Yosemite and Las Vegas

Sorry for the long time between updates, but we've been busy and the hotel in Vegas wanted $11.25 per hour for Wi-Fi. A lot has happened so I'll try to catch you up while being as brief as I can (hard for me to do!).

On Wednesday, we made it to Yosemite NP, my favorite place on earth! I've been there 4 or 5 times, but Mike and Sheryl had never been there, so I was excited for them to see it. Unfortunately, this has been a very dry summer in CA and the numerous waterfalls were almost none existent. Yosemite Falls was completely dry. Bummer! It was still a beautiful sunny day and the valley was awesome, but I so wanted them to see the full wonder of Yosemite. While looking at El Capitan, a 3500 ft verticle monolith, we noticed small dots about a third of the way up. Looking thru our binoculars, we discovered about a half dozen rock climbers making their way back down the face. Unbelievable! We did make it to the top of Glacier Point, which is about 3200 feet above the valley floor, and enjoyed a magnificent view of the whole valley and Half Dome!

The next day, Connie and I got to enjoy a short time with her cousin Nancy and her husband Gary in a Fresno restaurant. They looked great and we so enjoyed laughing and chatting with them. Would have been nice to have more time to spend together, but the rest of the USA was waiting!

Next stop Las Vegas! It did not start well. Mike and I waited over an hour trying to check into our crowded, smokey hotel. When we finally got to our rooms, we were extremely disappointed. The next day, we were moved to new rooms, but even these were nothing great. But, we were right in the middle of the strip and we began exploring it ASAP. We went to the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Ballys Paris, Monte Carlo, The Wynn, Luxor, Flamingo, Venetian, New York New York, and others. Each one was more impressive than the last. That evening, we all went to a show called "Menopause, The Musical". It was absolutely hilarious! We all laughed so hard, we were actually crying. We had a great time! Gambled a small bit, won nothing.

Today, Saturday, we drove to Hoover Dam and took the tour of the visitors center and then went down into the dam itself. This was very impressive and truely a miraculous achievement. It's amazing what man can do when he puts his mind to it!

Tomorrow, we head for the Grand Canyon. Watch for us!

The Presidio and Muir Woods

We started the day driving through The Presidio, a former army base which has been owned by the National Park Service since 1994. This is a huge section of San Francisco right at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, probably the most valuable property in the area. Word of mouth is that the city of SF is really POed that it was given to the park service and not to the city. For some reason, we think the Park Service will protect the property a little better.

We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, then to Sausalito, a quaint little town on the water. It absolutely oozes money. As quaint as that town was, we drove straight through and then headed up the mountain to a spot overlooking the bridge along with the entire bay area and city. This spectacular vista was worth the trip.

Going farther north into Muir Woods, we walked through a forest of redwood trees, some of which were 12 feet in diameter. There was a section called Cathedral Grove where they asked for silence so that you could appreciate the majesty of the trees and surroundings. We listened to the trees rustling in the heavy winds, the birds hopping under the fallen tree trunks and even saw two small deer eating within 4 ft of the path.

Next, we will head to Yosemite NP. Can't wait!

San Fran

Yesterday we toured the Calif capitol in Sacramento. Although it's a beautiful building, the only thing that makes it unique is that in the 70's they demolished the entire interior, keeping only the outside shell, and rebuilt it. You would never know that it wasn't built in the late 1890's as most of the others that we have seen.

From Sacramento we drove over and up through the Napa Valley. It is a beautiful drive with rolling hills covered with rows of grapevines. We took a tour at Beringer which is the oldest continuously running winery in the US starting back in the 1850's. It was a fun, interesting tour and we learned a lot about grapes and wine-making. As we were finishing up the tour, one of the employees asked our group if we would want to be part of the filming of the Japanese version of the movie, Sideways. Here we are, movie stars, and nobody will see us. Unless they're into Japanese films! Oh, and by the way, Connie finished off the tour dancing the West Coast Swing with our tour director. She actually held her own!

Today, we rode Bart, the San Francisco rail system, into town. We jumped on a cable car and rode on its back porch down to Fisherman's Wharf where we strolled around, watched the seals and ate sourdough bread and clam chowder. Yum! We rode a streetcar to Ghirardelli chocolate and had some samples, then walked up to Lombard St (and I do mean we WALKED UP to Lombard St) That was a real workout, particularly after walking down and up Lombard itself. It's a good thing we're all perfect physical specimens or we'd be really tired now. I have to wrap this up now, it's 9:30 and I have to go to bed. Tomorrow there's a lot more of this beautiful city to see...the Golden Gate Bridge and the Presidio, plus.

We vowed to cover a lot of distance yesterday (at least get out of Oregon!) so we left earlier than usual, 9:15. I know a lot of you think that’s late (especially Phyllis Childers) but not the Kincaid/Tatum team. Probably the most memorable part of our day was that it was 46 in the morning at Coos Bay on the Oregon coast and by the time we were 2 or 3 hours into California it was 116. The killer is that we were at a pretty high altitude, too. I can understand it in Death Valley but not where we were. But it was a dry heat!

When we were near Redding, CA, we were able to watch the Blue Angels perform. It was flat in that area so we could see quite a bit of their show. Quite a sight!

