Old Coastal Friends

 We came over to Arcata as an interim get away between surgery recovery and restarting chemo. We stayed the first night with Susan and Robert in Willow Creek and then with Angela, Raymond, Lin and Jet in Bayside. I've known Angela since high school and Susan since nursing school. I'm so grateful to have old friends to visit and relax with. They and their families have been really kind to us.

 Today a stroke of luck helped me find my old friend Lynn. We've been friends for 36 years but I'd lost track of her. Her house isn't really accessible so I was writing a note to put on her mailbox when she pulled up hauling a horse trailer full of trash from a beach clean-up. So many memories flooded back looking at her beautiful face.

 Today we hiked up into the Headwaters Forest which is now preserved after the struggles of Judi Bari and countless others to save the ancient redwoods at the headwaters of the Eel River in the 80s.

 Yesterday we walked around the Bayside neighborhood, enjoying the rhododendrons and other flowering plants that have now dried up at home. So much glory... so lovely at the coast!