The Bay area

Thursday, September 26, 2013



It was a quick and easy 50 minute drive to Berkley, home of the University of California at Berkley, or as UC-Berkley likes to call it, “the Harvard of the West”. The campus is large and as we were not able to find a street that goes through the campus we could only see into the edges. Cal-Berkley has 39,000 students and it appeared to us that none of them were in class. We never saw so many students in one place. What we could see of the campus looked very crowded, both with students and buildings close together. The campus is built right into the hills that overlook San Francisco and the bay. We found a road that took us up into the hills where we parked and had incredible views of San Francisco. Lynda happily got us lost coming back down the hill into downtown Berkley. We then wandered through Alameda, somewhere near Oakland, before driving on towards Palo Alto. Passing through Menlo Park, Lynda directed us to the campus of Google. The Google campus is the size of a small college. Think Hope or Albion. One building even had valet parking. We also drove through the campus of LinkedIn. There we saw a man walking between buildings with a shirt and pants with the same bright red, yellow, and orange tie-dyed pattern. Thursday must be tie-dye day at LinkedIn. In Palo Alto we visited the Stanford University campus. It too is a very large campus but is one of the few that rivals MSU in beauty. All the buildings were built with the same Spanish architecture.

After a late lunch we left Palo Alto and decided to drive a couple of hours to make for a shorter drive into Los Angeles tomorrow morning. We knew in Utah and Nevada we would have trouble finding a hotel but driving down I-5 in the middle of California? We ended up driving 4 hours. I-5 goes through the middle of the San Joaquin Valley which is like the vegetable garden for the entire country. We drove hours through fields of almond trees, lemon trees and assorted vegetables. Even after dark we could see the lights from farmers harvesting produce.

Friday, September 27, 2013



We had a very relaxing morning as today’s travel goal was to arrive at Lynda’s cousins house sometime in the middle of the afternoon. We will probably not post a blog for several days as the rest of the weekend will be spent relaxing, drinking margaritas, visiting with family, drinking margaritas, relaxing, etc. You get the picture. Enjoy your weekend.

Vino

Monday, September 23, 2013

We left first thing this morning for Mariposa Grove to take a tram to see the sequoias. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be enough people for the tram to leave plus it was 46 degrees and we would be going up another 1000 feet and we both had on shorts. So we decided to skip the tram. There were several fine specimens of sequoias in Mariposa Grove so its not like we didn’t see any. We did have an interesting discussion with the young woman in the gift shop about a recent mountain lion sighting in the area. From Mariposa Grove we drove to Yosemite Village. On the way we again saw breathtaking views of the Yosemite Valley. In the valley we marveled at the iconic El Capitan. It is a granite monolith over 3000 feet in height. There are actually people who attempt to climb El Capitan. Tim could not find any information that would indicate that John Phillip Sousa’s famous march, “El Capitan,” was written as a tribute to this rock formation. The only other disappointment was Yosemite Falls. Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in North America and one of the 10^th tallest in the world. The problem was that there was no water falling down it. Maybe they forgot to turn it on this morning. Actually, in the spring when all the snow melts, water is gushing over the fall. By September there is no water, It begs the question: can a water fall be called a water fall if there is no water falling over it? The rest of the day was spent traveling from Yosemite to Napa Valley. Our hotel is actually in Fairfield, about 12 miles from Napa. We drove to Napa just to look around and were excited seeing the vineyards. We are looking forward to tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

This morning brought a change in plans. We are both pooped. Believe it or not, dear friends, this traveling and blogging is hard work. San Francisco has been dropped from the itinerary. Instead we are going to stay an extra day in Napa. We need to find a laundromat to do some laundry and Lynda needs a pedicure. We arrived in the town of Napa about 11:30 and had lunch at a restaurant called “The Pear.” Lynda had seen it on some program on the Food Network. We had a wonderful lunch of soup and salad accompanied by excellent local wine. Sterling Vineyard was the first winery we visited. From the parking lot we took a gondola several hundred feet up a hill to the winery. There we went on a self guided tour that included stops to taste 5 different wines that were presently in production. Actually the wines we tasted were previous vintages of the wines being produced now. In one area we saw containers that were full of green grapes. In another area we watched workers scooping the “must” of crushed red grapes from the bottom of huge metal containers. We also saw several rooms with small and large oak barrels containing wine that was being aged. Videos and story boards gave us much information on all aspects of the production of wine. The views from the patio of the winery on the hill were excellent. After leaving Sterling Vineyard we stopped at the Beringer Brothers Vineyard and the Robert Mondavi Vineyard. At Beringers we wanted to just walk around the grounds. Unfortunately, by the time we got to Mondavi Vineyards, they were closed. We will be back in Napa Valley tomorrow to revisit the Mondavi Vineyard and experience several others.


