Sacramento

As we head towards the last weeks of our holiday I've fallen behind on my posts. From Crater Lake we headed back to our second family, the Whalleys (Ashland branch of the family having sadly left the Portland branch behind). We spent a day with Ruby senior and Emmalisa in the beautiful hills just outside town. The drought is really effecting the landscape here, some lakes almost dry and businesses suffering as a result. Not the cafe where we stopped for lunch though which boasted the best fries, beef and pies in the world. I'm not sure if this claim would stand up to scrutiny but it seems customary here, the day before we drove past a car dealership in Medford which claimed to be world famous. Either way our food was indeed pretty tasty, trumped only by my first ever taste of pumpkin pie courtesy of Emmalisa. Back in town we spotted some more deer just trotting along the street as you would see a dog do, still can't get used to that sight.

From Ashland we stopped overnight in Sacramento and Ruby and I did a fun run in support of a local youth centre. Oscar even got in on the act when they called for a volunteer to run ahead of the kids to  keep them on track, literally, running around the baseball field. You'll be shocked I'm sure to hear that Oscar couldn't resist pacing the front runner, a pretty impressive girl of about 10 years, stepping off the track before the finish line to let her break the tape bringing back memories of pacing 800m runners, and of course he was a very proud dad when Ruby came third.