San Jose / Merced

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After meeting my cousin Paul in Sydney, we set about meeting the only remaining member of the family I hadn´t yet met. Paul´s son Jason is an ex Olympic 100m runner, and lives in San Jose working as a sports and fitness training professional.

Sadly we didn´t have any contact with Paul or Jason over the last few years - these were the times that Jason was actually in the UK and Europe running for Australia and it would have been great to have met him back then. Jason´s career was cut short by injury, and he now lives with his fiance in San Jose and they are planning their wedding for the Summer.

We had a great day/night together all of us - touring San Jose, visiting the new shopping malls and meeting Kari´s family.

We also had a cool night out in San Jose - a huge pool/snooker/arcades/diner/sports complex where I finally got a chance to have a few beers!

After San Jose we started our journey down through cold California - as we are here during the winter it really isn´t all beach babes and bikini´s folks.

The overwhelming vision of the drive was acres and acres of vines growing grapes for raisins and California oranges.

Dan

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