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

It was off again to Napa Valley to taste more wine. It is dirty work but someone must do it. Besides, our loyal blog followers expect a thorough report on all the places we visit. Our first stop was the Mumm Winery, makers of sparkling wine. It was too early in the morning to start tasting, we do have standards, such as they are, so we visited the gift shop and bought a few souveniers and gifts. We saw some cute champagne flutes specifically for the bride and groom at a wedding reception that Lynda thought we should buy. Saner heads prevailed. We journeyed on through lovely countryside filled with vineyards and wineries, some of which we had actually heard of. Our next destination was the Sattui Winery. This had been recommended to us as an excellent winery and a good place for a picnic lunch. The Sattui Winery has won many awards in Napa Valley, both for the winery and for individual wines. However, it does not sell wine anywhere except in the winery and on the internet. There was a wonderful deli off of the tasting area. Before making purchases for a picnic we sampled a wine and bought a bottle. We enjoyed a wonderful picnic of salads, cheese and an excellent wine. After our lunch we returned to the tasting room and bought a case of the wine we had just had for lunch to bring home with us . Because we purchased a case of wine we were automatically silver club members of the Sattui Winery. The most important perk was a free wine tasting that we immediately took advantage of. Between the two of us we sampled two different chardonnays and two different cabernet sauvignons. We impressed ourselves with our ability to distinguish between two wines of the same variety. The wines we sampled were excellent but very expensive. The only additional bottle we bought was a Madeira that we will save for special occasions. While wandering around the winery we also had the chance to see a machine in operation that removes the grapes from the stems. Very interesting.

From the Sattui Winery we traveled a short distance to the Peju Winery. This was another stop to see the grounds. There were lovely sculptures on well manicured lawns with beautiful flower borders. Inside we visited an interesting art gallery. The tasting room had a very impressive stained glass window. We don’t know if the wine is any good but the grounds and building were impressive. Our final wine stop was the Robert Mondavi Winery. Tim’s brother, Steve, has met Robert Mondavi and was able to purchase some bottles of a special cabernet sauvignon, giving Tim one of the bottles. Tim wanted to get a picture of the winery for Steve and also visited the gift shop. The staff in the Mondavi Winery were considerably more reserved then in the other wineries we visited.

Our last stop of the day was the Oxbow Farmers’ market in Napa. We purchased some pate and cornichons to have with the left over crackers, cheese and wine that we had at lunch. We will have a quiet, light meal in our room tonight. All in all, we recommend the Napa Valley experience - take a couple of days and just sample a few of the 450 wineries in this one valley. Cheers! 

 Left:  cabernet sauvignon grapes on the vine at the Robert Mondavi Winery

Below right:  El Capitan at Yosemite National Park

Westward Ho

Friday, September 19, 2013



Our first stop this morning was a Best Buy to buy a new phone charger. While at Best Buy we saw a man shopping who was wearing an Ohio State shirt. Those damn buckeyes are everywhere. J Having received a new phone charger free of charge from a nice Samsung rep we headed for the Garden of the Gods. This is an area of spectacular red sandstone formations. Many of the formations were given names. Tim particularly liked the formation called “Kissing Camels”. Lynda would not go near the “Balanced Rock” formation. She was sure this would be the time it would suddenly fall after thousands of years of balancing.

When we left Colorado Springs, Lynda had us take back roads to connect to I-70 heading west. We drove through spectacular scenery. Several of the passes we drove through had a summit of over 9000 feet. We would drive down from these summits and see the road stretch out in front of us to the next rise, It would take us over 15 minutes at 70 miles an hour to drive across the high plain to this next rise. Our route took us through Breckenridge, a famous ski resort. If we were skiers we would have been enthralled. Instead we just commented on how beautiful it was. We stopped in Frisco, Colorado for a sandwich before getting on the interstate. Joni Starr had recommended Frisco. It was a picturesque little town. Thanks Joni.

