Family and Good-bye.

Day 14:

This day was our shortest mileage day so far.  We started at the Placerville KOA, which is actually in Shingle Springs but then drove through Placerville to Apple Hill where many orchards provide produce for the surrounding communities, the state and the nation.  Picking the first orchard that looked open for visitors, we stopped at High Hill Ranch.

While we were there, we first had to wake up the kids and make sure they were all dressed.  The RV was parked on a serious slope which made walking around in it extremely difficult.   Eventually, we left the motor-home and began to look around.

Kimberly picks apples from the High Hill Ranch shop.

We passed a place where they make cider, but the only place we saw that was actually open was basically an over-sized produce stand.  We picked out some different apples (and I even found an apple salsa which looked interesting) before I discovered the donut counter.  This was an important discovery because, of course, everyone was hungry.  

Everyone enjoyed the apple donuts and fritters at the shop on Apple Hill.

If they weren't hungry before we found the counter, they were certainly hungry now.  Nonetheless, we were hesitant to give sugar to the kids so early in the morning.  But when a very nice and outspoken lady (who sounded like she might have come from Brooklyn) offered us free samples of even their apple fritters, we were sold!!  Where else could you buy warm apple fritters with fresh apples??  It tasted like an apple-pie, basically, a warm, fresh apple pie.  We looked around the orchard a little, but they didn't have it set up for us to pick them ourselves.  We needed to get going anyway, so we didn't stay long.

Our next stop was in Citrus Heights looking for a place to purchase a square picture frame to give Auntie Sam a copy of the 8x8's we got from Casey Loeschen in Fairbanks.  Looking for Michael's, the GPS brought us to a place where I did not see.  We knew there was a JoAnn's slightly down the way.  We wound up going there, but they didn't have what we wanted.  They gave us directions to Michael's.  They had a frame but would not cut the picture, so we went to Staples to use a cutting board.

Jenny, Auntie Sam and Rebekah between her home and ours.

All this running around took a lot of time.  Between that and the sugar intake in the morning from the donuts, the kids were slightly hyper.  We decided instead of staying for lunch, it would be more prudent to just stop by Auntie Sam's for hugs and pictures.  We gave her two pictures, one in a frame and one smaller picture of all of us for her refrigerator.  

Auntie Sam grins at a smiling Jonathan.

After hugs and tears, we finally departed, our next stop the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield.  Jenny made sandwiches in the RV while we were driving.  The factory was a little difficult to find.  It wasn't along the highway, as I would think an attraction like that would be located, but it's not really an attraction.  It's just nestled in an industrial park.  Once there, however, the factory was a blast.  

Four of our five children getting ready for the Jelly Belly Factory tour.

When we arrived, we waited in a short line for the factory tour, which was better than any of the factory tours we've been to thus far.   First we went up the stairs.  We used an elevator because we had a stroller with us.  They took us through several large rooms that each smelled like sugar, talking about the history of jelly beans, the history of family who owns the factory, the history of Jelly Belly's and the process of making Jelly Belly's.  The company has been in the family since the 1860's, when they opened a candy store in Chicago.  They didn't start making their signature jelly beans until 1976.

After the tour was complete, the elevator took us down right into the gift shop, where we were allowed to sample three flavors of beans.  Jenny stocked me up with enough of my favorite, Dr. Pepper Jelly Belly's, to last for the rest of the year.  After pressing some pennies, we looked outside and it had begun raining.  I went out and got the RV, pulling it around where Jenny could get in easier with the kids.

Leaving the factory, we drove into Martinez, the town Jenny grew up in.  Driving in was very cool, with the oil refineries and a corporate office for Shell.  I imagine (though I don't know for sure) that the oil harvested from Prudoe Bay and shipped out of the port at Valdez might go to these refineries to be processed into different products, whether plastics or gasoline.

Jenny, standing outside her old apartment in Martinez, CA

Leaving the refineries area, the road sloped downward to the historic downtown.  We wandered a bit until we finally located the apartments she grew up in.  I dropped her off on one side and she walked to the opposite side where I picked her up.  We drove some more.  We got gas.  Jenny called her parents who told her where her grandmother is buried.  We visited the cemetery and drove back into town, starting this time at the apartments and meandered through the streets to find a park she remembered and her elementary school.

Jenny and the kids standing in front of her Granny's headstone with Benjamin Bear.

Leaving Martinez, we drove across the Richmond Bridge to Marin County, where we had dinner, and found the only Barnes & Noble I've ever seen that closes at 9pm.  Finding the RV Park, we located the space they had reserved for us and backed in, hooking up all the pipes, settling in for the night with the conclusion of an Adventure in Odyssey.

Wildlife count to date:  2 moose, 21 bears, 6 rabbits, 7 deer, 13 squirrels an elk and a kitten.