Overnight Trip

I forgot I was going to blog earlier.....


Friday afternoon we left Sacramento and drove to Modesto which is about 90 miles south of Sacramento. A Christian group that we enjoy was doing a concert at a church there in Modesto. It was the closest they were getting to Sacramento so we decided to drive down to hear them. Gerry told me we had quite a few points on our Choice Hotels membership and we could have a free room for the night instead of driving back to Sacramento.


It was a pleasant drive down there...it was in the 80's here and about the same down there. It took about an hour and 45 minutes to drive down. We had a room at the Clarion Conference Center. This hotel was probably a show piece when it first opened years ago. It is still in good shape yet shows its age. Our room was very comfortable. It had two entrances...one off the inside hallway and then one from the parking lot. We had to enter from the inside hallway.


After we checked in, we sat and watched TV for a little bit then changed clothes and drove over to the church. Gerry had googled BBQ restaurants and he found a Korean BBQ. The reviews were very good and it was just a couple of blocks from the church. So we went and had dinner after we found the church. We were the only ones in the restaurant, it was still early. It is run by a husband and wife...she's Korean, we couldn't figure out what nationality he was. He looked East Indian to me, however am not sure. I had beef bulogi and Gerry had pork bulgoi. The food was fantastic...the husband brought out all the different little dishes that are served with a meal. Half of them were spicey and half weren't so I could enjoy some of them. They will refill them if you want more. We were stuffed by the time we left.


We drove back to the church and for it being an hour and a half before the concert, the church was already filling up. It turned out that the church was packed. The name of the group is "Selah". It was actually a benefit concert for Bethany Home Services. They provide crisis pregnancy services, adoption, counseling and have a home for teen mothers. The concert was outstanding!! I had bought their newest CD so after the concert Gerry stood in line to get their autographs on the CD cover.


Saturday morning, after having breakfast at IHOP (it was the closest to the hotel and next to the freeway), we drove over to Tracy to see my niece Amy and her husband, Joe. Amy had called me Thursday night and I didn't return her phone call until Friday morning. She told me Tracy was about 30 minutes away from Modesto. So when I mentioned it to Gerry he didn't have a problem with driving over to see her. We had to take 4 highways to get there. There was another way to get there, however, I didn't write down the directions on how to get to the particular road. We had a great visit. Joe works for United Air Lines at the San Francisco airport. I think he's an airplane mechanic...I'm not sure. Anyway he works at night and gets home after 9 in the morning. He is part of a vanpool and they could see the San Bruno fire. In fact he called Amy to turn on the news to see exactly where it was. They wanted to be sure they could get to the airport. Amy use to live close to that neighborhood and has a few friends that live close by where the explosion was located. Joe sat up and watched football with Gerry for a little bit and then had to go to sleep. Gerry watched football by himself while Amy and I gabbed. Amy is a scrapbooker/paper crafter so we had to go up to her craft room and look at all her stuff.


We left there about 3:30 pm and drove home. We got home about 6pm, I think, because we stopped out by Arco Arena and had dinner at On the Border. It might have been later. We weren't hungry while we were at Amy's...she offered to fix lunch...however we were starved by the time we got back to Sacramento.


Gerry usually goes for a walk after dinner and picks up the mail. Our mailboxes are down at the clubhouse. Tonight he comes in and tells me all the mail is for me and there's one envelope I will really want to open. Guess what...I received a summons for jury duty. YUCK!! I have to report in next month. I have several card swaps that are due next month so I am going to be super busy getting them done in case I have to actually serve.


Its 10:30 pm so I'm off to bed.