The last trip to California

hit the ground running to put it mildly; right after the customary morning dogwalkings and

breakfasts I was off to Lemon Street in Vallejo to consult about the tailgate with Matt Seret who offered a rather involved DIY solution but also mentioned a body shop up in American Canyon which, after considering the options and factoring in my expertise, I elected to visit right after

lunch, working in a trip out Green Island Road to Eco Auto Dismantling where I found,

after many years of fruitless searching, the one minor part missing from the Tundra though

as usual came up empty for a tailgate for the ’45 at Brian’s next door while waiting for Miguel to figure out what the Taco tailgate repair was likely to cost. When I swung back by he

had the numbers so parts were ordered and a date set for the work after which I merged into the solid line of bumper to bumper traffic southbound on Hwy 29 and home, first day home, the next being when Linda left for Sacramento to catch a flight to Denver and I endured

another of those intense Chinese massages and a little cruise around the bottom of First

in the ’45. Thursday, L. away, was carwashing day in Vallejo for the Taco and a very short

bike in cold winds to West Third, winds which persisted into the next, a day distinguished by an

appearance, after a thirty odd year hiatus, from Chip Porter, the old – oh very old we are! – friend with whom I drove to Costa Rica in his ’45 Willys with a couple of surfboards, summer

of 1961. We’d visited at Kittery Point in the early eighties and I’d maybe seen him once since in SF, but now, another century, he was here from Maine with Gretchen to visit their son Jeremy and wife Rachel in Santa Cruz, stopping off for Mexican takeout from Nani’s on the way to the kids’ winter rental in Tahoe City…not enough time but amazing nonetheless. As they were leaving Linda texted from Sacramento, finally on her way home and once here we stumbled across to Mai Thai for for curry and all the news about her one day in Denver, opening at Robischon Gallery and the dinner after.