On 7th Feb we heard Bill Gale at the Fresno C&S meeting. It was mainly an extended Brag Table as he showed us examples of his show plants (with lots of blue ribbons) from the Fresno Fair. He was extremely enthusiastic and his plants were, indeed, braggable.

On the 9th we took Alice to see an art exhibit in Bakersfield called “ Curiouser and Curiouser” by Christina Sweet. The paintings were based on “Alice in Wonderland”, of course. We dined on Tea, English style, which involves food as well as tea.

The next Tuesday we were at the BCSS meeting for Steve Kranyak’s talk on xeriscaping. I enjoyed the pictures, although there could have been more flower close-ups. I like the idea of using local plants. In Botswana I managed to keep the Botanic Garden planted with local species, but there was constant pressure to plant Roses! When I returned after an absence of some years, I found that someone had, indeed, added roses, but they had died!

On the 15th we heard Bill Cosby at the Fox. It was sold out and so had the largest crowd I’ve ever seen there. His theme seemed to be relationships between men and women (starting with Eve) and he had a lot of interaction with the audience. Although he was sitting most of the time, he showed a lot of energy for his age. (He is five years older than I am.)

On the 16th we drove up to Sacramento via 99 which has fiddlenecks, mustard and radish in bloom already. There were also African daisies which someone has introduced to roadsides recently. We then had dinner with John, James, Emily and the grandkids.

Matthew is beyond walking – he runs. Next morning we went to the Folsom Zoo which features Rescued animals. They had impressive Cougars and Tigers and Bears- Oh My. Michael wanted to quit halfway around because he heard the kids’ train whistle. We made him stay with us, but did eventually ride the train. We had lunch at restaurant with a beautiful view of the American River. There were tiny red crassulas at the edge of the parking. We then visited old town Folsom with its gimcrack shops in historic building. Finally we went across to Roseville to eat at Claim Jumpers – the usual shrimp stuffed jalapenos.

On the 18th we went junk shopping and then had lunch with all the relatives in Sacramento (and north) and said goodbye to James et al. who headed back up to Greenville. We stayed till the 19th and then headed home. By mistake we took I-5 even though it was rainy. The wind was horrific, but we did see a beautiful double rainbow.