California Dreamin'

While Kathy was in Anaheim working, Bill had a nice trip out to Newport Beach, where he went for a 42 mile ride to Laguna Beach and saw good friends Sam and Inez for dinner. After leaving Anaheim, where we saw lots of colleagues from ICMA-RC and friends from GFOA, we had a delightful visit with Penny, Buzz, and Riley Abbott. Penny and Kathy worked together in '80s and have been friends ever since. She put together a bike ride in the San Gabriel Foothills for Bill that he found very challenging! Bill and seven-year old Riley really took to each other. When Bill went out to the car, Riley said, "Where's Will?" We had lunch on Wednesday with Bill's sister Heather and husband Chris. Beautiful setting - nice lunch. We arrived on Wednesday evening to stay three nights with Ken Hutton, one of Bill's oldest (in terms of tenure!) and best friends, in Palo Alto. Ken was Bill's professor when he was at San Jose State and involved him in outdoor activities that they still talk about - kayaking, backpacking, and bicycling down the northern California coast. The plan was to have Bill ride in the area, which he did. He went on a 20+ mile ride with a friend of Ken Gobalet's - see previous post - and went on a 67 mile ride from Palo Alto across Skyline, over the coast range to the coastal highway 1, and back. Very challenging terrain - for those of you who know it - Old La Honda Road, Tunitas Creek Road and King's Mountain Road. The plan to get the car fixed did not come off as well. The Audi dealership in Palo Alto had said they could take it on Thursday and get us out no later than Friday, assuming there weren't parts that they didn't have on hand. By Thursday noon, they let us know that, of course, the car required a new compressor, which they couldn't install until Monday at the earliest. Since that was the case, we contacted Seattle (our next stop) to see if they could do the work for us. They committed to having the part on Friday and doing the service on Monday. Great! When they called late Friday to confirm the service appointment, we checked on the part (expensive and already payed for), which of course was not in and won't be in until some time on Monday. This means we'll have to juggle the trip out to Cape Flattery for the start of Bill's true coast-to-coast trip. Right now the thinking is that we'll settle into a motel in Port Angeles on Sunday night, get Bill to Cape Flattery at the crack of dawn, and then Kathy will go back to P.A. to see if the part comes in. The arrival of the part will determine when we get the Audi back to Seattle - maybe pick up a rental at that point. Right now we're looking forward to seeing Kathy's close friend from Springfield, VT days, Eileen Beban, in Eugene, OR tomorrow We'll be in Seattle for crew orientation Friday for Kathy and rider orientation Sunday for Bill. Then we're off on the official ride Monday. We're still working to get the blog to accept comments. By the time we reach Minnesota, maybe we'll have it solved!