We flew into Oakland on a Thursday and took our time driving north to our hotel in Windsor. We took a scenic route and stopped for some letterboxing along the way. We stopped at a scupture garden at the Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa and toured the sculpture gardens. Not far from there, we stopped for pictures of a beautiful round barn. When we got to the hotel, we met up for dinner with Kamal (another friend from high school) and her husband Bill.
Friday, Kamal, Bill, Allen, and I went on an all-day journey. We went hiking in the Armstrong Redwoods State Park -- well it was supposed to be a "walk," but after climbing (what I was told was) a small hill, I decided to call it "hiking." The size of the trees was amazing (even though I know some redwoods are bigger.) I enjoyed getting caught up with Kamal, and the guys had fun teasing us when we were talking so much we forgot to pay attention to which way the trail turned. We had a picnic lunch of cheese, bread, apples, and chocolate.
We told our friends about letterboxing, and their curiosity was piqued so we found a couple on the way back to the hotel -- I think Bill had a lot of fun treasure hunting. After a quick change we were all ready to head to the rehearsal dinner in the wine cave at Lancaster Estates Winery. It was a wonderful dinner, but the best part was being with old friends. It is awesome that we can go so long without seeing each other, yet after only a few minutes we are just as comfortable together as we were as teenagers. From left to right, here are the girls who lived in the same hall in high school: Jenn, Kamal, Chrissy, Ines, Jamie, and me. We all went on a vacation together right after we graduated 15 years ago, and we promised (then) to get together often. Last time all of us were together was at my wedding ten years ago.
And here I am with that guy I met in high school way back when...
Saturday we hiked some more -- this time Jenn and Thomas joined Kamal, Bill, and us. When we were deciding where to go for the day, we chose Sugar Loaf Ridge State Park because there were supposed to be four letterboxes along a six mile scenic hike. Now before you go thinking we are obsessed with finding these treasures, we are not. But, when we travel, we often take the directions for some so that when we don't know where to go or what to see, we can turn to these letterbox instructions for some ideas. That's how we ended up at a beautiful park, by the beautiful waterfalls, taking some beautiful pictures (well, Allen did, anyway.) We found one of the letterboxes, but we ran out of time and patience looking for another, and didn't get to find them all. However, the trip was successful -- we enjoyed each other and the scenery. We had a super-fast-(tip-that-guy-well-for-rushing-our-food-to-us)-lunch and got back to our rooms with just enough time to clean up for the wedding. 
Ines and Sandjeev married at Trentadue Winery and the weather was perfect. Actually the entire weekend had perfect weather: just warm enough to not need a jacket, cool enough we never got sweaty, pretty sunshine dancing in the clear blue sky, wildflowers painting the green hillsides. The outdoor ceremony was about 12 minutes long including the procession -- definitely the quickest I've attended, and the setting was wonderful.
I had such a wonderful time with my friends that I wasn't ready for the weekend to end. Luckily, we still had another day to enjoy the area. Again, we hit the road with Kamal and Bill, but this time in separate cars. We headed out to the coast and found one last letterbox for this trip. It was a gorgeous drive down a one lane road -- over the rivers, up and down the bright green mountains, out to the Pacific. Gorgeous! We did get run off the road, but that was only muddy -- no one got hurt. We walked around the beach and got some pictures, then we had a tasty lunch in Bodega Bay. We lucked out and happened to be in the same town as the Jelly Belly bus so we stopped to play the BeanBoozled game. We flicked the spinner and it told us what color jelly bean we had to taste. Kamal went first and landed on the red bean -- was it strawberry jam or centipede flavor? Her frown told us it was not strawberry. I ended up with booger instead of pear. Bill had baby-wipes instead of coconut. Allen got three black licorice in a row -- lucky he didn't get skunk spray flavor. We laughed a LOT and got some sample bags of regular flavored jelly beans. I asked the lady if the moldy cheese jelly bean was like blue cheese. . . she let me try. . . it was nothing like blue cheese, and may have been the nastiest thing I've ever tasted. After that, we said our sweet goodbyes and went our own ways. Allen and I continued on Highway 1 down through San Francisco and headed home the next morning.
After we picked up the kids and were almost home, I pointed out to Allen how perfect the trip was: neither of us got sick, neither of us lost luggage, every plane we rode was on time or early, the weather was lovely, the fellowship with friends was awesome. It was just a great trip! Just minutes after I said that.... BANG! As much as we cringed at the drivers in California, it was when we were almost home that we got rear-ended. At a stop light. Three times. By the same lady...who had already stopped. No one was hurt, we got home a little later than planned with about $1400 damage to our bumper.
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