Evening in paradise

After a short visit in Healdsburg with Audrey, who at 92, can only take a short visit before resting again, we headed for the Pacific again, this time to Bodega Bay and then up Highway 1. We made an overnight of a visit with Stew and Lynn Fox at their incredible built by themselves home just up the hill from the Pacific near Point Arena. They harvested huge fir timbers from their land for the supports for this home, peeling the bark and rubbing to a fine patina. Over ten years with the help of 100 family and friends, the dream took shape. Looking through the photo albums of the build shows the love that went into this home. Starting with camping in a tent to drilling a well to upgrading to a trailer, the story is documented.

And like the home, the family exudes warmth. Lynn is quite the bohemian, and if my climate was like hers, I might have such a garden too. One of her bohemian traits is the abhorrence of a dishwasher. All the years I have known her, she has never used one. Those who don't cook wash dishes. It's a bonding thing. I officiated over the meatball dinner making in a fine kitchen with lots of help, so I did not have to do dishes. Good thing. There were four pots to wash.

We shared so many bonds that evening, starting with Carl and Stewart who knew each other in high school long before they were stepbrothers, Lynn who grew up in Angel's Camp and thinks she personally knows the trees that Lori has painted, and Pam, Lynn's niece who grew up in La Porte and Casa Mare where her mother was a counselor and was part of the original Girl Scout Backpacking movement. Now she owns a bookstore a mile from Caroline's house in Walnut Creek and sends her children to Alcanes where Carl and Stew went to school. Her daughter is attending Trinity in
San Antonio this fall, and I think we will see more of Pam.

It was a wonderful evening. If there weren't such scenery beckoning on Hiway 1, I might stay forever.