Monday, L’s hand painful but seemingly not life-threatening, we walked in the continuing rain

to discover we now had overnight lakefront…

the rain was finished by noon though mud remained

definitively into the next morning when, perhaps a bit precipitously, the Parsons turned up

to get their rig running and clean out the well.  Unfortunately a massive high’d

pushed the storm through so there was no way to predict how what they’d done would affect

the artesian flow but that was less a concern than getting back to the road…

They managed it, however, and we were left to discover the Next Inconvenience;

hot water heater finished…not electrical, that. Twenty years on it all…goes.

The second-to-last night Linda caught the perfect classic train shot from the porch

and last day was all too nice for

loading and leaving, though load we did, taking our walks,

our meals on the porch and leaving leaving until Thursday.

Made the rounds, locked things up…

couldn’t venture too far into the mud

and morning brought an early walk, all golden…

but enough; breakfast out and away

about 9:30, trailing L. over

the hill [with detours into Sparks to air and re-air tires] to pull into the alley an hour after her

upstream against the water which had flooded her studio and some of the library after the storm streaming off our roof.  Exhausted with that and semi-unpacked we nonetheless made it

to Lucca for Lodi Zin, L’s martini and a relaxed dinner among dogwalkers, friendly families, a rumbly red oxide primered ’56 Ford two door wagon going down and back First…California, dreamin’.