Medlock Ames

Sometimes you get together with old friends whom you haven't seen in many years, and you realize you have nothing in common anymore--awkward. Other times, it's as if you had last seen them yesterday. That's the way it has been with our friends who are visiting this weekend. Our kids have had kids of their own, and their kids have grown up and gone to college, yet our initial greetings on the front porch were mutual declarations of how everybody looks exactly the same as when we last saw each other 15 years ago.

We have had a wonderful time with them for the past two days, and hate to see them go back to Houston. (I'm not sure they are all that keen on it either. With both their kids in college, they are beginning to think of moving.) Today we took them to some of our favorite haunts, including Medlock Ames, the winery tasting room where OilMan leaned back against the bar, looked around the retro/industrial/modern room and said, " I could live here". It was the beginning of our serious search for a house in Sonoma County. My picture is of a huge wine rack which occupies the entire back wall of the room--perhaps that is what appealed so much to OilMan….

When you have backpacked in the wilderness as often as we have , always with Marc, and many times with Terri as well, there are many stories. We have shared a lot of them in the last couple of days. So much has changed, yet so many things have stayed exactly the same. I hope it will not be another 15 years before we see them again.