On Tuesday we drove to the valley to see where Heff grew up! Tom left his banking job in Southern California to become a farmer when Heff was 1 year old and moved with Claire to El Centro in the middle of Imperial Valley. There they had Mark, Maureeen and the twins Katherine and Craig and lived until Heff was 16 years old when they moved to Red Bluff. Tom farmed row crops and produce in the HOT desert sun and Claire taught at the school down the street. It was so cool to see all the places I've heard the Heffernan's talk about and see Heff relive great memories spending time with his Dad running around checking on the fields, Little League games, church and getting into trouble. Of course most people we happened to run into on our "tour" just happened to know Tom Heffernan too :) We spent most of the day touring around showing Francie where her Daddy grew up before heading to the Wells' for a big Carne Asada dinner!

Only in Imperial Valley does the town themometer go up to 150 degrees! It was a cool 80 today for us :)

"HOW much longer til we get there Dad?" (She was a good sport for the two hour treck to the valley two days after our seven hour trip :)

views of the desert, just past the lovely Salton Sea. If anyone is looking for a vacation spot... "Barbarby Beach" had some really nice trailer hook-ups with tons of above ground utilities. Just don't go near the slightly toxic water.

Taking pictures of the fields Tom Heffernan used to farm!

Calipatria. (I love the names down here... Calexico, Mexicali ;)

Heff fondly remembered the "Peach 35" field Tom farmed and running around this corner by the canal when he was little while his Dad checked on the operations

Dad telling Francie she is NEVER allowed to "surf" in canals like these (being pulled by a teenager in an old truck driving along the canal... EVER.

Francie's thickening baby-hair did not agree with the dry desert heat... or I forgot to brush her hair after her bath ;)

We stopped off at the Schaffner Dairy in the middle of the farms and Francie just about lost it she was SO excited to see so many cows up close and personal. Heff told me I couldn't take any pictures of her by the cows in case the Dairy saw us and freaked out we were PETA spies or something.

Luckily we ran into Tom's old friend Emil Schaffner who told us we could have the run of the place and take as many pictures of cows as we wanted too :) He said to say a big hello to his good friend Tom so "Hi Opa!"

COWS! They pulled their heads out of the feeders at first when we got too close... but Francie made some fast friends.

Pretty cows...

When we are driving anywhere remotely "rural" Francie yells "COWS!?" and checks both windows until she sees some or at least some thing resembling cows (sometimes we pretend big rocks might be cows to give her a break from searching:)

Mooooooooo

We saw Heff's first school where he went to Kindergarten-5th grade and where Claire (Oma) taught 6th grade

AND we were so excited to see the infamous "House That Tom Built!" Heff lived here from 7 years to 15 years when they moved to Red Bluff

The house was on...

Not only cows, we saw lots of SHEEP too!

Heff remembered lots of trips to this little market for cold sodas when he got to drive around with his dad. It's closed now but Heff said it looked exactly the same back then.

You don't have to drive very far in El Centro to hit the Mexican border

And we found "Heffernan Ave!"

We ended our Tour de El Centro with dinner with the Wells Family! The Wells' grew up a few blocks (farm blocks;) from the Heffernans and had 9 kids running around. They were really close family friends and have lots of crazy memories together. They were so gracious to get a big dinner together with 6 of the 9 Wells kids and their parents Vicki and Dave. It's pretty amazing ALL 9 of the kids have settled back in El Centro! Here are the boys...

One of the grandkids, Emerson, was very nice to let Francie play with all of her fun toys. Francie was entrawled and called her "Em-ma-son" all night. Emerson didn't like when Francie didn't "follow her" when she was supposed to but she sure was a good sport to play with Francie-pants :)