We passed thousands of olive trees. The only way we knew they were olive trees (on any other day we would have stopped to check them out but remember the vow that I opened with??) There was a billboard advertising olive tasting at a shop. Yuch! Not an olive fan here. In a muffaletto is the only way to go!

Our vow paid off. We made it to Sacramento. Seeing the capitol today and then on into San Fran.

There, it's fixed!

We left the Portland, Oregon area yesterday morning and went straight to Walmart because we had some fixin' to do. Apparently, the leftside headlight lens cover came off of the Silver Bullet, so we needed to rig up some sort of cover to protect the halogen bulb from burning out. Mike and I looked "high and low" for anything we thought would work, finally settling on a transparent plastic baking pan lid and some clear packing tape to do the job. Luckily, I had a small pair of scissors in my bag, so we formed the pastic to the headlight module and applied tape as needed. We used some duct tape around the edges to make sure it all held together, but saved enough in case it would be needed later for someone's mouth! All in all, I think we did a pretty decent job (it was still there after a full days travel)!

We went to Salem to continue our efforts to see as many state capitols as possible. The Oregon Capitol was pretty, but not as old as others because it had to be rebuilt in 1938 after burning to the ground.

We then headed west toward the Pacific coast, following the Umpqua River. It was very scenic and saw some elk and red headed ducks along the way. It lead us to Reedsport, where a nice little town festival was taking place for the weekend.

We then proceeded down the coast on US 101 and went by the Oregon Dunes State Park. Many large sand dunes between the hiway and the ocean. It wasn't until we neared Coos Bay that we finally saw the Pacific. Beautiful! Before dinner, we went to Sunset Bay State Park to watch the sunset over the ocean. There we were treated to a symphony by the numerous seals basking on the rocks. Sounded like dogs baying at the moon! This morning, we head south. California, here we come!

The past two days have been busy, busy!

We spent yesterday exploring Vancouver, BC. It's a high density big city. Lots of high rise condos everywhere. The city is busily preparing for the winter olympics with construction going on everywhere. We took a quick drive through Chinatown (typical Chinatown--people scurrying around the storefront markets that were selling anything you could imagine) then on to the downtown area. The waterfront seemed to be the focal point of the city with an almost completed new convention center right next to the present convention center. There were two cruise ships in port, one on each side of an Imax theater that reminded me of the Sydney, Australia Symphony Hall or the Denver airport. Looked like 5 giant sails protruding from the roof. One building had olympic figures newly etched into the windows. We took a walking tour of an historic area of town called Gastown which was so-named for a talkative fellow (No, not Mike T but you're warm!)
After we left the downtown area we went through Stanley Park which is a huge park that must have been set aside from the beginning of Vancouver. It is bounded on 3 sides by water and has old growth evergreen trees that are huge, some 5 or 6 ' in diameter. Someone in Vancouver was very far-sighted in preserving this area. It's beautiful.
We drove back to Seattle and spent another night in the same Country Inn. We intended today to be a driving day, with hopes of covering a lot of territory. We got all the way to Portland, a whopping 175 miles away!! We have excuses! After all, we didn't take this trip just to drive.
We stopped in Olympia to see the Capitol. It was beautiful, of course. Marble everywhere, a huge rotunda, and Tiffany chandeliers all around.
When we got to the Oregon border where Portland is, we decided to drive up into the Columbia River Gorge with the mile wide river on one side and mountains on the other. Waterfalls are prevalent there with one of them being the Multnomah Falls being the 2nd tallest falls in the US. Farther up into the gorge we came upon the Bonneville Dam and Locks. It has fish ladders there for the salmon and other fish to swim up and spawn. It channels the fish through corridors where you can view them through windows. They are very determined! There is also a hatchery there. We watched hundreds of salmon try their best to jump back into the tanks in which they were born. It was a fascinating sight. Even made me want to go get my fishing rod! Might even catch something there.
Tomorrow it's the Oregon coast.

Boeing Tour

We reluctantly checked out of the Country Inn and Suites this morning. This was one of my favorites, very large and comfortable rooms, beautiful lobby, and a hot breakfast buffet. The great thing is that we only paid $52 a night through Hotwire. I asked the desk clerk what it would have been if we had walked in the door. She said around $129.

We are so glad that we toured Boeing today. What a phenomenal place. The buildings alone are worth seeing. Huge, huge, huge. One of them will hold Disneyland and have 12 acres left over for covered parking! One side has 6 huge garage doors, each one of which is almost as big as a football field. And they are all painted with murals. Impressive. We saw them making 747's, 777's and the new 787's. The 787's have a carbon composite skin and totally new technology in the way they are made. They are 20% more fuel efficient at the same speed as the 777. By the way, Boeing is the largest exporter in the US.

After we went to Boeing we had a late lunch at Ivar's Seafood which overlooked one of the waterways. Wonderful food (fresh salmon, etc) and we got to watch the ferry load and unload 3 times during the hour we were there. This ferry took semis, school buses and scads of cars. Very large and very fast. Interestiing to watch.

Staying in Vancouver, BC tonight with plans to tour it tomorrow. Hope to see some of the Olympic 2010 venues.