Chronicles Part XI - the new Millennium (2)

We left the debris behind us and Kelly, Jo and I headed across the pond for our USA holiday mid-July, 2000. We flew in to LA and spent the first couple of nights in Hollywood, staying at Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn, which had maintained a Hollywood 50's look and feel.

Our Kelly was quite the party animal in those days - and she wasn't blonde then either:

We did Universal Studios and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, outside Mann's Chinese Theater:

Next stop was our villa in Desert Springs, but first we had to get there from LA - not easy, especially during a Friday afternoon rush hour. We'd never seen so much traffic in our lives - and, when we finally got away from the big city and out in to the desert, we'd never seen a wind farm as massive either. At first, from a distance, it looked like a forest shimmering away in the heat - it was only when we got nearer that we realised they were all wind turbines.

Our villa was lovely - and right on the golf course:

The desert was exceptionally hot and so was Las Vegas, where we went after a week at Desert Springs. We enjoyed our stay in LV, especially the evenings, when we often went to listen to the bands playing in Paris. We toured all the massive hotels - Luxor, Venetian etc - and, of course a few brewpubs too. We also drove to Lake Mead, taking in the Hoover Dam on the way and we took in a couple of shows - this one was the 4 Kings:

One evening we went to the Barbary Coast Hotel to listen to a band called Backstreet, whose lead singer (Storm) serenaded Jo:

He was singing Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Jo was singing the title response.

Finally, it was time to head to Redding to meet up with Scott - the first time for Kelly and I, although Jo had briefly met him the previous year. We had dinner one evening at the Tokyo Gardens restaurant with Scott's family:

There were return visits to CR Gibbs, the bar at the Best Western Hotel we had stayed at on our first trip to California, and Kelly and I had a day out at the Waterworks park. I also played a couple of rounds with Arnie Iwanick, who I'd been introduced to the year before. One day we travelled to play in the shadow of Mount Shasta:

All of this was peripheral, however - the big event was the eagerly awaited arrival of our first grandchild - Lucy's first. Inevitably, the baby was late and Lucy went in to a minor panic, thinking that we'd be back in Scotland before the birth. Eventually, induction came to the rescue and Cade Stewart Lesina was born at 20:48 Pacific Time on 3rd August, 2000 - just 4 days before our flights home:

Note Bailey sneaking in to this shot!

We left Scott, Lucy and Cade to their new life together as a family and travelled home to our "new" old house in Arbor Court. Jo had been pretty bold with her choice of paints and tiles:

Jo was initially concerned that her bold choices - black tiles and dark blue paintwork - wouldn't be to everyone's tastes and we would never be able to sell the house. I have to confess that my initial thoughts in the dark days immediately after the fire were that I couldn't live in the house again - I was a bit spooked when surveying the smoke and fire-damaged scene. To this day, I can still imagine the pungent smell of the smoke that seemed to permeate everything. However, we decided to give it a go - after all, the top floor in particular was all brand new, including the other 2 bedrooms:

We did eventually settle down again - witness the fact that we're still here 15 years later.

In the autumn of that year, I went on my second Iberian Cup golf trip to Costa del Sol:

l-r: Jas Bhagrath, Syd Freeman, Dave Edwards, Peter Street, Dan Corbett, Malcolm Grigor, Bill Miller, Dick Taylor, Les Gray, Ken Page, Ian Stewart & John Davies.

Immediately prior to Christmas, it was Dad's 80th birthday and we went down to celebrate with them. I've always liked this photo that they posed for:

So that was the end of the first year of the new Millennium.