Universal Studios

U- Unique place to see
N- Neat place to visit
I- Increasing number of people
V- Very fun
E- Eat with different characters
R- Rides are fun
S- Scary Haunted House
A- Awesome shows
L- Laughing at King Kong

S- Studios are very cool
T- Tasty food
U-Uncanny decorations
D- Different characters
I- Interesting dances
O- Objects that scared me
S- Scary decorations

San Francisco

Riding the BART

We've been in the San Francisco area this week.  The girls were especially interested in the whole mass transit thing.  Going from Pacifica to Fisherman's Wharf, we used a combination of BART train (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and MUNI (San Francisco Municipal Transit) which included buses, cable cars, and trolleys.

 



Katy really enjoyed being able to use her transit card and get anywhere she wanted to go.  She'd make a great city dweller.  She loves museums, restaurants, and shopping.



At Aquarium of the Bay



We learned even more about Pacific Ocean Sea Life at Aquarium of the Bay (http://www.aquariumofthebay.org/).  The sea creatures of the cool Pacific waters look different than those of the warm Caribbean Sea we're used to enjoying.  Though it's beautiful here, I'm definitely a warm weather girl and just can't get that relaxed, laid back feeling like in the Caribbean.





China Town



 

We strolled along the streets of China Town and did a little souvenir shopping.

 

On Friday morning, we took a cruise of San Francisco Bay that went under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz.  The weather was pretty cool, in the 50s and of course very windy.  The views from the bay were spectacular and we were glad we'd braved the weather and ridden on the top deck.

 


 


Golden Gate Bridge in the background.







Sea Lions at Pier 39



At Pier 39 we enjoyed some excellent sourdough bread at Boudin San Francisco Sourdough.  They make a great product and form it into such entertaining shapes.



Today we're doing some catch up around the house, getting ready to move again in the morning.  Tomorrow we're headed to Los Angeles for the week. It's hard to believe we've been on the road for over 4 months now.  It's still going well.  Everyone's getting along good, which is sometimes surprising in such cramped quarters.  I have noticed that some of us (mainly Hannah and I) are loosing steam lately.  We tend to be the home bodies of the family anyway, so I think we're just missing our personal space and down time.  But tomorrow we'll be ready to go again.  The girls have REALLY been looking forward to going to LA.  I'm sure we'll be quite busy this week trying to fit in everything they want to do.





Oh yes, Sophie is having a big day today, she has a play date.  Sophie met a sweet little 7 month old Maltese shih tzu mix, Winnie,  at the RV resort this week, and we're watching her while her people are out for the evening.  They've been having lots of fun playing.











Sequoia National Park

On Friday, September 24th we visited Sequoia National Park (http://www.nps.gov/seki).  We invited Uncle Jack to go along, but he decided it would be too long of a day for him. It took a little over an hour to travel from Kingsburg to the park, and the girls really enjoyed the mountain roads with all their twists and turns. As you can see, Sophie went too.  She really seems to enjoy all the traveling and is just devastated when she has to stay behind at camp.





Hannah climbing back up after hiking down to this pretty spot on the King River.

 

Hannah and I went on a couple of short hikes in the park.  Katy hasn't been able to hike much lately.  Her right knee has been bothering her a lot.  She slipped and fell on some concrete back in May, just before school was out.  When it first happened, we iced it and she took Advil.  It improved after a few days, so we went on as usual.  Lately it's been bothering her more and more, to the point that we had it checked by an orthopedic physician in Carson City, Nevada.  After examining her and getting Xrays, he determined that the cartilage under her knee cap is still irritated from her fall back in May, and that she continues to strain it by keeping her knee bent during our long trips on the road.  So, Katy is keeping her leg elevated when we're in the truck and trying to avoid steep inclines and stairs as much as possible.  The doctor told Katy it could take a few more months for the injury to completely heal, but to be careful with it and patient and that all should be fine.