Not wanting to sound redundant, we continued to drive through spectacular vistas. In the Aspen area Tim was excited by several beautiful looking golf courses along the highway. Given the altitude we were at he was convinced that he could actually hit the ball on these courses as far as he does in his dreams. For a stretch of about 10 miles the road curved through shear mountains with the Colorado River cascading beside us. Incredible beauty. In western Colorado the scenery changed to high plains. The landscape was barren and for many miles there were no services at the exits. We were well into Utah before we came to an exit, Green River, Utah, with hotels. The first hotel we stopped at had no vacancies as did the second. We discovered that the Green River Melon Festival was occurring this weekend. We found one of the last rooms at a Knights Inn. If you are ever in Green River, Utah, don’t stay at the Knights Inn.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

When planning this trip we had a debate over how to travel. Tim wanted to fly, Lynda wanted to drive. After intense negotiations Tim agreed to drive provided that we stop along the way to watch the MSU-Notre Dame football game. Leaving Green River we drove through high desert which featured many indescribable rock formations. Again there were long stretches, think 50 to 100 miles, of highway with no services. As game time approached the closest town was still 60 miles away. There were no stations on the radio so Tim was convinced he would have to follow the first half on his smart phone. By divine intervention, right at game time we crossed the Utah/Nevada border where a casino/café was located. Tim was able to watch the entire game. Lynda enjoyed the casino. Unfortunately, God seemed to be on the side of Notre Dame and the officials were probably Catholic.

We left the casino/café about 4:00 local time and drove over 200 miles before coming to a town with hotels. We have no clue how the first pioneers made it across the mountain passes we went through with just horses and wagons. We do understand the pioneers frustration at not having any hotels at the exits. We arrived in Tonopah, Nevada at 7:30. If any of you are doing the math you have figured out we were driving really fast. The great thing about the barren topography is that even on two lane U.S. highways the speed limit is 70 mph and we easily were driving 80. There was no traffic and the roads are in good condition. Editorial aside: maybe the Michigan legislature should get off of their partisan butts and pass meaningful road repair legislation.

For those of you who look at us as experienced seasoned travelers, this next story will illustrate that even we can “step in it” so to speak. We ended up in Nonopah, Nevada where the first two motels we stopped at had no vacancies. The third motel we stopped at was called The Economy Inn. The first red flag should have gone up. When Tim went in to see about a room he was greeted by a very disheveled room (second red flag) and a few moments later by a women who seemed a bit out of sorts. Alcohol, drugs? Third red flag. There was a room available. It was reasonably clean, but, to be generous, it was old, tired, and badly in need of renovation. And worst of all, there was no hair dryer. We unloaded our luggage and headed for dinner. Unfortunately, the door to our room would not latch. Fourth red flag. In a show of incredible poor judgment we went to dinner anyway. We ended up at a casino/restaurant/hotel. After ordering dinner, Tim went to registration and enquired about rooms. They were available. Finally showing some sound judgment, Tim saw the room before paying for it. It was clean and, best of all, the door latched when you closed it and there was a hair dryer. Before taking Tim’s credit card, the women at registration pulled out an hour glass shaped cage with 3 dice in it. She told Tim that if he rolled three of a kind, the room was free. He rolled two 2’s and a 5. He was tempted to roll again to see if the same three numbers came up but thought better of it. After dinner Tim returned to The Economy Inn hoping that our luggage would still be there. It was. Not wanting to face the same strange, out of it women again, he didn’t bother with a refund. Fortunately, he won half of cost of the first room back at the slot machines.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

