New Year’s Weekend in L.A.

So Sarah and I met up with Steph and Bre around 8:45am on Friday so we could sort of caravan down to L.A.. We ended up taking a couple of different freeways, but remained in the vicinity of each other. They even passed us on the freeway once and didn’t know it. After making one gas/food stop together, we arrived in L.A. ten mins apart from each other. We checked in the hotel which is an older hotel, and we later learned has VERY tiny rooms. There were a ton of 20 something’s checking in at the same time. We later learned that there was some local Rave and a bunch of them were going to it (dressed very oddly… I feel old).

Sarah unfortunately had pneumonia, but came on the trip anyway. She was feeling kinda ok, but she decided to take a nap before we headed out for the evening. At 6pm we met up with Steph, Bre and Jeremy to head to El Coyote Café, that Claire and Bobby recommended to me, for dinner.

We passed through Beverly Hills and Hollywood and ogled the mansions. The restaurant was eclectic and fun. I decided on the ostrich tacos, because how often do you find that on a menu (although I have had ostrich before), and they were great. Everyone enjoyed the place. After, we decided to head over to the Santa Monica Pier, which we predicted was going to be a madhouse.

Luckily it wasn’t. Michelle and Dan had been at the Ducks/Flyers game and met us at the Pier. We walked around a bit, took some pictures with a macaroni,
scared Steph by walking to the end of the pier over the water, watched some fireworks at 9pm down the beach, then walked down to the beach. Afterwards we went to Bubba Gumps for some late night drinks, appetizers and dessert before heading back to the hotel.

We got back around midnight and all headed to Steph and Bre’s room, which was a mansion compared to ours ;-) and we all hung out and chatted and laughed (boy did we) until 3am. Steph had woken up at 3am, so Sarah thought it would be fun to see if Steph could last 24 hours, and she did.

Saturday morning Sarah wasn’t feeling so hot, so she wanted to sleep in. We were meeting the gang at 3pm at the Yard House, but unfortunately Sarah wasn’t up to it, so she stayed behind. We walked down there and luckily it was no issue getting a table for 20 at that time. Slowly but surely everyone arrived (ended up being 15 people). It was great to see all the people from the previous night, plus Heidi, her 2 friends, Des, James, Kym and her husband, Matt and Stephanie.

We had a great time at lunch/dinner, even though it took them forever to take our orders. We walked over to Staples around 5 and went our separate ways to either the store, or to watch warm ups. Luckily Sarah was feeling better that this point and walked down to meet us for the game.

We were all seated in the same row for the game, which was nice. The game itself was a little mellow. Not a lot of fights or penalties, so it seemed to go pretty quick actually. But the Sharks pulled out a 1-0 win, and that’s what matters. We took our traditional group pic next to the Gretzky statue, then said our goodbyes.

Steph, Bre, Jeremy, Dan and I ended up hanging out and chatting for a few hours. It was a good time.

Sunday however was the day we had to leave. Sarah and my goal was to leave town by 11am, but after getting out of the parking garage, and getting gas, it was more like 11:20am. So off we went on a dreary day. Sarah’s Mom already gave us a heads up that there was a ton of rain between us and home, so we expected that. One we got close to the Grapevine, we saw a sign that said “snow escort, expect delays”. We didn’t know what a snow escort was, but thought it would be cool to see some snow. Well, after we were up the mountain, maybe around 1pm, we started seeing snow.

We thought, cool, and took some pictures. Then after a while, it was starting to stick to the ground, and the hills were looking dusted with snow.


Then the snow started piling up more, and that’s when traffic stood still. We started off with 5 lanes (or was it 4?) of traffic, moving pretty darn slowly. Then the snow started coming down really heavy, and we started moving about a mile an hour.

Then we would stop, then maybe go for 10 feet, stop another minute or so, go another 10 feet, etc. And I have never in my life driven on icy or snow covered roads in a non-4 wheel drive before. I would press the gas, my wheels wanted to force me to the right, and I had to compensate by turning to the left every time. I didn’t tell Sarah, but I was pretty freaked. I was worried I was going to spin out, or my car was going to shift to the right and hit another car, or get stuck in the snow. My heart was racing.

There were even a few people getting out of their cars and walking in the snow on the shoulder, not sure why. On the other side of the freeway, we could see plows, one at a time going down one lane, then a row of cars following it. So we knew that’s what was happening up ahead of us too.


After about an hour from when we first stopped in our tracks, the 5 lanes had been merged down to 1.