 The Sequoia Groves at Sequoia National Park are amazing.  I so wish I could take a photo that shows just how magnificent these trees truly are.  Here's Mickey and the girls trying to give you an idea of just how big the base of this tree is.  Notice how small our Jeep is in the background.

Below is a picture of Hannah and I at the base of the General Sherman Tree.  It's the largest tree by volume on earth.



The rest of the weekend was spent just relaxing and getting ready to move again.  Those little things like laundry and cleaning, they follow you no matter where you go.  Mickey and Uncle Jack went to the casino on Sunday.  When asked how they did, they just said they had made a deposit with the Indians and had had to eat hot dogs for lunch.

We shared a nice breakfast with Uncle Jack before leaving Kingsburg Monday morning.  We're now in Pacifica, California, a little south of San Francisco.  The RV resort where we're staying this week is on a cliff over looking the Pacific Ocean.  It's definitely one of the best views we're had.  The park has a pool and hot tub, so that pleases the girls.  They spent a couple of hours there last night.

When class is done today, we're going in to the city.  It will be an experience for us.  We're catching the train just down from where we're staying and using public transportation to get around San Francisco.  It will probably be a late night, so I'll post pictures from San Francisco later.  

San Joaquin Valley




We're having a good time in the San Joaquin Valley.  We got to Kingsburg on Monday, September 20th and stopped right away to see Uncle Jack. He's living in a nice retirement complex where he has his own apartment.  The complex has a dining room where he has breakfast and lunch, then dinner is on his own. He's doing well and is a pistol as always.

Katy, Hannah, Uncle Jack, and Mickey at Uncle Jack's place.



Right now we're staying in the RV area at the retirement community Uncle Jack lived in before moving into the apartments.  We have a pretty park with roses and a horse shoe pit right out our door, and lots of manicured grass which Sophie loves.



Uncle Jack, Mickey, Bennie

We met Uncle Jack's dear friend Bennie Gonsalves, his wife Delores, and three of their seven children, Barbara, Brandon, and Terry.  What a nice family.  He's certainly been blessed to have such great friends.  Uncle Jack and Bennie have know each other for about 50 years.  

Bennie gave us a tour of his dairy and of his fabulous family museum.  He's really put together an impressive place.  How nice to be able to display such precious family memories and to share them with others.  We really were amazed.





Bennie, Hannah, Katy, and Mickey at the museum.

Katy and Hannah in the milking barn.

Along with dairies, this area of California produces nuts, fruits, and tons of grapes for both table use and for raisins.  Having never seen how raisins are dried, we were surprised to see them laying out on paper in the fields to sun dry. Back home the fire ants would have a field day this that. 

 The grapes are hand picked and placed on paper trays on the ground to sun dry.  At the right time, the papers are rolled into packages and left on the ground a few more days before going to the plant for processing.  We also visited and Sun Maid Raisin plant and had the most wonderful chocolate cherry raisins, Yum.



We'll be here in the Kingsburg area through the weekend.  We plan to visit Sequoia National Park tomorrow or Saturday, then Mickey and Uncle Jack are going to the casino.  The weather has been so nice, warm but not hot during the day and cool in the evening.  For us it's like Summer has barely arrived, except it's already Fall.

We thinking about you all back home.  Love and miss you.  We'll post again soon.





Yosemite National Park

We spent most of last week in the Carson City/Reno, Nevada area.  We home schooled during the day, then just relaxed in the afternoons at the pool.  Katy had a check up with a local orthodontist.  She had a loose bracket that needed attention.  Dr. O'Gara and his team in Reno were terrific.  We were in and out in a flash.  Thanks to Dr. Collins in Waco for directing us to great orthodontists along the way.  Now if we could just get Katy's bite straight so that these braces could come off.  Wear your bands Katy !!!!



Yosemite National Park with El Capitan in the background.



On Saturday, September 18th, we traveled back into California to Groveland.  Groveland is a little West of Yosemite National Park.  We stayed in Groveland on Saturday and Sunday nights.

