One Year Away

Joseph

Sacramento is an old town that was in the center of the gold rush.  It is now the capital of California and where the Governator; Arnold Schwarzenegger, works.  However, the main reason for stopping in Sacramento was to visit some relatives of mine.  Despite growing up together in Peru my mother
hadn’t seen her cousin Erik in 32 years!  So when she found out we were planning on traveling through California she made plans to be in Sacramento at the same time and we had a mini family
renunion. 

Erik and his wife Kay were great hosts and we felt like we got the red carpet treatment.  We stayed in their gorgeous Californian style home, ate great food and went on tours of the local area.  Being a 4th generation Californian and a biologist, Kay was an excellent tour guide as we drove through some small gold rush towns and the El Dorado national forest.

On the way back from the El Dorado national forest we passed through an area of foot hills with the occasional tree.  It’s a beautiful landscape but being quickly gobbled up by housing developments spreading out of Sacramento. 

On Wednesday morning my mother had an early flight back to Montreal and Penny and I had an early train to San Jose.  We had a second round of goodbye’s with my mom at the airport and started making our way to San Jose.