Some big trucks sucked it up and plowed through the snow in some of the outer lanes (yikes), but the rest of us played follow the leader and I tried to keep my tires in the tire tracks of the car in front of me. The icy roads had turned into slush and snow, and was much easier to drive on. It took us a full 2+ hours to get over the Grapevine, in what took us maybe 30 minutes on the way down.

And I have never seen so many cars just stranded on the side of the road for one reason or another. It was insane. When we were close to the bottom, we noticed no traffic on the other side of the freeways, and the road was just covered in snow. We knew at that point they closed the freeway down. Which apparently they did at 1pm, and may not reopen until tomorrow or Tuesday. And we felt bad for all the people on the other side that didn’t know this yet.

We stopped at the first place we could to make a pit stop. The gas station, food places, etc had no power. OK, so we drove another 5-10 minutes to the next place with services, this place MUCH larger. No power to the whole town either.

OK, so we just decided to move on and make up some time and made a stop a few hours later. We finally got to Sarah’s about 8 or so hours later, which took us less than 6 hours on the way down. Then I still had about a 45 minute drive home. We both made it home safely, which is what matters, and we have a story to tell.

Article about the storm and I-5 closure. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cold-weather-20110103,0,3315839.story

Back to Washington – Day 11

My last day in Washington. We had decided to have lunch at the Rockfish Grill, since my shuttle wasn't leaving until 2:45pm. So we had a nice lunch, then headed back to the boat. I actually only had about 30 mins at that point to finish my packing, so I did that really quick. Then I headed up to meet the shuttle. It was the same lady driver I had back in June. Nice lady. I was the only one on the shuttle with her all the way to where you change buses, so we chatted the whole time. She was telling me about how she lives in a very rural area, and that her family likes to shoot off crazy fireworks for New Years and stuff. And that they will shoot prairie dogs and stuff for digging up their property. I am for sure not pro-killing animals, but the way she told the story, it was pretty funny. I got on the other bus at the transfer station, and we continued on to Sea-Tac in the dark and rain. We got there around 6pm (a little late) and I had 2 1/2 hours to kill before my flight (it was delayed 30 mins). So I wandered the shops, bought a book ,magazine and 2 bottles of wine. Not sure why about the wine, I just thought I'd buy some on a whim. Then because of my stomach issues previously, I was too worried about eating anything too creamy, fatty or fried, so I skipped my normal trip to Ivar's at the airport for my usual fried shrimp and clam chowder. So I stopped at the place next door and got some couscous salad to go to eat on the plane. It was delicious. The flight was uneventful and I arrived in around 10:30pm to the puring rain. I thought I left that stuff in WA ;-)

Back to Washington – Day 10

So today was a much better day to take the ferry to Friday Harbor. We headed over to the terminal in the morning and waited to board the boat. Once we got on, Fred stayed in the car with Merlin and my Mom and I wandered, since I've never been on a car ferry before. Once we got over there, we made a few stops then headed to the Pelindaba Lavender Farm which was cool, but being the time of the year it is, nothing was really pretty lavender colors. Only a couple of plants.

Then we headed over to the Krystal Acres Alpaca Farm which was really cool. You could walk along the fence line and look at all of the alpacas. Then they have a really great shop on site where we chatted with the daughter in law of the owners of the farm, for a while. They had this really cool alpaca felted hat I wanted. But for $99, I couldn't justify it.

After that we stopped at the Lime Kiln Pt State Park. I decided to take a little trail down to the water to get a view of the lighthouse. Very cute.

Then off to Roche Harbor to have lunch at our little spot of the dock, The Lime Kiln Cafe. And as we were walking around, I even say an otter sitting on shore for a few, before it swam away.

We had to get back to Friday Harbor to catch the ferry to come home. This time we just stayed in the car. And for fun we turned the GPS on to watch us "driving" in the water.

We then just chilled the rest of the night, had dinner, and watched some TV.

Back to Washington – Day 9

I woke up around 8am to some of the more insane sounds of wind and rain, and the boat bouncing back and forth. After only having about 5 hours of sleep, and then the weather on top of it, I decided it may not be the best day to take the ferry over to Friday Harbor. So we postponed. My Mom and Fred took off to go grab breakfast in town, since they were already up. I got up to take a quick video of the waves outside, as they were crazy for inside a marina. Then I went back to bed, and didn’t wake up until 3pm. I didn’t plan to sleep that long. I got up and we just kind of lounged around. Eventually we had dinner (curry chicken, pasta and peas) and watched the news. We took Merlin for a walk, and I brought my new little tripod so I could take pics of the boat at night. I got one decent one at least. Then we watched ‘Letters to Juliet’ which was really cute. I decided to update my blog, then I’m going to crash. We’re going to try to take the ferry tomorrow.

