CA was nice, but Erie is home.

• There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed after 2 weeks on the road. Like Goldilocks, I need the perfect bed, mine! I really shouldn't complain as I had a pretty comfortable futon to sleep on while my sister slept on the floor at my Dad's house. Thanks, Debbie! (I don't know how she could sleep with just a sleeping bag on the floor.)
  
• I was packing and unpacking through my whole visit. I flew into Sacramento and stayed a day at my Dad's and then we drove down to Moreno Valley (which used to be Sunnymead, who knew?) and stayed two nights at a hotel there as we visited my whole family at my nephew's house in the hills outside Perris. The wedding was at a beautiful ranch in the mountains and was held outdoors (you can do that in California, ha).
  
• Then on to my sister's house on the ocean (awesome!). We had our little unfortunate incident (accident) on the freeway. Driving in Erie didn't prepare me for dodging chairs on the freeway. That delay only gave me one day to see the ocean before I took my Dad and my sister up to my Dad's house in northern California.
  
• I stayed there several days. I did some gold panning which proved to be too much work for the specks I found. My "secret" gold panning spot was compromised. The county dug up the stream bed and put in some drainage pipes. Rats! But I dug up some dirt and took it back to pan. My wrists hurt from panning the dirt in a tub of water. The relatives all showed up for my Dad's birthday party and they were watching me pan with great expectations. One by one they walked away disappointed. The last hold out stayed till the end. Sandy and I marveled at the tiny speck of gold left in the pan. Not bad for an hour of work.
• I was searching for gold in California and found it when I returned to Erie. My husband, my bed, my cats and my garden.