Esa Sacramento-Vacaville

Arrived home around 7:30pm Fairfield, CA Street ...

... ago this meant that the early birds got front row seats in the middle of the stage and the late comers were further back or at the sides.
Anyway cutting a long story real short (still a sore point), we were then advised that we are all on standby to fill the seats of any VIP's that did not make it to the taping.
Needless to say we were there until 18:45 (1 hr and 15 mins) only to be told that all but 1 VIP had now filled the seats and we were not able ...

Start trip from home, Fairfield, CA Street/View/Map Thurs. 11/19/09 at ...

A lovely day -- with an easy drive out to Sacramento, a good day visiting Sac State (which is a very pretty campus, especially this time of year, with the leaves changing), then an easy drive home. Definitely a long day, and I was exhausted by the end of it, but not a bad one at all.

... and a half to arrive in Napa for phase three of our wine tasting tour of the world, where we would be camping for the night. We found the visitor center and were loaded up with far too much literature than was necessary by the overly helpful lady. We realised fairly quickly that Napa wasn't going to be very accommodating for us with only one cheap camping option, charging for tastings and being spread out ...

... and green feathers that look like eyes. Well, you may not know this (we didn't) but peacocks have a very interesting sound. To give you a sense of it, when we were telling Robert about the peacocks and the noise they make, he shared with us a funny story about his first experience with the peacock's call. Robert is a retired police officer. One night early in his career, while out on patrol, he was driving by an abandoned house and was startled by a strange sound. He stopped to ...

... Alex and his wife Hellas, niece Michelle and her husband Ah Shun, and grand-niece Susan and her husband Edson) for temporarily accepting me as part of the family, for that I am very grateful. Thanks go to all who took the time to read the blog (even if it was only a handful of episodes), and especially those who did so out of interest rather than any sense of obligation. Regarding the blog itself, my thanks go to those who emailed encouragement ...

... her again. The next day, Wednesday, it was time to go home. We got up at 5:45 to get in the taxi, which arrived at 6:30. It was an uneventful, but long, 2 hour taxi ride to London Heathrow Airport due to rush hour traffic. We had luckily gotten our boarding passes the day before on line and they whisked us into the business/ Club One line to check our bags. After a quick breakfast at the Giraffe café, we were on our 10 hour flight back home. The girls were so excited to be ...

... but the girl can ride. Gas has been our biggest expense thus far and I'm sure that will not change anytime soon. We'll let you know later on if we're still enjoying our confined living space ;). Anyway, back to our travels. We passed through Crescent City, CA and stopped to take a picture of the large seals outside the Ocean World gates. Why did we not go in you ask? Why, because it was closed of course. It's all ...

... Amy typing at the moment). However, in the interest of time and not to bore you to tears with endless ramblings about it's beauty, we've decided to abbreviate a bit and just strongly suggest that everyone go see it for themselves at least once in life. For those in Chicago, we really do get a bit removed from nature so when you see it up close and personal like that it truly is mind-blowing...makes one forget all about the little things, that's for sure!