Back to Washington - Day 8

I slept in until about 11am, then got ready to go into town to get lunch. We went to the Calico Cupboard, and I had a great club sandwich. It was a pretty mellow day. Gloomy as it has been, but just popped into a handful of stores downtown. Once back at the boat we did more nothing and just chilled. We had leftovers for dinner, and watched the Discovery Channel show on Jordan (that I have on DVD). Then my Mom and I watched NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, neither of which I normally watch, but are good. Then I went to bed and watched some old Big Brother episodes. But once I started to go to sleep, I started feeling sick again and couldn’t fall asleep until after 3am. So one of those leftovers was something that didn’t agree with me now, and the first time I had it. Wish I knew which thing it was.

Back to Washington - Day 7

I slept in today, but then we headed to La Conner to have lunch and wander the shops. It was only about a 20 min drive to get there, and we stopped at the La Conner Pub. It was right on the channel, and I had popcorn shrimp and a salad. It was really good. The town is full of cute little galleries and shops. My favorite was this wood art shop, The Wood Merchant. They have some great stuff. Everything from pill cases, to sculptures, to utensils, to artwork. And they had these cool 3-4’ playing card art pieces all made out of pieces of wood. Really neat. It got dark really quick, so we headed back. After we were back at the boat for a while, the wind started whipping (23+ mile per hours gusts), the rain started pouring, the waves got crazy, the boat started rocking, and the wind was howling loudly. That lasted a couple of hours, and I was on the verge of seasickness. It was crazy. My Dad called earlier to check in, and all is well at home. Then my Mom and I made Ivar’s clam chowder and salad for dinner while watching ‘First Knight’. Now I’m writing this while watching the TV show, ‘What I Like About You’ and am going to crash soon. Not sure what's on the agenda for tomorrow.

Back to Washington – Day 6

My Mom woke me up to say they were going to go have breakfast at the café on the dock, so I could join them, or sleep in. I got up. When we left the boat we could hear the church playing "church music" loudly outside. Then I realized it was 'Yesterday' by the Beatles, then 'We've only just begun' by The Carpenters. That was kinda cool. So we went and had breakfast (eggs over easy, bacon, english muffin and coffee for me) in the dreary weather. We headed back to the boat and took off to go back to Anacortes. We saw an eagle on a little rock island, and a tug pulling a log boom on the way. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. We had some downtime when we got back and saw ‘King Arthur’ was on, so we watched that. Then we had sausages, rice and green beans for dinner, using the dining room for the first time. Then just chilled out and watched some tv and I crashed early. Unfortunately though, I started feeling sick and started tossing and turning for 2 hours. Felt like a minor gall bladder attack, which sucks. But I eventually crashed.

Back to Washington - Day 5

So today they woke me up because we were heading to Roche Harbor (I was here back in June too, as well as Friday Harbor). And I like the parts of the trip where we are cruising and watching the scenery go by, so I got up. We just hung out in the pilot house/galley and watched the world go by. When we arrived, we made breakfast for lunch. Scrambled eggs with cheese, onions, and other good stuff I can’t remember, and bacon. Then we headed up to shore. We were up there maybe 20 minutes before it started raining. So we wandered a bit more, and went to the Harbormaster’s office to pay up for the night on the dock, then back to the boat. My Mom, Merlin and I were quite drenched when we returned. But a little rain isn't going to hurt us. We knew the Cal game was on today and my Step-Dad wanted to watch, and my Mom too. So we put that on as I got their Directv remote programmed and working. My Mom made this yummy hamburger, bean, onion, etc casserole that she does for dinner, and I picked up some cheesy bread at the store this afternoon to go with it. So had that as we finished watching Cal lose. Eh… I didn’t care. We checked to see what was on TV tonight and saw Hawaii Five-O. I never watched the original, nor had I caught any of the new series. But we watched it and I enjoyed it. If I start watching it, does that mean it’ll be canceled? ;-) I kinda had the Yahoo feed of the Sharks game on at the same time. Wasn’t paying too close of attention, but YAY, they won. We hung out a little bit longer, and I updated my Amazon with list, and checked out the wish list’s of family members. They crashed and I sat here and wrote by blog. I’m exhausted, but figured I’d get it out of the way while I still remembered the details of today. Tomorrow we head back to Anacortes, because they have a Monday am appt to get something on their car checked out. So hopefully Monday afternoon or Tuesday we can head out again to do something, as I fly out on Friday.

