Well, another  Surprise Day!!!  I found out last night that there is a Farmer’s Market here in Orange California close to where I am staying.  Linda’s husband Bob said he gets up every Saturday and goes and asked if I would like to go.  I followed him in my car as I had only about 45 minutes to stay before meeting my husband’s two sisters in Anaheim to go out for breakfast with them (Faith and Jon) and with Faith’s son Wade.

The market was spectacular.  Such beautiful displays of fresh fruit and produce I’ve never seen.  So different than our farmer’s market in Madison Wisconsin around the capitol.  Ours is also a spectacular event but has very different offerings depending on the season.  I think the Madison farmer’s market opens the last week of April and goes through part of October.  I was so surprised to see such an array of food so early in the season.  Oranges and lemons and grapefruits and avocados and blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries all fresh from farms in the outlying areas.  Not much farmland close by.  Lots of nuts with various flavorings and seasonings, jams, and personal products such as soaps and oils.  Breads and cakes and cookies and unbelievable pastries that I could’t even begin to name.  All so amazing.  Vegetables so big that I could hardly believe they were real.  Every kind of vegetable that we don’t usually have available until late July or August.  Squash, Shallots, greens of many varieties, even dandelion greens, sweet potatoes, several varieties of onions, carrots, farm fresh organic eggs for $7.00 per dozen.  Yes, I said SEVEN DOLLARS PER DOZEN. (I didn’t buy any).  So many foods to feast my eyes upon and to take pictures of.  Took them all with my camera so don’t have any to post.  I get so focused when I am intent on camera work that I forget to get my IPhone out and take a few.  I was exhilarated with just feasting my eyes upon the beauty of the “REAL FOOD”, to smell it and at times caress it.  I just couldn’t help myself.  I love working with live foods.  I love eating live foods, foods that have not be processed, cooked or boiled or baked.  Just to smell the food made me happy!  But I only purchased some Brussels  sprouts and some fresh picked oranges.  You  see, Brussels sprouts are one of my most favorite foods.  Bob brought home some bread that is so tasty that I even ate a piece.  I don’t  normally eat much bread but this bread was so exceptional.  Ciabatta bread is what Bob called it.  Crispy crust with lots of air holes in it. I loved it.  Glad we don’t have it accessible close by where I live.  And if it is accessible please don’t tell me where.

I left the market and drove to Anaheim on the grid layout of the city.  This must have been a very planned area at one time.  Before homes were “planted”  on the flat coastal lands the grids marked the boundaries of the orchards.  Orchards of oranges, lemons, and grapefruits in precision rows, defined the first roads,  Before the citrus were planted the area was planted in vineyards.  In the late 1800’s a blight killed off all the grapes and the fields were planted in groves of citrus.  Dave’s father came to Orange County in the early 1900’s.  At that time he could have purchased as many acres as he wanted for $2.00 an acre.   He didn’t have the funds to do so.  Orange county was originally part of the Los Angeles County.  When all the orange groves were planted the area was separated from Los Angles County and called ORANGE COUNTY.  When I moved here in 1973 many of those orange groves still existed.  The are all gone now.  In their place are high density apartment buildings and closely crowded homes, all  in straight squared blocks.  Major streets stretch from east to west with other major crossroads from north to south. The major long streets are at  least 4 lanes wide and the most of them are 5 lanes wide.  The middle lane is enclosed with double yellow lines and is a turning lane of safety when trying to turn left or right against the traffic, either crossing the traffic to turn or when trying to get across the street to turn against the traffic.  Wish we had this safety lane in Madison.  There is a lot Madison planners could learn from the both the flow of traffic in this heavily traveled area and in the designs of their parking lots.

Well, lets’s get back to my visit with my sisters-in-law.  We went to Denny’s which is their favorite eating place.  Wade met us there and we had a nice breakfast.  It was too short and I didn’t even get to take one picture of Wade.  He does not like his photo taken and I honored his request to not take any pictures of him.  My loss.  After our breakfast Wade left and we three women headed out to Long Beach to visit the docked Battleship IOWA.  I would like to share a bit from the brochure I received this morning:

“Battleship IOWA was designed as the lead ship of the world’s last class of battleships.  She was completed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the frenzied early months of World Ward II, and joined at the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet in February 1943…IOWA’s designers created an armored steel box about 500 feet long and about 80 feet wide, put all the critical components of the ship inside it–the big guns, machinery, fire control , magazines, engines and boilers, communication and navigation systems, and then they built a ship around it.  This armored box is called the Citadel, and it extends from just forward of Turret One to just aft of Turret Three below the second deck.”

So many other interesting facts I learned.  To just walk on the decks and climb the steep ladder stairs and gaze out on the waters of the Bay gave me a melancholy feeling as I thought of all the perils and horrors of war, wondering how many men walked on those decks who did not come back.  That ship played a strategic part in the war.  To see the close quarters that housed 3,000 men gave me a reality check of what it would be like to live in such a confined area for months and months.  There are way too many facts to relate in my short time frame.  Finding out what I did makes me hungry to find out more.

We finished the tour and headed home.  The day was clear and light winds blew.  It was so beautiful down by the water.  We crossed a beautiful bridge and  scooted in to the traffic lanes of frenzied drivers.  A bit a rudeness goes on on those freeways.  If you put your blinker on the car to signal a lane change the car on your  blinker side will accelerate and try to block you from coming over into their lane.  My little Kia Soul has learned how to change lanes  without signals.  When in Rome….

On the way home Faith drove by the home where she and her siblings (one being my husband) grew up.  The house was ready for Dave’s family to move in to in July 1948.  Dave was just a baby and lived his life in that house until after he graduated from Fullerton State University.  The house was sold  after his mother died.  I can’t remember the date.  The house brings back nostalgic memories of my children going to grandma and grandpa’s house.  Our little toddler stretching to reach up and touch the chimes of the doorbell on the outside of the house.  Memories of our little two and three year old walking with Grandpa to the corner store for a treat.  They loved going to grandma and grandpa’s.  And of course they were always angels!

We had a nice afternoon eating at Faith’s house, sharing stories and taking photos.  All too soon my wonderful day with my family was over.  Linda had dinner waiting for me and I knew I couldn’t miss it.  LINDA IS A REALLY GOOD COOK!  And it was delicious. There was trout, asparagus, rice pilaf, a grand salad, and I contributed a strawberry.

I made some phone calls long overdue,  planned my itinerary for next week (sort of) and wrote this blog.  I know these blogs are long but since my days are so packed I haven’t had much time to write in my journal so this is the part of the journal writing that I can share.    I will close with a Goodnight!