What Edna and I did yesterday: another jaunt in Marco Polo, my car who goes everywhere

[Guest guest]

There is an area south of Livermore, California and southeast of Berkeley and Oakland where there arestill some wineries left, some actual hay fields, anda very special journey that takes one through the hills,on a quite road from Livermore to San , throughwhat might appear to be the 1930s. The road is calledMines Road as mining was formerly done in those hills.There are mansions far off, and very old houses fromabout the turn of the century. New fire station, though.One passes from Alameda County (where Berkeleyand CAL and Oakland are) to Santa Clara Countywhere San , Palo Alto, Mountain view, Stanfordand NASA are.But we saw little of that. We took a short freeway route to Livermore and then to Mines

Road, andwe saw plenty:25 black-tail deerCountless numbers of pigs, goats and cattleMore trees, plants, bushes, shrubs and flowers than we could even begin to identifyThe Observatory having been past, we werequite amazed to see a Coyote (the animal) withcubs walking along the nearly untrafficked roadto our left as we got closer to San .We came back to the S.F. Bay area and Ednavery kindly took me out to dinner and fed mycar, Marco Polo.As if all this were not enough--it was now nearlymidnight, we went to the Berkeley Marina to seethe skunks (2) and the racoons (12).Not surprisingly, I got home after 1:30 a.m. andslept until nearly 11:00 a.m. today. Edna did thesame.There is another route, Del Puerto Rd., off MinesRoad that takes one clear into the center of the State to our Central Valley and Route 5 interstate.We

managed to leave that part (Stanislaus County)out, somehow. Edna grew up in the Central Valleyand I lived there during the first year of our marriage--Hans and I managed quite well: went to sheepdog trialsand horse auctions, even cattle auctions, and to YosemiteNational Park.Marco Polo was crushed to find that he was not goingon another mad "jaunt" today!Love to you all, n