Monday

Meet miss Pippa Lee. She doesn't usually like to be held by anyone but her mom, but she woke up in a good mood on Monday morning and deigned to let me visit with her. She is eight months old. She spent most of the time making eyes at Shaun, and I don't blame her; he didn't have bedhead like I did. Although I have to say, babies in general just love Shaun.

We didn't try to do much on our last day. We stopped by Biola one more time to see someone I'd missed and then headed back to Auntie Kim's to return some sleeping bags we'd borrowed.

At one point on our driving about, the traffic on the freeway was completely stopped. We saw a lone policeman standing alongside his motorcycle with his hand up. Nothing was moving at all, and we started to worry about falling behind schedule. I figured it must have been an accident that had just happened. Two fire trucks went by. Then another. And another. And another. It wasn't an accident; the traffic was being stopped for a funeral procession. At least fifty emergency vehicles drove by before we were cleared to go, and we saw many, many more as we continued our drive. They were from cities all over LA County.

We realized we were very lucky to have gotten through just when we did, and we were able to pull slightly ahead of the procession and miss any more traffic stops. We could have used some gas, but we saw on-ramps blocked in places and we were afraid to stop. And then we started to notice the overpasses. Not just one, but a whole succession of groups of firefighters and vehicles were waiting out in the sun to pay their respects. It was a moving and beautiful sight. Of course I cried. And wished for a little more pomp and circumstance and ceremony in my life.

After all our worries, we ended up back at the airport with time to spare.

And Southern California bid us an appropriately dramatic farewell.