There’s nothing better than family and Julie and I are both lucky to be part of very large families – each of us the oldest of five children, now with many nieces and nephews.  In fact, our three kids have an impressive 24 cousins spread out between the US and Australia.   So of course while Julie and I were in the American neighbourhood we set aside a bucket-load of time to catch up with family.  And how we spent that time came in many different flavours.

We started off with about ten days at my mother’s house, our family home where I grew up, doing all the fun things one does when back in very familiar territory. 

We timed that visit to coincide with a couple of major events in my hometown of Salinas, first of which was the gift from a close friend of VIP tickets to a Keith Urban concert.  Keith Urban is a major league rock star, particularly in the US, and even though his music wasn’t exactly our thing Julie and I had a fabulous night enjoying the spectacle of the entire event.  Thanks to Bruce for his uber-generous hospitality.

Salinas is also home to the California Rodeo, one of the largest rodeos in America (and the world!) and an event that our family has participated in over many years in one way or another.  We enjoyed three days at this fabulous event full of pageantry and tradition seeing the best cowboys and cowgirls in the world riding wild bulls and bucking broncos, steer wrestling, calf roping, barrel racing and a whole slew of other events that was super entertaining.  Absolutely great fun.

We also spent a fun night at our family rural cattle property, a first-time event for Tramp, and sat around the fire playing cards after dinner, followed the next day by walks and drives around this very special place.  Wonderful stuff.

With all the western and cowboy stuff behind us we headed up to the family holiday cabin on the shores of Lake Tahoe and spent extended time with family members as they came and went over a couple of weeks.

Tahoe time means fun lazy days in the water and on kayaks or row boats, soaking in the warm mountain sunshine, splashing about or just hanging out, surrounded by the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains.  And of course it’s all about the youngest generation of the family, enjoying their summer holiday at full speed.  Tahoe time is the best.

We had a couple of good interruptions to Tahoe time.  One day we drove Tramp down to the Northern California town of Colfax to a company which now supports all the campers from the company that originally built Tramp.  He needed a few repairs and the guys at Nimbl Vehicles were able to fix the diesel cooker, replace an old fan that had failed us ages ago and service the right hydraulic arm which had been leaking fluid.  All in all a very successful visit and we drove Tramp back to Tahoe very happy about his overall condition.

One day we also drove around to the Nevada side of the lake and over the mountains to the flat desert side of Nevada.  My roommate and best friend at university has settled into a wonderful life in retirement with his wife and we took the time to visit Don and Barb at their fab home in Gardnerville. 

Don and I were good mates during our school time in LA but we had lost track of each other, as guys do, and hadn’t seen each other for 34 years.  We had a wonderful night catching up with them, telling old stories, reminiscing and sharing life experiences.  And we promised it wouldn’t be another 34 years before we caught up again!

We were going to drive back to the family home at Tahoe that night but changed our minds when facing the winding mountain drive in the dark and instead found a place to camp for the night on BLM land in the desert.  The next day we drove up through Carson City, the capital of Nevada, and over the beautiful Mt. Rose Pass before dropping back down into the Tahoe basin.  Great stuff.

On another day Kathy, John and I did the five mile/eight kilometre walk up and around the Five Lakes near the ski resort of Alpine Meadows.  This was a wonderful walk, first tackling the steep switchbacks over the granite-rock slopes, then through the tall pines and firs and finally around these beautiful high elevation alpine lakes, topping out at about 7,800 feet (2,380 metres). It was a good feeling to get out and about in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, smelling the trees, stretching the muscles.  Let there be more.

Despite how much we enjoyed our extended time at Tahoe Julie and I had itchy feet again.  With Tramp sitting outside chomping at his bit waiting to hit the road again we packed up and pointed him in a new direction.