it's love, it's love, it's love that keeps me high enough

once i write something down, it becomes true.

so i have to write about this right away; it's my way of pinching myself to check and see if it was all a figment of my own imagining.

was this really me? dancing the night away to this exhilerating music, with beauties like these, in calico and crochet and lace, curls and boots and beer and big ol' bass guitars?!! heart pumping over and over, bursting forth with the purest love that comes crashing into and over my soul at times like these.

here's how it went down.

i rushed through a busy sunday at the bookstore and giddy with excitement, headed down to sacramento to pick up amber who'd been hitting the jackpot on the thrift scene, and we together we tossed our scarves to the wind and hit the road.

two hours of bubbling-over, rambly-taled, winding wine-country roads later, and we picked up our lovely addition, sweet missa at her home turf in santa rosa.

moon sisters reunite!!!

we were sorely missing our dear milla, but we talked about her so much that her magical little spirit was all around us for the whole night.

the 3 of us headed over to Hopmonk Tavern in sebastopol to catch the last of the sunlight, sip a fine double ipa, and look at goodies i'd brought in reciprocation for their lovely offerings back in february.

at hopmonk we also met up with this lively sunburnt crew:

our biking boys who had finished their coastal bike trip, and their ladies who had picked them up earlier in the day up on highway 1 a ways.

i was really happy to see my brother in good bodily health and high spirits after riding his bike for hundreds of miles through the rainy pacific northwest!

didn't take much of that good strong brew to get us tipsy enough for bathroom outfit shots!

vintage mayhem in the hopmonk restroom!

and then!

the moment we'd been waiting for...elephant revival was up on stage, their good old-fashioned music was pouring forth with all its vigor and harmony and love, and we were ready to dance!

nothing like bluegrassy folk music to get your feet moving and your eyes shining!

fiddle, saw, banjo, bass, guitar, washboard, tambourine,

flicking and flying and squealing and jiving and laughing!

milla has written so eloquently about this music, describing each of these wondrously personable band members and his or her special contributions. watching each of them work their instrumental magic is...pure magic!

together we romped and danced to tom waits afterwards. heard some of the band's stories from brigit, fiddler extraordinaire of the most enchanting smile. i felt immediate kinship for these ladies.  

we heard the story of this wonderful antique stand up bass that thumps your heart along with its rhythm from the charming dango. he got it some years back from an old-timer in the ozarks of missouri, who invited him to stay awhile on a stormy night.

it is from 1925! timeless beauty,

which thought it was safe up there all lonely on stage until... 

miss amber just couldn't resist any longer!!! she'd fallen in love.

needless to say, we were last to leave!

it was probably 2 a.m. when we dropped missa off amidst snuggly sleeping babe and hub.

oops, but just maybe we did get pulled over by the police! and i maybe nearly had a heart attack, even though my couple of beers had been much earlier in the night. but anyway he was cool and sent us merrily on our way with a smile and nothing else.

amber and i joined the bike-boys at the sonoma house and felt our way giggling through the dark to random couches where we could crash. oh yeah, but just maybe we'd been forced to make a middle-of-the-night jack in the box run. and then maybe got a little (quite a bit) lost on all the multitude of streets called "riverside" and had to make frantic phone calls to sleeping stan for confused directions.

ahhhh, and then morning time brought coffee and pastries at a cute bakery in sonoma...

and two sleepy happy girls with full hearts heading back up into the hills.

so glad music and love bring us all together again and again.