It is summer here!

Yesterday we left Santa Rosa with weather influenced by the coast.  Now were in Clovis, near Fresno, and it is definitely no longer coast weather.  As we entered Clovis it was 92 degrees.  But, before I get into that I want to tell you a little about Sonoma and Napa.  Both are smaller communities outside Santa Rosa.  We had heard so much about them we figured we should explore them a bit.

Here are a couple photos of Sonoma:

 Sonoma is a cute community with a western theme.  They've got a lot of history.  In fact, they have something in common with our Champoeg in it was at Sonoma that California was first recognized as a state.  We enjoyed walking around Sonoma.  They have a really nice city square where city hall (photo to the left) and the visitor center are located.

Just across the street from the square are some historic buildings where barracks were set up at the turn of the 19th century.  We also found a wonderful little Basque bakery that had some pretty good scones.







Next, we were on to Napa.  Napa is a bigger community than Sonoma and it had a lot more traffic.  We didn't enjoy it as much and didn't take time to walk around much.  We did, however, find a nice Starbucks.

The drive to Clovis took us well over 2 hours down hwy 99.  We're used to hwy 99 being a 2 lane road through the countryside.  Here it is a freeway with tons of traffic.  Maybe it was everyone trying to go somewhere for Memorial Day weekend, but we drove in traffice most of the way.

Our long-time friends Daryl and Linda Hale live in Clovis.

Daryl was Doug's best friend as a kid and served as Doug's best man in our wedding.  So, we go way back.  We spent last night and all day today enjoying our good friends.  It is such a blessing to be able to pick up relationships almost right away with old friends.  We've both been through quite a lot of the past years, so we were able to relate to each other and encourage one another.  What a blessing to have good friends!

Of course, Doug and Daryl had to reminisce about their antics as kids.  Daryl pulled out their grade school pictures.  Here is Doug as a 4th grader:

Last night we enjoyed the Clovis Farmer's Market.  It is a pretty big market taking up about 4 city blocks. They even had live music.














Today we enjoyed stopping at several fruit stands.  It really is summer here.  This picture of Doug by a corn field shows the corn is just about ready to pick.  We also saw ripe peaches, summer squash, and strawberries.

One of the many fruit stands we visited.

Tomorrow we head up to Yosemite.  I'm not sure what the internet service will be up there, but if we have some I'll post some photos of the sights.