For those of you wondering why we are putting in the complete date in each blog, it is because we have discovered that this blog is a great journal of all our travels. We wish we had done it sooner as we have trouble remembering which trips we took when before we started the blog in 2009. Anyway, we had a short drive today to Yosemite National Park. Only two and a half hours. When we turned onto the road just outside of the park we were greeted with a sign that said the Tioga Pass was closed. At this corner was a gas station/convenience store with lots of cars parked all about and many people milling about. We went in the store and were told that the pass had closed yesterday afternoon because of snow but was now actually open. We entered Yosemite at 9945 feet with a temperature of 41 degrees and several inches of snow on the ground. It took about 30 minutes of driving through immensely gorgeous scenery before we came to a visitors center. Given our previous day”s frustrations with finding a hotel room, we were greatly relieved to be able to make a reservation for tonight at a hotel in the park. More on that later. As we drove through Yosemite we continued to marvel at the natural beauty we were seeing. To give you an idea of how large Yosemite is, it was a two and a half hour drive from the north entrance to the park where we entered to our hotel at the southern end of the park. As we drove we were descending in altitude so that we eventually drove out of the snow covered areas. Unfortunately, we also saw some of the areas where the forest fire has destroyed the vegetation. One of the places where we could stop had up to date information about the fire. It is still burning and we may see signs of it tomorrow when we leave the park through the western entrance. Within the park is the Yosemite Valley. This gorge is deeper than the Grand Canyon. We came to a look out point where we could see down into the opening of the valley from above. We won’t even attempt to describe what we saw. Eventually we ended up in the Yosemite Valley on our way to our hotel. We stopped to see the Bridalveil Falls. All we can say is, see the picture included. After checking into our hotel we went to the Mariposa Grove which is a grove of sequoia trees. We were overwhelmed when we saw the first of these giant trees. Sequoia’s are relatives to the Giant Redwoods but are actually smaller. You could fool us. By the time we arrived at Mariposa Grove the last tram tour had departed. We hope to take the tram tour tomorrow morning and then can report more details on the sequoias.

We are staying at the Wawona Hotel in the park. It is the oldest Victorian hotel in the entire U.S. national park system. The rooms are pleasant but spartan. There is no TV or telephone in any room and the only wifi is in one communal room. While there was no hairdryer in the room, Lynda was able to get one from the front desk. When we return to civilization tomorrow, our first stop will be to buy a hairdryer. It goes without saying that the grounds around the hotel are beautiful. There is even a nine hole par 3 golf course across the road. When we registered we had to read a full page description of proper wildlife animal etiquette including what not to leave in your car because of the bears. We did have a wonderful meal in the hotel dinning room.

Top picture: Yosemite ValleyNext picture: Tioga Pass, Yosemite

Third picture: Balanced Rock, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Bottom picture: Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite

Pictures

Good Morning on Friday, September 20-

Here are some pictures that did not get posted on our last blog.

The top picture is the Iowa state capitol. Next is the arch over I-80 in Nebraska. The third photo is the Red Rocks Amphitheater where the Grateful Dead are performing all weekend in Denver. Finally, the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy.

May 19, 2013

Greetings vicarious travelers-

We are in Julesburg, Colorado which is in the very northeast corner of Colorado, about six miles from the Nebraska border. We did not blog yesterday because if we had all we would have said is “seeing lots of corn, talk to you tomorrow.”

Actually, that is not entirely true. We did leave yesterday morning and stopped in Coldwater to have breakfast with Tim’s Dad. As always, Illinois was boring to drive through. Iowa was somewhat better. It was, in fact, never ending corn fields, but we must say they were very impressive. We stopped yesterday afternoon in Iowa City to drive around the University of Iowa campus. There are several campuses around Iowa City. The one we toured was the medical/sports campus. Unfortunately, medical campuses generally are not picture postcard pretty. All of the buildings were tightly packed together. We drove by Kinnick Stadium, the football home of the Hawkeyes, and saw no areas for tailgating. It was a pretty stadium but looked cramped with the other buildings surrounding it. We also drove by the Carver-Hawkeye arena. You would not know it was a basketball facility if not for the sign in front. That is actually meant as a compliment. Props to U of I for an architecturally interesting athletic building.

Leaving Iowa City, it was a short drive to the Amana Colonies. This is a group of small towns situated within a mile or two of each other that were settled in the 1850’s by a German religious sect. Originally, the towns were communes. No one paid rent or paid for food and no one received a wage. They subsisted on what they were able to produce. In the 1930’s they started to divest themselves of the commune ideals. Too many of the members were beginning to have individual goals and no longer wanted to subjugate themselves to the commune. By the 1950’s they began to realize there was money to be made as a tourist attraction. Each of the little towns still have remnants of the original buildings and businesses. They were very picturesque.

