Monday 30 July 2018

Fresno and More

We spent a wonderful weekend in Fresno (yes, seriously).  The grandson of a friend of Jerry’s from when they were wee kids got married.  It was a wonderful wedding and fun to see friends from the past (not the grandparents, we get together all the time).

The next day we went into an underground garden.  Baldassare Forestiere, a Sicilian immigrant, came to the US to farm.  Unfortunately he bought land that was mostly hardpan.  A man who doesn’t give up, he dug and dug and planted his trees 25 feet down.  This is a great orange tree.
  Using hand tools, he created a unique garden of tunnels and rooms.  He carved the hardpan into bricks to line the walls.  He designed the woven tunnels so he could see if anyone entered his home.  Our tour of the gardens was great fun as well as a lesson in perseverance.

Now the “more” and a great more it was.  Our son Jeff and grandson Bennett came out for a first visit sans Bennett’s parents.  What fun and what a lot of energy.

Timing was excellent for seeing the goats that “mow” the hillside behind our home.
Bennett went swimming in our communal pool and
he played with a whirligig.
He destroyed us at a memory game and let us win at other games.

He made a new friend.  She is the grand-daughter of a friend of ours and the two children enjoyed the Powerhouse museum in Sacramento.
We saw the play James and the Giant Peach in Nevada City.
The highlight was going to SF to the Exploratorium.  Jeff was the first in our family to go there way back when he a young kid.  The original was in the 1915 Palace of Fine Arts and was quite funky (60ish).  In 2013, it moved to Pier 15 on the waterfront and filled with hundreds of items to really get your hands on.  This is a learning experience filled with fun.

 This piece of "toothpick art" took about 40 years to build and is still a work in progress.

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