Saturday morning, Jeremy went biking with Jimmy on a hilly route that Jimmy decided on. 30 miles? Maybe 40 miles? Then they came home and we headed to the same beer garden for lunch that we had had the nachos at, lol. It’s within walking distance of the house, what can I say? This time, we did not have any drinks or nachos and settled on sandwiches (which were very good!)
After Jimmy headed off, we went to a local dog park which is an enormous island so we could walk while Elka trotted off leash to meet doggie friends and then catch up to us. It was a new experience for all of us this walking/following off leash – very very fun. Elka met new friends. Kudos to Jeremy who pushed Edda on the bumpy path. It was a beautiful day. It’s been pretty marvelous weather on our vacation and I do not take that for granted at all.
We were encouraged that some dogs were swimming and were hoping that they would teach Elka to swim. She went into the water until chest deep which is further than she’d ever gone before, but no actual swimming. We’d have to come back more often, but we can not.
Sunday morning, we headed to Fremont to see our friend from grad school, Litian. She was interested in meeting Elka, so that was fun.
While I was hanging out with Litain, Jeremy proceeded to San Jose where he climbed up Mt. Hamilton. Meanwhile, Litian and I had a lovely wide ranging conversation in which I may have encouraged her to try the Unitarian Church and we did a load of laundry together.
Once the load was in the dryer, we went to a dog park close to Litian’s house. The bay area loves its dogs. We met some nice doggies and I tried to convince Litian to get a dog because the dog park is literally 2 minutes from her house. After the dog park, we came home and rested a bit until Jeremy came back from his bike ride. During my little rest, I received a call from a California number and thought to myself – oh no, Elka is on the lam again. And sure enough, she found a way out of the house/yard and found another very nice family down the street to hang out with (so cute! they said when they returned her).
Litian made a wonderful homemade Chinese lunch and we all enjoyed hanging out and then Ding, her husband who had come home around the same time as Jeremy, had many questions about the dog – do they get sick? are vets expensive? and then I encouraged him to walk Elka. So he took her down the block and returned and said – it almost felt like she was my dog. Haha. Elka is everyone’s dog apparently.
After lunch, we drove home, and then hosted an early evening dinner in our airbnb’s backyard with Jeremy’s high school friends Ben and Steve and Ben’s son Sam and Steve’s wife Tienne. It was a nice evening with Mexican food and lots of laughing and lots of serious talk too. It’s impressive to me, these old friends, who’ve known each other for so, so long. Longer than my marriage.
Elka’s friendliness and willingness to go with strangers is very different from my own dog, who often will refuse to even go for a walk with my husband. She sure wouldn’t just up to a random family and join them for dinner! You’re so very lucky to have the friendliest mutt around!