We stayed overnight last night in Des Moines, Iowa. This morning we stopped at the state capitol. We like to collect state capitols and have been doing it for years much to the chagrin of Jil and Jeff. The Iowa capitol was quite beautiful. Of particular interest was the law library. The library had three levels of bookshelves with wrought iron circular stairways connecting the floors. We were suitably impressed. Both chambers of the legislature were ornately decorated in a tasteful manner. We were envious when comparing the Iowa capitol to the Michigan capitol. It was very quiet in the capitol because Iowa has a part time legislature. In talking with the information desk we discovered that Michigan is one of only seven states in the U.S. that still has a full time legislature. The information desk lady felt sorry for us!

While driving on towards Nebraska we came across the Adair Wind Project. The Adair Wind Project is located in Adair county Iowa. For at least 10 miles we saw nothing but windmills in all directions. There were literally hundreds of them. It was quite a sight.

We arrived in Omaha, Nebraska at lunch time. Sally Starr had recommended finding the Old Market area of Omaha because of its wonderful shops and restaurants. She was right. We had a wonderful lunch and then did some browsing. We ended up buying a new side table for our living room. We are having it shipped home. While arranging the details of shipping the table the salesperson, upon seeing our address said “Go Michigan” and explained that her son or son-in-law was a big Michigan fan. Tim told her that was too bad as we were Michigan State fans. She was a bit embarrassed as well she should have been.

It was about a 45 minute drive from Omaha to Lincoln, Nebraska. We took a quick drive around the University of Nebraska campus which, like most campuses, pales in comparison to MSU. We must say, however, that Memorial Stadium was impressive. We also drove by the state capitol. It looked like a tall office building with a dome plopped on top of it. Not nice at all.

Our last stop was at the Memorial Arch located in Kearney, Nebraska. It is visually stunning but turned out to be a wild west museum. A tourist trap actually. It was about a 4 hour drive across Nebraska to Julesburg, Colorado. The landscape for most of that distance was similar to Iowa: lots of humongous cornfields but much flatter topography. As we drove further west the corn fields gradually gave way to rolling prairie land. We did not hear a discouraging word, but, unfortunately, did not see any buffalo roaming all day.

Tonight we witnessed a flood. The water crested here in Julesburg this morning. They have 3 rivers through the area and 2 of them had barely a trickle of water in them until the Colorado floods - now there is just one huge river that is over its banks. The sewage treatment plant is sandbagged but looks like it is an island. Our motel is about ½ a mile from the water - we’ve been told that the next few towns toward Denver have no-flush edicts and that all restaurants close when that happens. There are lots of railroad personnel in the area building up the berms around the tracks - we’ve seen extremely long trains throughout IA and NE - the crews are trying to keep the tracks from washing away - especially important during harvest time here.

Tomorrow we have a reasonably short trip, two and a half hours, into Denver. We plan on spending a couple of days there. The original plan was to include Boulder in our itinerary. That plan has been washed away. In its place we may visit the Air Force Academy instead. Check back in a couple of days.

It was our intent to post this blog last night but because of technical difficulties that did not happen. So, let us bring you up to date on today’s doings. We arrived in Denver about 11:00 and did a bit of driving about and reconnoitering before finally parking the car and doing a bit of a walk about. We saw all we wanted to see in downtown Denver so we headed for the Red Rocks Amphitheater. Lynda had seen it about 50 years ago, really, and thought Tim would enjoy it. On the way we tried finding a hotel and found out that all the hotels in area were sold out due to a Grateful Dead concert at the Red Rock Amphitheater. We drove up to Red Rock and were told we could not visit the theater because they were preparing for tonight’s concert. We drove to the theater anyway, parked illegally, Lynda stood look out while Tim ran to the top of the theater and took pictures. We then made a quick and clean get-away.

Plan B was to head to Colorado Springs. On the way we stopped at the Air Force Academy. The biggest attraction at the Academy is the Cadet Chapel. It is absolutely beautiful. The wood at the end of each pew was shaped like a wing as was the cross pieces in the huge crucifix hanging in the front of the chapel. The second pew from the front on the right side was blocked off. In the middle of the pew a large candlestick holder was standing on the floor with a lighted candle. A plaque indicated that this pew was reserved in honor of POW’s and MIA’s. Very moving.

That brings you up to date. Hopefully this will get posted.