On Sunday we went to Yosemite National Park ( http://www.nps.gov/yose/ ).  The scenery was just beautiful.  The landforms in Yosemite are granite with some of the peaks soaring as high as 3600 feet above the valley floor.  Yosemite is also known for its giant waterfalls and Sequoia groves.

Activists John Muir and Ansel Adams were instrumental in the preservation of Yosemite.  I particularly enjoyed the Ansel Adams gallery, having been a fan of his photography since I was a child.  It still amazes me how he captured more true images in black and white than most have even come close to in color.

Yosemite National Park

“Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.”   - John Muir



Yosemite Valley

Northern California, then Nevada

Redwood Forest in Klamath, California

Well, it's time to do some catching up again.  We're in Carson City, Nevada now and will be staying until Saturday morning.  The plan is to travel to San Francisco on Saturday.  More about that later......first let me tell you what we've been doing for the last week.

On Tuesday, September 7th we traveled from Eugene, Oregon to Klamath, California.  Klamath is in northern California just south of Crescent City.  It's such a beautiful place.  There are mountains and HUGE redwoods and it's all just down the road from the beach.  What could be better? 

Pictures and words just can't do justice to how magnificent these trees are.  Just the idea of standing under something that's been here since the Ice Age is incredible.  Just look at this picture.  The girls look so small and I couldn't even get the bottom of the trees or the canopy in the shot.  We were all impressed.  (Mickey and I more so than the girls. They thought the redwoods were cool, but got tired of looking at them pretty quickly.  While Mickey and I could have spent days just driving and looking at trees.) 

Mickey said the redwood were some of the most awesome things he'd ever seen.   Many were 200 - 300 foot tall and 60 - 80 feet around.

                                         Here's us driving through a redwood near Klamath, California.



Exploring the tide pools near Crescent City, California.

We spent two evenings exploring the tide pools at the beach near Crescent City.  The weather was cool, in the 50s, and it was pretty foggy as you can see in the picture above.  We saw lots of small crab, one big crab, and tons of sea anemones.  The girls liked exploring the beach so much on the first evening, that's all they wanted to do the next day.  But, they stayed focused and we had school all day, then we hit the beach again.

Look closely and you can see a large crab and several small ones.

Here's a sea anemone.  They look like plants, but they're really meat-eating animals.





Here's a sea anemone eating a crab leg. 

We also visited the Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City.  It's one of the few remaining manned, operational lighthouses in existence.   Battery Point Lighthouse is manned by volunteers who live there for a month at a time, taking care of the lighthouse and giving tours.

We stayed in the Klamath / Crescent City area for four days before moving on to Reno, Nevada on Saturday, September 11th.  We took the girls to dinner at Circus Circus before setting up camp.





Cruising Lake Tahoe

On Sunday evening we took a sightseeing cruise aboard  the Woodwind II, a catamaran on Lake Tahoe.  Sailing at 6200 feet in the High Sierra Mountains,  we were on the "Largest-Highest Sailboat" in the word!  The sunset on the lake was beautiful.  We arrived back in dock at dark and just in time to see the International Space Station pass over head. 



On our way to California

We'll be leaving Oregon in the morning, headed south to California and the Redwood National Park area.  The plan is to stay there for 4 days before moving on.  Our rate of travel has slowed down considerably since school started.  But, it's been really nice to not be in such a hurry. 

We've had a nice time in Eugene, and have been here for nearly two weeks.  It's been good to spend time with Ron and Nancy again.  I think they are staying here a while longer.  Maybe we'll meet up with them again when we're in Arizona. 

The girls and I have been spending our days doing school work from early in the morning until around 2pm.  Getting an early start is working out well and leaves us plenty of free time in the afternoons.  We had school today (Labor Day) and will be taking our Labor Day Holiday tomorrow when we move on to California.  Mickey has been trying to occupy himself while we're in class. 

In my spare time, I've rediscovered an old hobby I haven't made time for in a lot of years, crotchet.  So far I've made a winter hat and scarf set for Hannah and a blanket for Katy. 

We want everyone back home to know that we miss them and think about them often.   David, Judy, and family, we're praying for you.