Back to Washington - Day 4

I got out of bed around 8:45am this morning, surprisingly. And it was sunny out… with some clouds though. We had thought we were going to take a drive to La Connor to bum around. But we soon decided, after checking the upcoming weather forecast, that today may be the best weather we see while I’m here. So we decided to go for it and take the boat out, for the first time since they bought it. We went first to get 400 gallons of fuel put in it, then headed to Friday Harbor. Much faster than Aquila would have taken us. So we got there in an hour and a half, and had some lunch on the way. When we got there, we just wandered around town a bit. We also saw Popeye, the seal who is blind in one eye and comes to the docks every day for handouts. And I found a great candy store. One that carries all sorts of random candies from the 60’s, 70’s, etc that you can’t get everywhere, so I bought a few things. Then we just headed back to the boat as it got dark. Fred got the idea in his head to transfer his Directv account from their old house, to the receiver on the boat. So after about 90+ mins on the phone with them, we now have satellite TV on the boat. So we watched some TV while having pork loin, mashed potatoes and fresh asparagus for dinner. Then I continued to watch some TV after they crashed, while writing this blog.

Back to Washington - Day 3

So last night I was laying in bed watching a TV show on my iPod, and it was freezing! I know it was 37 degrees outside, and it felt like that inside here too. I definitely turned off the heater in the boat too soon. It was pretty much just my hands and face not under the covers, and boy did I have to warm them up. Plus I ended up sleeping with a sheet, comforter and 2 blankets. Once I warmed up I was good though. Brrrr before that though. And something else I remembered while I was laying there, was that we had checked the info on the car when we came into town yesterday, and we had driven about 930 miles, and about 15 ½ hours of driving over the course of the 2 days. Wow!

Anyway… I definitely needed to catch up on my sleep last night after waking up every 2 hours at the hotel the night before. So I ended up sleeping until 11am, which definitely wasn’t planned. Today was an errand day, so nothing major happened. We got ready to head out, and went to West Marine to get their new stove top for the boat. We had some really great Chinese food for lunch, then went grocery shopping. When we got back we checked in the Harbormaster office for some packages we were expecting. One being my new Otterbox case for my phone, which did arrive and I’m happy with. Unfortunately though, we had to cart all these things back to the boat in the rain. We just unpacked everything, then relaxed for a bit and read magazines and such. Then we had pulled pork, mashed potatoes and peas for dinner as we watched Princess Ka’iulani. I really enjoyed it, great historical story that I didn’t know.

I have also been pondering a job that was suggested to me by a friend the other day, and decided to apply for it. Unfortunately being out of the state though, I had to search my e-mail for my resume and try to come up with a cover letter (which I am actually taking a break from to write this). So I’m going to chat with my friend tomorrow, who happens to work at this place, about some specifics. We’ll see what happens. Tomorrow’s plans are up in the air depending on weather. We may go drive to a little town and have lunch and check out the cute shops, or we may actually take the boat out for the first time ever (since my parent’s have gotten it). If we don’t take it out tomorrow, than maybe another day or two when the weather eases up.

Back to Washington - Day 2

Got up at 7am again for another long day. Went and had the free breakfast at the hotel, including biscuits and gravy, eggs, sausage, bacon, cereal, yogurt, waffles, coffee juice, etc (no, I didn’t eat all that) and got on our way around 8:30am. And it was another gloomy day as we headed out through more of Oregon. We stopped at one rest stop (mind you we also had my mom’s dog with us) and continued on. We planned to stop at the Mount St Helens Visitor Center on the way. We knew due to the weather that we wouldn’t see the mountain, but wanted to stop anyway. It was a nice center with a short but good video about the eruption. I was five when it happened, so only vaguely remember it being on the news, but watching the video was freaky. Remind me never to move close to an active volcano. The grounds around the center were pretty and the sky was amazing, so walked around and took a few pics. When we had gotten off that exit, we noticed a sign that said Burgers and Espresso that caught my eye, because how random is a burger and espresso joint? So we stopped there for lunch before getting back on the freeway/highway. Total hole in the wall place with a really nice early 20 something girl working there. The burgers were great, and we even got some ice cream for the ride. Surprisingly as we approached Seattle, the weather started clearing up and there were pretty blue skies. I checked the GPS on my phone and noticed 2 strips of high traffic areas, due to major accidents, coming up past Seattle. UGH… no fun. Probably added an hour to our trip, and it turned dark at this point. We just wanted to get to Anacortes. Think we arrived around 6:30ish. Then their boat (sorry… motor yacht) is docked about 1/5 of a mile down a couple of docks, so had to load up all of our stuff in carts and lug it down there. This is my first time seeing their new boat, since they just bought it last month I think it was. It’s beautiful and has so much more space than their last boat, more staterooms, more heads, more closets, more stairs, etc. They showed me around, and instead of being stateroom door to stateroom door with them, like on their last boat… I go from their stateroom, up the stairs to the salon, up the stairs to the galley, down the stairs to a hallway, then are 2 more staterooms and a head. My Mom jokes that I have my own wing, and that’s what it feels like. I’m on the opposite end of the boat. It was too dark to check out the upper helm or the bow, so that will wait til tomorrow. And we were too exhausted to fully unpack and straighten up, so pics of the boat will have to wait until tomorrow. So after we chatted a bit, I uploaded a few pics and wrote this and yesterday’s blog entries. Now being 11pm, I think I’m about to pass out. Night!

