Packards Use Computer $ to Save An Orchard

Apricots drying in the Los Altos Hills orchard owned by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

I've been visitng the Packard Orchard in Los Altos Hills several times a year, in all seasons, since I returned to my home town. I learned about it from a girl I've known since kindergarten who told me you could buy a five-pound bag of dried apricots up there--if you called ahead. 

That quantity of locally produced dried apricots available for purchase at an affordable price--well, it is almost unheard of today.

A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to a Certain (Unnamed) Canadian City ...

This is the photo on which I put the caption that fouled up the lady in that certain city in a central province of Canada ...

You have to be careful about kidding on the Internet, because it can lead to a certain amount of confusion as I recently learned.

I was in Quebec for a few days earlier this month and had quite a lot of fun with the signs up there, which, by law, are all in French.

You Can Get Anything You Want ...

My Mark Cross Book Bag is all leather in and out. Mark Cross is no longer in business. Alas.

It won't surprise those of you who know me well, to learn I have a somewhat large collection of designer handbags, which I started when I was a young reporter working in San Francisco--then, the real Paris of the West.

Here's a tale related to to one of my favorite vintage bags--and how a modern invention helped me to save it.

Returning Home to Actual Work (Gasp)

The weather was cooler this morning, so I tested my mother's old Apricot Yummy recipe.

No more of this wedding fun and modeling cute hats and running around Canada trying out one's old college French on the natives. I've had to actually do some work since I've returned to Fort Chapman, California from my petites vacances. 

For example, besides unpacking and checking in with my California Scrub Jay friends, I had to review the contract for the book I'm planning to produce for The History Press. And I've had to begin the research. Those are two of the hard things about a writing project. The writing part isn't much work at all by comparison.

Hiding the Apricots from Mr. Squirrel

'Cots not quite ripe but warm from the sun against my hands.

The little Blenheim apricot tree my mother planted a few years before she died--I don't know exactly when, but perhaps five years ago now?--has finally produced its first real crop of 'cots. The rain didn't fall at blossom time--and that helped. I added some compost--and that helped. What else went right? I don't know. But as I've said before, it is always better to be lucky than smart.

I probably have enough beautiful apricots to fill a good-sized lug this year, if I can keep those nasty squirrels from poaching all of them. Last year, of about a dozen 'cots--I was able to save only one.

Adieu Quebec et Merci Beaucoup

At Le Clos Saint-Louis, the little hotel where I stayed in Quebec.

I found Le Clos Saint-Louis, my hotel, by cross referencing Frommer's and Fodor's guides, checking where the hotels were on the map, and doing my own version of reading between the lines of hotel reviews. And, since it is always better to be lucky than smart, I was also very lucky. 

Le Clos Saint-Louis, in old Quebec City, was just what I was looking for. C'est parfait. It was perfect.

Endless Summers With the Beach Boys

The Beach Boys 2012, sounding forever young. All photos of the Beach Boys courtesy of BeachBoys.com

Robin writes: Today, a break from my tour-blogging about French Canada, and a return to something very American.  My friend, writer-director-producer, Steve Latshaw, is a big, big fan of the Beach Boys. (Hey me too!) Steve's an Illinois kid, now living in LA, who has managed to hang on to the sense of wonder he brought with him from the Midwest. So, today, when the Beach Boys released their new album, Steve was in heaven. He had an advance copy and with that in his hand, he said, it was 1976, he was seventeen years old, and he was back in Decatur, Illinois. That's how the Beach Boys worked their magic on him as he tells us in this Guest Blog Post.

By Steve Latshaw

All over the world people who have never even been to the beach, have their own special year that marks their perfect Beach Boys summer. 

These are the times when each of us has discovered the freedom of the open road (or at least borrowed the family car); days of freedom--maybe at the beach, or in my case, a Midwestern lake; nights at the drive-in (movies AND burgers); our first (or second) high school love; and, most of all, the music of the Beach Boys, which seems to underscore just about every activity and emotion we experienced.