pics from aquarium

Jellie Fish

Oct 20, 2008 Monterey

Well we left the Santa Cruz Fairground yesterday and drove the 25 miles to Monterey. The Watsonville area is a big agriculture area with large fields of artichokes, strawberries, Brussels sprouts and other crops that I didn’t recognize from the road. The fairgrounds was very nice and had lots of activity. While we were there they had a horse show, a dog show, and car races. We toured a dinnerware factory called Annieglass. Annie came up with the idea to make plates and serving pieces from thick building glass, they are thick and do not break easily. They are sold at Nordstrom’s and other high end shops. We drove the 17 mile drive at Pebble Beach admiring the beautiful seashore and cypress trees and golf courses with multi million dollar homes placed among the trees. One of the tours at the rally was the Roaring Camp Steam Train Ride on a narrow gauge steam train thru an old growth forest of redwoods. We are both in awe of these trees.
At Monterey we are staying at the Elks club. It sits on a hill and overlooks the bay. Last night while we were walking the dogs we could hear the seals barking. Monday Norm drove to Big Sur to have a massage at the Esalen Massage Institute. He got to soak in their hot spring tubs located just above the surf and had his massage outside overlooking the ocean. I met with a girl we met at the region 12 rally and we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and then walked around cannery row. The aquarium is a great one, I have never seen so many different kinds of jelly fish! Also the sea otters were a lot of fun, and when you walked around cannery row you could see sea otters out in the bay.
Yesterday Norm and I punched in attractions in the gps and started searching them out. She took us to the monarch butterfly gardens in Pacific Grove. Millions of Monarchs return here each year to winter among the eucalyptus trees. We were a little early to see the millions, but they had started to return and we saw thousands. They fly as far north as Canada and lay their eggs on milk weed pods. They really don’t live long as the butterflies we saw here now are the great grandchildren of the ones who were here last year.
We also went to fishermen’s wharf where the clam chowder was the best Norm has tasted so far!
Today we will head for Carmel and turn on Gypsy (GPS) and let here guide us again.

Golden Gate

more pics from San Fran

pics from San Fran

Oct 13 2008 San Francisco
Hi from San Francisco, We have had a wonderful visit with Jim in San Fran.
We left Sacramento on the 6th and drove to Half moon Bay hoping to stay at a state park on the beach. It was full and the only other places available were 50 to 60 dollars per night. I guess it was meant to be because it forced me to search out another place to go. We found an elks club in South San Francisco where we could stay with electricity and water for $10, and it was VERY convenient to the airport, and the BART. Tue we took a 49 mile driving tour of the city that took us through the different neighborhoods and parks of the city. We stopped often to take pictures and explore. In Golden Gate Park they were flying model airplanes and running boats on a small lake. We thought of Kyle who wants an airplane that will really fly for Christmas. There are several museums and gardens in the park. We went into the Art Museum where you could go up to the 9th floor to a viewing platform where we had spectacular views; we took a quick look at the Japanese Tea Garden and walked thru the sculpture gardens.
The next day we scoped out the airport. We made TWO dry runs; it was only 5 miles to the cell phone lot and another 2 miles to the terminals. We thought we had it down, so we drove to Half Moon Bay to take in some ocean, and snoop around the many pumpkin patches. The area grows lots of pumpkins and they market them very effectively with mazes, train rides, hay rides, pony rides and anything else that the kids would like.
Thursday, we would pick Jim up at 10:30PM so we had all day to explore the city, we went to the ferry pier for lunch, it reopened in 2003 after extensive renovations costing 100,000,000. We had a great lunch there and were heading toward the Golden Gate when Jim called and said he was boarding an earlier flight and would arrive at 6:30. We headed home for a quick rest before our adventure to the airport. We made it to the cell phone lot on time and Jim called to say he’d arrived. We drove around to the domestic arrivals and drove through but no Jim to be found. I called him as we were leaving, there were several levels but we didn’t know how to get to them. Fortunately we knew how to get back to the cell phone lot and there were buses bringing folks to the long term parking area that was next to the cell phone lot. I called Jim and ask him if he could catch one of those busses and before we knew it we saw him on the bus. He had flown in from Seattle but he was at the international arrivals instead of domestic due to the airline he flew on.
Friday we took him on the 49 mile drive stopping at the museums, Chinatown, and the piers. We didn’t get home until dark. Saturday we had tickets to tour Alcatraz. We took the BART in to the city as we thought it would be especially crowded because of fleet week. We walked to pier 33 where we caught our boat to Alcatraz. The tour was great you wear earphones and take an audio tour at your own pace. Because of Fleet Week the Blue Angels were performing, and also the Canadian Snowbirds and an acrobatic team. We had a perfect spot to watch the show!! They buzzed around the island and were right in front of us over the bay. A boat parade was also planned for the afternoon, but because of rough seas around San Diego it was postponed for a day. After our tour we walked to pier 39, then to Fishermen’s Wharf for dinner. THE BART NOW SEEMED LIKE IT WAS MILES AWAY! We started walking through the city through North Beach the Italian section of the city where there were many lovely restaurants with people dinning on the streets. The city at night was altogether different and I’m so glad we walked back.
Sunday we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped on the north side at a view point where we walked out on the bridge. People were there to view the parade of ships that was postponed until Sun. We walked pretty far out onto the bridge and Jim decided he’d like to add walking across the Golden Gate to his bucket list, so he left us and continued on. The parade of ships didn’t show, we never did hear why but I am thinking they still had rough seas and didn’t make it. From there we went to Muir Woods where we walked among the giant redwoods before we had to take him to the airport to return to Seattle. Smooth sailing this time!
We sure had a great visit with our son, and I sure need a day of rest before we head to our next destination, which is the region 12 rally at Watsonville, near Monterey.
Hope you are all doing well.
Lois

Dont ever want to end up here!

Blue Angels over Bay Bridge Top picture is the ROCK with guard apartments in the foreground.

Dim Sum