Up early this morning for a game of golf with Steven Langford where experience prevailed over youth. In the afternoon we went to Cupertino to visit Wayne and Joan who cooked us a delicious dinner. Wayne and I worked on HP's first word processor in 1980 in Cupertino. The HP campus we worked on has now been sold to Apple who are build a huge headquarters for 15,000 people on the site. We had so much to catch up on that 6 hours flew by.

Today was the first of two HP reunion days. We drove along highway 49, the original gold country route to meet up with Graham, Cathy and Fran who were fellow Brits who came with us to California in 1980 and now live in California along with Vic and Jenny. It was great to catch up over a lovely lunch made by Cathy and look around their 5 acre property with 4 llamas, a sheep, two dogs and three cats!

Today we drove to Hetch Hetchy which is an enormous lake on the north west side of the park. This supplies all the water for San Fransisco area but was very low at a time of the year it should be full. We walked along the five mile path to the Wapama water falls which are one of the sources of water for the lake. It was a very hot day with temperatures of 26 degrees. The cool spay from the falls were very welcome. Tonight's DVD was "The rabbit proof fence" a very...

Another beautiful sunny day, so we spent the day in Yosemite National Park which always has the ability to inspire all who visit. We have visited Yosemite many times in the past but not for 15 years. On the drive into the valley we stopped at several vista points to admire the Granite mountains and tall pines before going to Bridal Veil falls and in my case scrambling over the rocks to get a better view. Yosemite has very limited accommodation two hotels and a f...

Today we set off with Jenny and Vic to stay for 3 nights in their cabin in the mountains. To fortify ourselves for the long journey (98 miles), we started with an all American breakfast at Country Waffles and after many refills of coffee set off for Groveland which is just outside Yosemite. Next stop was the Ghiradelli chocolate outlet shop where Vic enjoyed a chocolate croissant! We arrived at the cabin which is on Pine Mountain Lake surrounded by trees. A cab...