Back to Washington - Day 1

My Mom and Fred were picking me up at 8am, so I reluctantly got up at 7am after a few hours of sleep. It was an uneventful start of the drive, and made our first stop after a few hours, at a rest stop. The same one my Aunt and I stopped at a month ago on our way to Redding. We then continued for a few more hours as it started getting rainier and rainier. Our goal was to stop at a Big Bear Diner in Redding for lunch, just to find the place surrounded by cops and a fire truck. We tried to go in anyway, only to find a water line broke at the restaurant and they stopped serving people. We knew there was another one an hour up the road in Mount Shasta City, so we decided to stop there instead of finding another place to eat. As we got close, the rain started coming down and my Step Dad was noticing the temp outside was going from 35 to 34 to 33… and then we noticed that the rain seemed to be floating through the air. It was actually snowing. When we parked at the restaurant it was still snowing, but nothing heavy as it wasn’t sticking. I thought it was cool, because I love snow and rarely get to se it, while they were more worried about the pass in Oregon. After lunch we headed on into Oregon and made it to the pass. At this point there is snow on the ground on both sides of the freeway, and it was coming down pretty good. So much that the visibility sucked, and we even saw an over turned truck on the side of the road with emergency vehicles. Yikes! Once over the pass, the snow turned back to rain and we made it to Roseburg, OR. We checked into the hotel around 5:30pm, then my Mom and I wandered next to the hotel to a Petco and stuff. And they were actually selling ferrets. Unusual to see them in a pet store. We then decided to order a pizza to be delivered, as we were exhausted from the long drive, then just crashed.

Fleet Week... awesome day!!!

So my Aunt and I the other day made last min plans to head to the city for Fleet Week. We thought that taking the ferry would be best to save the headache of traffic and the headache of parking fees. So we took the 12:10pm ferry out of Alameda with perfect blue skies out. There was fog in the vicinity of the Golden Gate Bridge, but that wasn't going to affect us. We got to Pier 41 around 1:15pm and the air show had started. We saw the Coast Guard helicopter and one jet doing their thing while we were still on the ferry. When we got off we decided to walk past Fisherman's Wharf and down toward the Aquatic Park. The place wasn't too bad, because the hoards of people were mainly at the end of all their piers already watching the show. So the streets were full of people, but not as bad as I was expecting. We eye-balled some of the food on the way, but we hate eating and walking, so we wanted to find a place to settle first.

We wound up down the Hyde Street Pier which is where the vessels of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park are docked. We saw how packed the lawns were at the Aquatic Park, and this pier wasn't bad. We saw what I think may have been the Patriot Jet Demonstration Team do their formation flying as we were scoping out the pier. But we were getting hungry and had about 45 mins until the Blue Angels did their thing. So we popped into Capurro's to have some beer battered shrimp and a soda at the bar. Then we headed back to our spot at the end of the Pier right next to Balclutha, which one day I'll actually step foot on. And a little while later the Blue Angels started doing their thing. They are always super impressive, and it's all the more exciting when they are flying right over your heads and crossing right in front of you. I also love the loud roar they make, it just gets your blood flowing. It made me miss when the Alameda Naval Air Station was still active and you would hear jets take off and land every day. I grew up listening to that and I loved it. The show lasted about 45 mins and we let the crowd disperse before thinking about our next plan. We played tourist and had someone take our pic with Alcatraz in the background and watched at several tugs turned the SS Jeremiah O'Brien around and put back onto it's dock after it's final cruise of the weekend.

