Thursday, April 9

Up at 6:15am.  I rode the loop down to the west end of the Valley and back while Sally and the kids slept.  It was 28º on the ride, but I had on my good gloves, long johns, fleece and goretex coat.  My eyes watered in a steady stream, but I was warm.  We each had our own favorite for breakfast, kids had cereal, I eggs and Sally toast, then we packed up the van and were out of the Valley heading toward Sacramento by 10:00am.  We drove through Crane Flat where we stopped for $20 of gas.  We marveled at the 4” of new snow on the ground, then we were off.  We stopped at Wendy’s for lunch in Oakdale and then headed north on 99 for our rendevous with the kids flight at 5:20pm.  About 2:00pm, Linnie called to tell us that the flight had been delayed.  We checked my email and sure enough, Southwest had sent us a notice.  It was postponed until 7:50pm, not enough time to really do anything else, so we continued on to the airport, arriving at 3:15 as planned. After wending our way through check in and security and found a table to park at. We played Golf, I won, then we just hung out, watched a basketball game and waited for the flight.  The kids boarded after the Group A passengers.  We waited until the plane pushed back from the gate, then returned to the van, now in the dark, and drove to Chuck Leslie’s house.  We arrived about 9:15pm and talked until 11:00pm.  Sal and I retired to the van parked in his driveway.