Living in Lodi, June 17 - July5, 2oo6

We hadn't been back to California since we left in 1970, that's 36 years!!  Lee was just a wee tot, a few days after her first birthday in September and she had no shoes, because what child needed shoes in California in the summer?  So one of the first things we had to do when we arrived in Germany was buy her some.  It was so funny because she really didn't know what they were for and she walked around liked a stork.  Anyway, we really wanted to return, so we arranged an exchange in northern California.

We arrived San Francisco after an eleven-hour flight that wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared.  I slept some, read some, ate some, walked around some and at some point we landed. It might have seemed even quicker if there had been a decent movie to watch but no such luck.  We went through immigration and customs very quickly.  Our exchange partners had arranged for a friend to pick us up at the airport, so in what seemed like no time at all we were on our way to Lodi to live for the next two and a half weeks.

It's one of the very nice things about home exchanges that you have a whole house all to yourselves to live in and the houses without exception have been very upscale and comfortable.  We had everything we could possibly have needed and very soon felt right at home.  Once Frank had figured out how to work the TV and stereo system and I had managed to turn the stove on and off, we were ready to go.  Where?  To the grocery store of course.  There were three within easy driving distance and we tried two of them.  In general I found the food prices higher than in Germany, but that might have a lot to do with the exchange rate.  I was a little disappointed with the quality of the fruits and vegetables because I thought California would be paradise in that respect.  I guess I was expecting too much.  I did find some delicious apples though.

We spent the first few days acclimating ourselves to life in Lodi.  We walked around the neighborhood, we walked at the lake, we explored the shopping distict downtown.  We found a very nice used book store that we spent a morning rummaging around in and Lodi has an interesting and well stocked cook shop that I enjoyed investigating.   

We asked several people where the best place was to eat lunch and they all agreed that the Lodi Beer Company was very good, so that's where we went and we weren't disappointed.  We even returned during the second week of our stay, although I have to say that the second time the hamburger I ordered was a little too black for my taste.  A big plus point for this restaurant though was that they had their TV tuned to the World Cup and Frank could watch whatever game was on that he would otherwise have missed.  There were so many, especially during the first two weeks, that if he had watched them all, we would never have left the house.

Lake Lodi is just down the road from the house so we went walking along the lake every morning before it got too hot, at least until I got sick and couldn't leave the bed for several days.   

In addition to our walks along the lake, we spent two afternoons at Barnes and Noble about ten miles away in Stockton.  However, I had to forbid myself to buy any more books because my suitcase was going to be overweight if I didn't watch it.

On Friday morning of the first week  we also visited Woodbridge  one of the many local wineries and took a tour.  When I called they told me they had tours at 10:30 and 4:30 and since it was extremely hot in the afternoons we went at 10:30.  We were the only ones there and had a private tour!  Our guide, who was very nice, told us in the afternoon there were often 100 people, so we really lucked out.  Woodbridge was founded by Robert Mondavi, the same man who built COPIA, although it has recently been sold and our guide was concerned that the new owners weren't traditionalists and were more interested in profit than in producing fine wine.  We tasted the wine after the tour and bought several bottles to drink and to give to several people we had planned to visit. 

This part of the lake was called Hog's Pond I think, and maybe you can see why.  The water was full of scum... Those are turtles on the log.  It reminded me of the turtle my brother and I found when we were visiting my grandparents in Sonora one summer.  We wanted to keep it but our parents told us it would find its way to Florida on its own.  I guess we had moved away by the time it arrived.

We had lots of plans of places to go and people to visit but early Saturday morning I woke up so dizzy I couldn't move without becoming nauseous.  It had happened to me once before about ten years ago, so at least I didn't panic.  I just lay in bed with my eyes shut for three days and concentrated on not moving my head.  It didn't help that on Saturday the electricity went off for several hours so there was no TV (which I listened to) and no air conditioning!  It was so hot that the power company was overloaded because everyone had their air conditioners on high.  I gradually got better and we could venture out again, although we had to cancel Yosemite, our meeting with Frau Habel (Frank's new associate) and her husband, our family reunion in Sonora and Lake Tahoe with Pam.  It was sad but it could have been a lot worse and I tried to look at the bright side of things.  After all, I was not seriously ill, even if I felt terrible, and Frank was well entertained with all the soccer games.  And how much better to be sick in a fully equipped house than in a hotel room.!

I took a picture of these flowers because Mary Ellen gave me some for my garden one year.  They are called California poppies and I guess that's a good name for them because they grow wild there.  One thing I should have taken a picture of was the lemons from the lemon tree in the backyard.  They were the size of grapefruits!

On our last day in Lodi it happened to be the Fourth of July and a fireworks show was planned at the lake.  We drove by the lake but there were traffic police everywhere and you couldn't get anywhere near the lake.  So we went home to finish packing and cleaning the house.  Later we went for a walk and all of the neighbors were outside setting up tables and chairs.  There was a big street party and we were immediately invited to join them.  We all sat out on the front lawns and had a fantastic view of the sky over the lake.  We drank wine the neighbors had made themselves and chatted with several people about home exchanging.  The fireworks went on for over half an hour and were very good.  It was a nice way to end our stay in Lodi, which we enjoyed but would not recommend going there in the summer.  It was uncomfortably hot during the day even if the humidity isn't as high as on the East Coast.  It does cool off nicely in the evenings though.  Next time we'll stay closer to the coast or even better make the trip in the late spring or early fall.  And there will be a next time!