We walked up to Ghirardelli Square to check it out. But really not a lot of shops to wander these days, it's more about the restaurants. On our way out of there, we started hearing a lot joyous hollering from a group of guys telling everyone that the Giants had won. Clapping was heard from all around the park. Anyway... I was starving at this point, so we decided to have dinner upstairs at Alioto's, which I love. Plus I've been having a craving for clam chowder lately, so that was going to get satisfied today. It was about a 30 min wait, but that seemed to fly by. We got a table by the window overlooking a marina and the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. At the time, the shades were pulled low because the sun was shining in. But by the time we finished our clam chowder, the sun was setting and they raised the shades. We couldn't have had a better table. Then I had the shrimp louie, which was delicious.

After dinner we had almost an hour and a half to kill until our ferry. So we popped into the Musee Mechanique to see Laffing Sal (seen in Princess Diaries among other movies), and play a few of the toys. Then we headed down to Pier 39 to say Hi to the sea lions, but too dark at this point to get any pictures. Then we just quickly walked up the pier before getting in line for our 8:20pm ferry back to Alameda. We sat on the very back of the boat, outside, and had beautiful views of SF and the Bay Bridge on the way back. Really nice day, but had to slather my face with lotion when I got home... the one place I didn't put sunblock on. Dumb I know.

Redding - Day 4

I slept in until 10:30am today because I was exhausted. Pam made some great cheesy/bacon scrambled eggs and toast with freezer strawberry jam for breakfast, so we all sat down and ate before hitting the road. I wanted to leave by 11am, but we packed up, said our Goodbyes and ended up out of there by Noon. We stopped on the way to pick up a thank you card for them and a gift bag I needed for Abby's Bday gift. While in that little shopping center, there was one of those guys holding a sign directing people to Quizons, and he was wearing a cheesehead, so had to take a picture of him to show Claire. So the ride was uneventful, and we arrived back at my Aunt's at 4pm which was on track. Because I needed to turn around from there and head straight to Heather's for Abby's Bday dinner. So got out there by 5pm and we headed out to meet up with all the other family members at Chevy's at 6pm. We had a really nice time at dinner, then headed back to their house. Tony went to bed and Heather, the kids and I watched Fantastic Mr Fox. Which I lost interest in at the end and just went and crashed by Midnight.

Redding - Day 3

Got up at 9:15am again so we could be out of the house by 10:30am to go kayaking. We had to load the kayaks in the car, then meet up with Pam's friend Claudette. She packed up 2 kayaks in her car, then we went to Holiday Market to pick up deli sandwiches for lunch. Then just a short drive to Whiskeytown Lake. We got there and unloaded, then had to inflate the 2 inflatables. Then we packed up our gear, lunch, etc and launched from the boat ramp by Noon. We headed in one direction where there is this metal tube in the water that you can paddle through. There is just a small cove on the other side. A handful of ducks became our new friends and followed us around. Then we spotted 3 turtles on a log, very cute. We headed back through the tube and shortly after the ducks flew over to meet us. We rounded a corner into another cove and watched a blue heron fly from tree to tree for a while. After a while we were hungry so we went over to this beach, pulled up onto shore and unloaded lunch onto a picnic table. Not long after, 2 of the ducks found us again and hung out waiting for food. Which we obliged. So we hung out and ate for about 30 mins, put our feet in the water to cool down, and just take some pictures. Then we paddled across the lake and back to the boat ramp at about 3:30pm. We deflated the 2 kayaks and packed up the car and got on our way around 4pm. We decided to just go directly to the Sundial Bridge again instead of heading home first. So we did and took a bunch of day time pictures before heading back. On our way into the Turtle Bay area though, we looked across the intersection and saw about 5 cows/steers running across the road with 3 white trucks following close behind. They headed towards this fence line on the right and luckily didn't run down the freeway off ramp side of the fence.

We headed back to the house and had BBQ'd steak, with pasta and veggies this time. We sat around for a while telling old family stories and such for a while, then Don went to bed. My Aunt, Pam and I moved outside with our wine and continued to get a little tipsy. Then we decided to take some silly pictures. We had a really nice evening chatting and laughing. At one point they asked me what time it was and I said 2am, to a reaction of "WHAT?!?!?!" out of both of their mouths. So we all headed to bed.

