before so it was a new experience. We both enjoyed it, including dessert.

Since I had my hammer drill with me Adam asked me to drill holes in the concrete to insert bolts to secure the wooden gazebo in case of wind. I had a devil of a time drilling the holes because I kept hitting rebar and granite stone used in the concrete. When finished a shot of whiskey to sip after supper was just what I needed. I slept like a baby.

October 29, 2024

Annie had to work all day so Kelly and I went to the Hiller Aviation Museum about fifteen miles away. We both really enjoyed it. I never realized how many companies and how much early aviation developments took place in California. I took some pictures of the airplane exhibits but being inside they were too crammed together to be worth saving. The museum had the nose of a 747 Boeing jet. You could sit in the cockpit. The first picture is head-on. The second and third pictures are of the wall of switches and lights behind the pilots. Crazy

From there, at Adam’s suggestion, we drove to the town of Burlingame and walked the quaint downtown area. We stopped and had a great pizza at “Rise Pizzeria”. I had never had a “beef rib and arugula pizza” before. Here is Kelly getting ready to dig in.

October 30, 2024

After running some errands with Adam we came back to their house and loaded a mattress and frame in the bed of the truck. I closed the tailgate and realized I forgot to put something in. I pulled on the tailgate handle AND IT BROKE OFF IN MY HAND! It is plastic. I HATE plastic. Here is a picture of the lock with the broken handle piece laying on the top of the tailgate.

Unbelievable. This ticked me off.  I never dreamed this part is made of plastic. Luckily I can get the tailgate open with a screwdriver and pliers. I looked online and I will have to replace the entire latch mechanism. I can get a replacement in white, black, or chrome. I won’t order a new one until I get home. The prices range from $10.00 to $100.00. Crazy. Since all the replacement locks are plastic I doubt one is better than the other.

After getting sandwiches for lunch, Kelly, Annie, and I went to Goodwill to look around. I found nothing I wanted. Kelly found a few things. The evening was spent watching the World Series.

October 31, 2024

The girls were up early for school with their Halloween Costumes on - white and black cats.

Annie and I took Wren to school and watched all the kids parade around for the parents. Here is Wren waving at us.

Lots of parents lined up to watch the parade of pre-k and grade school kids.

After I gassed up the truck we packed our clothes in the truck since we are leaving early in the morning. Adam and Kelly stopped on the way back and bought a bear claw for breakfast. 

The kids went out for Trick or Treat. Kelly and I put on our costumes and handed out candy.Here are pictures of everyone on Halloween.

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October 23, 2924 - October 26, 2024 — Final Leg of Trip and Days at Erin’s in Tracy, California.

My Blog Reflection

You don’t get older, you get better.

Shirley Bassey

October 23rd:

After a nice breakfast at Dennys we headed to Tracy, California, our first destination - Erin’s house. It was a beautiful drive through Donner Pass. We stopped in Truckee, California, to tour the “Donner Museum”. There was a nice video and many displays explaining what happened to the Donner party wagon train going over Donner Pass in 1846. There is a beautiful monument there which depicts a family headed West. The sculpture is bronze and it was brought to the site in several pieces. Here is a picture and an explanation.

We arrived at Erin’s on a sunny afternoon and visited until the boys got home. It was so great to see them. Erin made a pot of rice, beans, and pork for supper, which was delicious.

Three year old Free is a character. At one point he decided to demonstrate how Grandma gets off the couch. It was hilarious. 

I was up early so tallied up my gas receipts to see what kind of mileage the truck got on this long haul. 15.9 mpg. I was a little disappointed. I would have thought it would have done a little better.

Erin had to work so we took Free for the day. A few things were needed so a trip to Walmart was in order. Free got a pair of rubber boots, a new bike helmet, and new PJs. Erin needed a crock pot so we bought one. Back at the house Kelly put the ingredients needed for a chicken noodle for supper in the new crock pot. While she was doing that I followed Free around the block on his scooter with his boots and new helmet. His scooter went much faster than grandpa. 

We then took Free to lunch at the Black Bear Diner. Here is a picture of Free and Kelly out in front.

After lunch we drove about eight miles to a pumpkin patch farm. It cost $21.00 each to get in with no discount for kids nor seniors. The place was a major ripoff in my opinion.  As we walked in there were several large puddles. With his new boots on Free was eager to jump and splash. He jumped and splashed for several minutes until he got his pants wet. He didn’t like that. There were long slides and tubes to slide down. After going down kids had to walk a long way around to get to the steps to go again. Free went down twice and had enough of that. There was a “Teeny Town” of children sized buildings. Free roamed through each building but mostly he liked the Italian Restaurant where he cooked us pizza and served it up in the booth.

He also liked the firehouse and held tight his position as the fire truck driver as other kids walked in and out. Here is a picture.

They had pony rides for an extra $10.00 and it was $5.00 to ride the carousel. Tight Grandma and Grandpa said “no” to both. They had a large jumping pillow, which he enjoyed. When finished jumping he wouldn’t walk back to get his boots because he didn’t want to get sand on his socks. The worker was kind enough to retrieve him, carry him to us, and fetch his boots. Jeez, three year olds. When walking back to the truck he told us that he had a great time so I guess it was worth the exhorbitant price.

Erin’s back yard is all concrete and all back yards in subdivisions in California are surrounded by a six foot solid fence. In one area in the back of her yard the concrete has settled and water pools up all the time. I brought my hammer drill and drilled a couple half inch holes to hopefully drain the area.

October 25, 2024

We went to Stockton to check on some things for Erin. From there we went back to her house to meet a friend, Scott, who was going to help get Erin’s Ford Cmax started. I had put a 6 amp charger on it for two days and it did nothing. It is a hybrid but needs the 12 volt battery to start. Scott’s jumper box started it right up but it wouldn’t stay running. We did some checking and found the 12 volt starting battery in the back only had 3 volts. The battery had a 2023 sticker on it and Scott recognized it as an O’Reilly battery.  We pulled it out and headed there. The battery was replaced and still has two years left on the warranty. Everything is good. Erin now just needs to get it licensed and insured.  Then she will not have to rely on Kellen’s car. 

After the car issue was resolved we picked up pumpkins to decorate and a flower for Kellen’s girlfriend, Sabrina. It was her seventeenth birthday so we all had dinner together. Here is a picture of Kellen and Sabrina.

Here is a picture Erin took of us outside. I love Free’s little grin.

Back at the house we painted pumpkins and put them out in front. Lots of talent in this family. LOL I’ll let you guess which one I did.

October 26, 2024 

In the afternoon we went to Kellen’s marching band competition. His school hopes to do a sweep this year and win all competitions. Last year they came in first in all but one competition. In that one they came in second. Today they came in first in all categories except band director which got second. Cousins, Violet and Wren, made posters to cheer Kellen on. Nice work for a seven year old and a four year old.

Here are some pictures of the competition. The first is one is of some band members with the trophies they won today. Well deserved. They practice two hours after school three days a week and for six hours every other Saturday.

Here is the band ready to take the field. Kellen is on the front row, far right.

Kellen is the one on the right of the three playing the baritone horn.

Here is a short video.

After the band competition we drove to Annie and Adam’s house in Mountain View, California, where Adam had a nice light supper ready for us.

October 27, 2024

Sunday morning, after a nice breakfast cooked by Adam, we unloaded the truck. We brought out a lot of stuff for this family. Then all of us except Adam carved pumpkins. Adam was busy making homemade Ravioli for supper. YUM!  I’ll let you guess which pumpkin I carved.

After cleaning up from the pumpkin carving we all settled in for a day of watching football.