Somewhat belated weekend post
Mar. 30th, 2004 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
professionalhenchmanSo, this weekend I took Lovely Girlfriend (sure, we'll give kelsie her meme for a post) up to the coast to show her where I'd grown up and introduce her to various people. She was actually in the group I'd dragged up that way for the 4th of July, but we weren't dating at the time, so I didn't have to introduce her to everyone. ;) And of course, since I'd made plans for the weekend, all kinds of other stuff that I'd have wanted to do turned out to be scheduled for the same weekend. Oh well, no regrets here about my choices for what to do with my time. :)
Friday evening, we went up to Santa Rosa to have dinner with my family, and crash there for the night. Wonderful Girlfriend got along with them quite well, which was no particular surprise - I have a generally cool family, and if you get along with me, you'll likely get along with the rest of my family - we're all quite similar in many ways, which makes sense when you think about it. My brother Loren was even up, which was a shock - he rarely makes it up from Santa Barbara. Not that I can blame him for wanting to stay down there, it's a nice place, or so I've heard from several people. He turned up at 1:30 am or so - I vaguely recall waking up a bit as people wandered around.
Saturday, we stuck around for a late breakfast, and headed up the coast. I really enjoy driving Hwy 1, it's quite relaxing to me, windy roads, cliffs, and all. I'm sure it's because that's what I learned to drive on, and I'm comfortable on the roads. I did make the tires squeal a bit around a couple of curves - It's been a while since I've driven those kinds of roads regularly, but it all comes back pretty quickly.
We got up to Gualala and dropped our stuff off in the apartment there, then went out visiting. We dropped in on Francie Angwin, the mother of two of my best friends growng up and my HS math teacher. She's one of two people who were really adopted moms for me, and she's on the list of people who absolutely had to be introduced to Amazing Girlfriend - if I were to bring a girlfriend up to the area and not introduce her to Francie, I'd be dead meat. :) It was a lot of fun, and I got filled in on what nearly everyone I grew up with has been doing with themselves, and managed to shock Francie with a bit of news about peple we both know which she hadn't heard yet. We got shown her newly redone backyard, and introduced to her Fiancee, Joe, I think his name was. I hate being absent-minded. He seems quite cool.
After that, we wandered up to Bower park and wandered around, with me making various commentary about my memories there. I was shocked to see that they've torn out all playground-type equipment in the entire thing - Francie thought it had something to do with new safety regulations. It's a shame, they used to have a really cool wooden maze-type structure. Eventually, we wandered back to the apartment for a nap - unfortunately managed to miss the sunset that way, oh well. We went to dinner at one of the few reasonably afforadable restaurants in the area, which had just changed name and ownership, so it was slightly more difficult to find.
Sunday, we went to chuch at St. Paul's UMC in Point Arena, which is the church I grew up in. About half of the congregation recognized me, and said hi and all. This is the second time I've been up there with their current pastor - She's quite good. It was nic to be able to introduce Sarah to people who helped raise me, and it's very nice to be able to share this side of my life with her.
After church, we went to the Point Arena lighthouse for a nice view of the ocean and a fun tour of the lighthouse. I haven't been there since I was very small. It's fun, and with the surprisingly clear skies, it was very pretty. From there, we wandered to the beach briefly, then back through Gualala, and stopped to visit for a while with a former classmate of mine who owns one of the video stores now. It was amusing watching him do a double-take, since he didn't recognize me at first.
We came back to Davis, after stopping in at my family's place for dinner on the way back. All in all, a most wonderful weekend.
Friday evening, we went up to Santa Rosa to have dinner with my family, and crash there for the night. Wonderful Girlfriend got along with them quite well, which was no particular surprise - I have a generally cool family, and if you get along with me, you'll likely get along with the rest of my family - we're all quite similar in many ways, which makes sense when you think about it. My brother Loren was even up, which was a shock - he rarely makes it up from Santa Barbara. Not that I can blame him for wanting to stay down there, it's a nice place, or so I've heard from several people. He turned up at 1:30 am or so - I vaguely recall waking up a bit as people wandered around.
Saturday, we stuck around for a late breakfast, and headed up the coast. I really enjoy driving Hwy 1, it's quite relaxing to me, windy roads, cliffs, and all. I'm sure it's because that's what I learned to drive on, and I'm comfortable on the roads. I did make the tires squeal a bit around a couple of curves - It's been a while since I've driven those kinds of roads regularly, but it all comes back pretty quickly.
We got up to Gualala and dropped our stuff off in the apartment there, then went out visiting. We dropped in on Francie Angwin, the mother of two of my best friends growng up and my HS math teacher. She's one of two people who were really adopted moms for me, and she's on the list of people who absolutely had to be introduced to Amazing Girlfriend - if I were to bring a girlfriend up to the area and not introduce her to Francie, I'd be dead meat. :) It was a lot of fun, and I got filled in on what nearly everyone I grew up with has been doing with themselves, and managed to shock Francie with a bit of news about peple we both know which she hadn't heard yet. We got shown her newly redone backyard, and introduced to her Fiancee, Joe, I think his name was. I hate being absent-minded. He seems quite cool.
After that, we wandered up to Bower park and wandered around, with me making various commentary about my memories there. I was shocked to see that they've torn out all playground-type equipment in the entire thing - Francie thought it had something to do with new safety regulations. It's a shame, they used to have a really cool wooden maze-type structure. Eventually, we wandered back to the apartment for a nap - unfortunately managed to miss the sunset that way, oh well. We went to dinner at one of the few reasonably afforadable restaurants in the area, which had just changed name and ownership, so it was slightly more difficult to find.
Sunday, we went to chuch at St. Paul's UMC in Point Arena, which is the church I grew up in. About half of the congregation recognized me, and said hi and all. This is the second time I've been up there with their current pastor - She's quite good. It was nic to be able to introduce Sarah to people who helped raise me, and it's very nice to be able to share this side of my life with her.
After church, we went to the Point Arena lighthouse for a nice view of the ocean and a fun tour of the lighthouse. I haven't been there since I was very small. It's fun, and with the surprisingly clear skies, it was very pretty. From there, we wandered to the beach briefly, then back through Gualala, and stopped to visit for a while with a former classmate of mine who owns one of the video stores now. It was amusing watching him do a double-take, since he didn't recognize me at first.
We came back to Davis, after stopping in at my family's place for dinner on the way back. All in all, a most wonderful weekend.
