Judy and I returned to Bodega Bay after seeing Ed and Sarah off. As usual I worked out my route in detail using Topo USA by DeLorme, hooked up to my GPS. I sincerely dislike “surprises” like dead end roads, so I plan carefully. Just about the time I rolled off of US 101 and started working through the coast range, my map locked up. I pulled off the road in Fulton California, (just outside of Santa Rosa) and re-booted the computer. No luck, it just wouldn’t work. The fall-back position was the Rand McNally Atlas the gang in Technical gave me for a retirement gift. That whole section of the coast range is covered by a patch of map just ½ inch square, and I still had 40 miles of back roads to negotiate. These are twisty curvy back roads without any US, State or County designators on them. Cutting to the chase, we made it without any “surprises.” We dropped the trailer in the overflow parking area, and then we were able fit into one of the camp-sites at the end of the spit. We had a front window view looking over the Bodega Bay jetty and bar. I think we were sitting with the wheels astraddle the San Andreas fault, but we were never jostled. We were able to watch sand pipers and turkey vultures up close. The bay hosted a diverse flock of diving ducks that Judy and I were never able to agree which breeds they were. We watched egrets and hawks, starlings and house finches, sea gulls, brown pelicans and turns. Some of them took turns tap dancing on our roof. The Chamber of Commerce flyer claimed that you could find as many as 100 species in the area in November and December. They are the self proclaimed prime birding site of northern California. Even more impressive: they have good ATT cellular coverage and my Verizon Air Card works too, so we have internet.

I began to trouble-shoot the DeLorm program and discovered a terrible circumferential scratch on the surface of the dvd disk. These are the worst kind and that is what was locking up the Topo USA program. A little surfing of the internet found a solution. It is called Brasso. I was first introduced to it in Coast Guard boot camp in 1963. A new can of Brasso and a couple of Judy’s facial cotton puffs and a bunch of radial polishing and the disk is reading good as new. Remember folks you heard it right here. Brasso and radial strokes will save that dvd or cd disk from most any scratch or abrasion. I remember that I was a pretty good hand with the stuff back in boot camp too.

Friday was a beautiful day, and we set out on the tandem bicycle for a tour of the area. We spent nearly all day at it. We went all the way around the bay from the sand-spit in the south where we were camped all the way around to Bodega Head to try some whale watching. We did see some marine mammals, but they were much smaller than whales. Say the size of a sea lion perhaps. We were also just in time for the Friday afternoon tour of the UC Davis Marine Labs. We got to pet sea stars and sea anemones.

On Saturday, Glen, Barb, Cody, Patrick and Bryce all came to visit us at Bodega Bay. Between us we have a nice assortment of kits, and we spent the afternoon flying them. Even four year old Bryce got into the act with a lizard kite with whirling eyes. Barb was able to get a camp fire going and we had smores before they headed home to Gilroy California.

Bright and early Sunday morning we broke camp. First order of business was to get some more crabs and then we followed the kids back to Gilroy through the East Bay freeway network. The smog was so thick we didn’t see anything of the San Francisco skyline at all. The crabs became crab cakes and Crab Louis. Don’t worry, Luana, we are getting plenty of bicycling to keep the rich foods from accumulating in the middle. We will probably get about 800 miles on the tandem by the end of the year. (For the rest of you, Luana runs the fitness center at Boise Cascade, think drill sergeant!)

Good bye to everyone. Remember our motto: “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow – what a ride!'” Write it down and pin it to your bulletin board.

With love to all, Gary and Judy