Well, it has been another successful trip to Cali both for visiting our family and purchasing stock plants. It was a quick flight and drive into the valley. It was hot especially for May. It was over 90 degrees and we loved it. We spent a two lazy days visiting including a great get together on Thursday night. We had 4 generations for pizza. Everyone from grandma down to the great-grandchildren. Lots of fun.

Friday, we spent a long but enjoyable day. I didn’t really calculate the timing but it all worked out. We left around 9am and drove the backroads over the Altamont to San Jose. What a beautiful drive. We meandered along the Del Puerto Canyon road for about 3 hours spotting some nice wildflowers. G was pretty estatic to find a new milkweed. We were at the junction around noon and realized we needed to get going to make it by 3pm to Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, the best flowers were on this section of the drive. Lots of lupine and Chinese houses. But we couldn’t stop.

We made it to San Jose by 1:30 which actually was what was estimated – 4 hours from Stockton to SJ. Fortunately, the traffic wasn’t bad on Hwy 17 and we pulled into the parking lot at Cabrillo at 2:30pm. We didn’t get a chance to stop for lunch. Thankfully, we had some snacks along but we were starved.

We paid our membership and got in line. It wasn’t long until 3pm and the gates opened. We grabbed a red wagon and went in search of salvias on our list. We were with a lot of other ‘salvia collectors’.

We spent about an hours looking over the selection, talking to the growers and running into other salvia enthusiasts. We saw Betsy and Genny who are always good to see.

We spent a bit going through the garden and seeing what had survived and was in bloom. It is always interesting to see that even in Santa Cruz, some salivas will not survive the winter.

Around 5pm, we left. Unfortunately, the traffic was a bear. It took us forever to get to Gilroy and we didn’t make it back to the valley until 8:30. We called Mom once we were in the valley so they could go ahead and eat.

Long long day but fruitful. We spent Saturday packing and everything made it back.