Night at the neighbors

 We were invited over to the DFs house tonight, and it was so lovely to be a guest! Rhiannon was working at the Red Lion, but Tryfs came over to hang with Max and Ollie, and the rest of us adults enjoyed the deck, the music, the beverages and the company! Tomorrow is a bank holiday so we are going to whoop it up on a Sunday night.

Here is a fairly poor photo of the scene.

Back to sunny Sussex

We arrived back home on Saturday midday and had the whole rest of the weekend to recover. Although we were told that it has been cold and rainy through the main part of the summer, now that we are home it is sunny, lush and gorgeous. The garden is looking good for sure! 

Felt good to do some long overdue mowing over the weekend, harvest some beets and generally tidy up the patch.

Really happy about the cosmos and nasturtium, and also the healthyhappy kale and pumpkin plants!

Beach times and travel

The three of us spent some good quality time at the beach yesterday and even today just minutes before needing to catch the bus to LAX!

We met Mom, Libby, Molly, Kristin, the boys and eventually Eric at M Special for some pre-dinner refreshment

And then went to the Natural Cafe at Camino Real for dinner

and then finished out the day with some more "nerding out" with the Star Wars Lego anthology book.

We are going to fly out today, and so we went out to breakfast to the Cajun Kitchen

Bye Santa Barbara! It was a great visit

Santa Barbara fun

We have just a few days here in SB, and we have been making the most of it! Nice breakfasts with Grandma and the boys, watching some telly together.

And then later in the day we went to the beach and had Woodstocks pizza delivered! The kids and I went swimming and body surfing too, since the conditions were great and we found a section with minimal kelp.

Then today, I took the troops on a surprise cultural tour of the area which they totally LOVED (not!). They were being grumbly lazy teenagers, but it was a good laugh nonetheless. First stop was the Mission.

 

Then we went to the Botanical Gardens and did a nice long loop of the area. It was cool and foggy and wonderful.

After this, we went for a scenic drive along APS to enjoy the views over the Riviera, and then treated ourselves to an awesome Mexican lunch on Milpas Street at Los Agaves. Then we met Marcie so that Rhiannon could get her hair cut before going over to the Sommers' house for dinner.

A long couple of days, but totally wonderful.

Girlfriends

I got to meet up with my childhood best friends and go out to dinner together. I am so lucky that these girls moved back to Santa Barbara so I can see them whenever I come!

Here are Polly, Denise, Amy and me at the Creekside Inn.

Downlake and out of state

We caught the boat this morning and took it to Field's Point, then reunited with our truck and headed to Seattle. 

We had a nice meal with Rebecca, Will, Phoebe and Ingrid and then started to make preparations for our onward journeys.  The kids and I flew to Santa Barbara in the morning, while Rhodri spent the entire day trying to sort out Covid-related tests and so forth in order to fly back to London in the evening. He made it eventually, but it sounded awful!!

Meanwhile, we managed to get ourselves into the Birchim's pool with friends within an hour after landing! Result!

And then we had a lovely dinner with Eric, Kristin and Mom (and the boys of course)

Then Tryfs "nerded out" with Star Wars stuff alongside Billy and Evan. They were so stinkin cute to watch and listen to!

The next day I took the kids + Ava downtown to go shopping and out to lunch

It is really nice to be here in SB.

Heading back down the road

Today we packed out of Cottonwood Camp, under a hot and smoky sky. Good thing we had plenty of trees to shelter us as we picked loads of huge huckleberries along the way back to the cars. We also went for a quick swim at Bridge Creek, which was fabulous.

Our little unit had dinner with Bob and Tammy, and that was wonderful. 

We reluctantly packed up our stuff and had a fairly early night in the tent so we wouldn't miss our boat in the morning.

Trapper Lake

 After yesterday's epic Sahale Arm day, it might have been cool to have a mellow day, but no! We did have a bit later of a start today since we were only going up to Trapper. What an epic day this turned out to be, too. The only bummer was that it was rather smoky from a fire somewhere north of here, so visibility wasn't fantastic. 

Our walk started by crossing a fallen tree over the Stehekin river.

And then bushwhacking up the slope until we got to the lake.

We did some fishing and had lunch at the lake, but the biting flies were terrible and the water was so still it was kind of swampy, so actually we didn't stay that long. Wheeler, Ali, Tryfan and I decided to go the Pelton Basin route (which is woven into our family lore 35 years ago when Grandpa Bill led a bunch of us this way but we got a bit lost). 

We finally made it back to camp just after 8pm, but fortunately the family had left some dinner for us.