Redding - Day 2

So we planned to get up by 9:15am to get our day started. So I did, and got ready to go. There was a group of turkeys outside my bedroom window when I got up. That was different. We (my Aunt, cousin Don, his wife Pam, her friend Cookie, and I) drove out to the Shasta Caverns tour area on Lake Shasta. There were a ton of kids there when we arrived. We were told that there were 2 groups of kids that were going to fill up the next 2 tours at 11:30am and Noon. So we decided to buy tickets for the 1pm boat and just hang out and wait. We got a hot dog, wandered the gift shop, hung out at a picnic table, then headed down to the boat at 12:45pm. It was a quick 15 min ride across the lake, then a steep climb up a hill to catch the bus. Then it was a quick trip to the entrance to the cavern.

There was a guy on our tour with a Team Canada Crosby shirt on which made me laugh. We entered the caverns which were 72 degrees inside, which was much better than the 106 outside. We passed a very steep and long set of stairs and thought we weren't going to have to climb them. Well, we were wrong. After we viewed the first couple of rooms, we came full circle and had to climb the 800 steps to the top. Yikes. But well worth it to see all the magnificent rooms once we got up there. It seemed right out of Indiana Jones. We were in there for about an hour, and then exited the caverns at a higher elevation, and had to climb down a crap load of stairs once on the outside. We hopped back on the bus, then boat to get back to our car.

We headed back to the house to take cold showers (super hot outside) and relax and have dinner. Don BBQ'd pork steaks (as they called them) and had some pasta and veggies. We just killed some time before heading to the Sundial Bridge. We wanted to see what it looked like at night as well as the day. And it was beautiful all lit up at night. Really a sight. We wandered around there for an hour or so. Then we stopped on the way home for some ice cream bars and wine.

My Aunt and Pam were ready for bed after a glass of wine, but I wasn't. So I stayed up a while longer an watched a couple of TV episodes on my iPod before crashing.

Redding - Day 1

So we finally got out of town around 3:30pm I think. We intended for 2pm, but time got away from us. The Tupperware part Pam was having was at 6:30pm, but we knew we weren't going to make it in time. We stopped at Safeway to get some deli sandwiches and sides to eat on the road. Then stopped at Starbucks a little later. We stopped once again about an hour out from Redding at a rest stop, then just continued on our way. We arrived around 7:30pm as the Tupperware party was in full swing, but we basically just chatted with Pam, and Don when he got home. We drank some wine, and just chatted into the night after all her guests left. We settled into our rooms and crashed around 1am.

Dream... fireworks, storms, beach, diapers...

So, I have no idea where I was except in some fancy beach area with a lot of hotels and stuff. I went with some friends and we checked into our room. And it was some big festive holiday like 4th of July, Mardi Gras or New Years. I'm leaning toward the 4th of July. Somehow my friends and I got separated, and cell service must have sucked there because I was never able to get a hold of them. And for some reason I wasn't able to remember exactly which room number was ours, or who's name it was under to check. I had a room key (those plasic ones) but it had no number on it.

So I decided that I should at least go down to the beach and enjoy the festivities while looking for my friends. It was probably late afternoon, early evening at this point. It was a very large beach, and several resort people were walking around getting things set up for games. I watched them set up rows of those little traffic cones in the sand for some relay races. I kept wandering and went inside some building (hotel or mall) and they had a bar in there. It had huge, maybe 15 foot stucco walls around it, with a cut out where you order. On the outside of one of the walls was painted with the names of about 50 mixed drinks that you could order. Impressive. I was going to order one, but had to run to the bathroom first. There was this other woman looking for the bathroom as well, so we started looking together. They weren't marked well. We ended up finding one, which was disgusting. There was a girl in there who noticed our disgust and bent over and said "That's why I have this". and we saw a diaper poking out of her underwear. OK, strange. But we went on our way to find another.

At one point I must have told this woman about not being able to find my friends, so she said I could crash later with her and her friends in their room if I needed. We headed up there so I could see where it was. There were probably 8 guys and girls up there just laying around like they were exhausted. So I did too. A last minute rest before the festivities. I remember thinking, as I looked over the balcony at the beach, about how crowded the beach was getting. If I had a chance to find my friends, it would have been earlier when things were getting set up and it wasn't so crowded, so I gave up the idea.

