San Jose / Hollister Visit

Hollister hills.

I flew into San Jose from Seattle and was greeted by Linnea and Ray.  It was the beginning of a great time at Maria's house.  Maria was at work, but was going to take the rest of the week off as vacation time to spend time with me.  On the drive to Hollister we stopped at Costco to do some shopping.  It was an absolute joy to walk through Costco.  It is something I miss in Sweden.

Santiago my "old" horse / Friend.

When I got to Maria's house one of the first things I did was to greet my 30 year old horse.  Maria has been taking care of him while I have been away.  He gets plenty of Purina Equine Senior.  Santiago and I began our relationship in San Jose, then he came with me to Mariposa, and now he is here in Hollister.  We have had a lot of good times together.

Santiago still has some moves.

Merlin, Santiago, and Justin with the familiar Hollister hills in the background.

It was great doing the everyday chores and activities at Maria's house.  Everyday we would walk the dogs around the block (2 miles).  Feed the horses do the shopping and cooking.  And do a little sightseeing around Hollister, San Jose, and Carmel.

Ray is walking Buddy and Maria has Tia.

Maria was also participating in some sort of health / exercise program competition at her work.  This week she had to climb 15 flights of stairs three times in a day with negative points if she used an elevator.  I accompanied her on her stair climbing.  If you know Hollister at all you know that there are few tall buildings in town.  Where we ended up going was downtown Hollister where they had built a five story tall free parking garage.  All in an effort to revive the downtown business.  It hasn't worked too well and the fire department had to get a new ladder truck for the tallest building in town.

Maria has also been running around the two mile block every day.  I didn't run with her but I rode a bike around with her.  She sure has been keeping active.  She even ran a half marathon down by Monterey.  She is doing great.  I am very proud of her.

Leslie's 50th birthday party.

One weekend we went to Leslie's 50th birthday party up in San Jose.  It was great to see Leslie, Carl, Kellie, and the rest of the family.  It was a nice time.  Someone at the party drove up in a Tesla all electric car.  Very nice.  Who got to go for a ride?  Non other than cute little Linnea.  How does she rate?

On another day Ray took his family and I to mess around in Carmel.

At the beach in Carmel.

Ryan

Ryan, Ray, Linnea, and Maria

Linnea and Maria
This Carmel Mission still runs an elementary school.
Ray went to school here back in the day.

More of this Visit later.