More Honeymoon: The Lake House

California

After our honeymoon jaunt on the Big Island we flew to California. The ultimate purpose of the trip was to attend our second wedding reception, held in Walnut Creek. But that was just one day out of a six-week trip.

We first flew into San Jose where we stayed with my parents for a few days. Always great to see the parents. From there we took the train up to Sacramento to visit Katie's parents. Always great to see them too.

Katie used to ride the train frequently, but I had never had the experience. The trip was charming, traveling by rail up the eastern shore of the San Fransisco Bay--until somebody decided to step in front of our train in San Leandro. We didn't know it had happened until the engineer made an emergency stop. After a two-hour delay, Amtrak sent a bus to pick us up and take us to the next station.

I absolutely love the Langford homestead (that would be my wife's family fyi). Katie grew up just outside the town limits of Loomis, California. Loomis sits just off Interstate 80, about 45 minutes east from Sacramento. Definitely more country than San Jose (where I grew up). Her dad built the house himself. The house sits on a 5 acre property that has everything a home should: blackberry bushes in abundance, a large open field, a dilapidated tree house in an ancient oak tree, and a beautiful-but-not-too-tamed lawn. The living room was designed specifically to accommodate the extra-large Christmas tree the family puts up each year. Pretty ideal. I love spending time there because it feels more like Home than my actual home.

We spent a couple of days there before driving up to the Lake House. Back in the day, Katie's grandpa discovered the gem that is Lake Almanor, a reservoir in Northern California, just in the shadow of Mount Lassen. He bought property there cheap and built a house. These days it serves as a cabin for family weekend getaways and escapes. It fills its Weekend Cabin roll perfectly. Just a hundred feet or so from the water's edge, large porch, surrounded by pines (aka hammock anchors), barbeque, private dock, crawdads, et cetera.