We headed back down to the beach, and somehow stumbled upon a group of people I went to high school with. I ended up talking to this one guy for quite a while on the beach. Don't remember what about. A bunch of us from both groups ended up going to a different hotel room that someone said would be perfect for watching the fireworks from. We get there and it has this part that is like a large box sitting off the side of the room. All 3 walls and the ceiling were nothing but floor to ceiling windows overlooking the beach. There was also a small, but busy, airport next to the hotel on one side. We kept watching small planes and helicopters take off and land. It was getting dark at this point, so all the runway lights and stuff made it pretty to look at.

We then noticed a storm brewing and coming towards us. It was going to pass directly over us, so we were a little freaked being in a glass room. As is got closer the rain started pelting the windows and the room shook a bit. Then it approached faster and then it was all of a sudden like we were in the eye of a hurricane or tornado. It was something kind of like Twister. We were all looking straight up at the inside of it and could see some clear sky all the way at the top, and a funnel cloud inside. It was a trip, but scary at the same time. It passed quickly though, and in time for the fireworks. The show was amazing, like every moment was the finale. I kept think about how much money they must have spent on this display. It was awesome, and glad I had the view I did.

I'm not sure how the evening ended, and I don't think I ever found my friends. But it was an interesting night.

Leaving Anacortes

I have to leave today, boo hoo. I just made sure everything was packed up this morning, including Fred having to sit on my suitcase to zip it up. I bought a thank you card for my Mom and Fred, and a sea salt and a chili dark chocolate Lindt candy bar for them. I hid them between some pillows for my Mom to find later (which she did). Then they drove me up to the corner to meet the shuttle. I was there about 20 mins early, and so was the shuttle. So just hung out until it was ready to leave. I was the only one being picked up at this stop. Between the ferry and a gas station in town, another 8 people were picked up. We had to stop 2 more places to make sure there were no walk-ins, which there weren’t. And we arrived at Sea-Tac on time around 3:45pm. I checked my bag, and boarding wasn’t until 4:55pm, so I had time to grab my dinner at Ivar’s as I had hoped. So I grabbed a cup of clam chowder and fried shrimp and chips “to go” so I could eat it at the gate. Went and sat down and chowed down. I ran to the bathroom at about 4:45pm and they were already boarding when I got out. I was on the plane, in my seat, before 5pm. Wow, that never happens. We weren’t supposed to depart until 5:29pm. I ended up with a window seat, and a woman sat on the aisle. I looked at her and said, “You were on the shuttle weren’t you?”, which she was. The seat between us was never filled, nice! And she and I chatted the whole way about her business (horseback riding ranch, Turtle Head Farm) on Orcas Island, her daughter being away at St Mary’s which is why she was flying down, my current situation and aspirations, our travel histories, her brother being VERY into Orca protection, etc. We basically chatted until we went our separate ways at the baggage claim. Very nice lady. Then I called my Dad and he picked me up. Nala was very happy to see me when I got home, and I checked in with everyone to say I made it home safely. Just catching up on a few of my shows that I missed, before I crash.

Anacortes

We rocked and rolled pretty good last night, and the mooring buoy kept banging on the hull, so that was nice while trying to sleep. That and the sounds of jets kept going until pretty late. But we left Hope Island this morning to head back to Anacortes. We had to leave around 9am or so, due to the tides, to get back out under the bridge. But that got us to Anacortes too early to enter the marina, because the tide was too low. So we anchored out and just read for a couple of hours. Once we could get into the marina, we did, then got our stuff together to head into town. Now that my trip is coming to a close, and the sale of the Piedmont house is almost finalized, they can finally start their official trip and leave dodge. So this weekend is an errand weekend for them, so they can get out of town on Sunday. So we had to hit up a few boat stores, the grocery store, Radio Shack, Bunnies by the Bay (suggested to me by someone who used to buy their stuff for a large retailer), pet hospital (to get Merlin’s nails cut), etc. After unloading stuff on the boat, we headed back into town to have dinner at Rockfish Grill. I had the San Juan salad, mixed greens with red onion, cranberries, gorgonzola and candied pecans. Then I had the fresh crab mac and cheese. Wow, it was good, and had a lot of crab in it. We wandered the street a little after dinner checking out the old murals on the building walls in town. And checked out this ship being built in their boat yard. It has a heliport on top… interesting. Then we just headed back to the boat so I could pack. And I thought my suitcase was full on my way up, it’s crazy full now. And I bought a small World Cup USA soccer ball which is going to have to go in my carry on, on the way home. Kind of a dumb purchase before having to fly home. Oh well. So bags are packed, snacks are made for the 3 hours shuttle bus then 2 hour plane ride tomorrow. At least the shuttle doesn’t leave here until 12:45pm, so I don’t have to get up crazy early.