Spring Break--Final Day 6

To those of you who have read our posts and even commented, a hearty "Thank you."

To my parents whom James sat patiently with this last weekend to teach
Blogging Presets 101.. (just 3 clicks folks...no typing involved..)

..I love you even though you haven't turned on your computer since we were in your home (700 miles away) and you aren't reading this.

To catch the rest of us up...Yosemite was fascinating--even if seen primarily from the confines of our Denali. We apparently saved up enough energy to attack the wilds of Sequoia National Park. We were willing to walk throughout the highlands and lowlands that next day. But, alas, we could not do it without heavy snow gear on our bodies. At best, we had heavy jackets.

Thank you Mr. Park Ranger for clearing the snow for us.
The 300 feet to the museum would have been unbearable.

We remained the responsible family and only cautiously ventured forth on trails freshly 'mowed' with a Snow-Blower. That pretty much left us to the walk from the parking lot to the doors of another Visitor's Center.

At the bottom of the mountain---clear roads so far...>

...what's hiding in those misty clouds?.......>
Well...now WE are hidden in the snow clouds. You can't see the bottom of the mountain .

Only 4-wheeled vehicles were allowed up the mountain that day. Some sportier little cars would be seen with chains on their wheels. I bet that was the only time some of those sun-tanned tourists would ever have to touch a chain around their tires.

James is sporting his souvenir from Yosemite. Its a water bottle holder.
Little kids won't be stealing that, I think.

Hoods are a fashion statement. I had to document that.

The Four Guardsmen. And a cheering squad.

Action-packed view of a Giant Sequoia at the Giant Forest Museum.

That's all we have. I could make an appointment for you to see the other 6 gigabytes of photos and video if you want........

Spring Break--Day 5

Yosemite National Park

Just the title conjures up feelings of magnificence to me. Yosemite is just MORE of everything that I grew up with in the Rockies. The big rocks are bigger. The big trees are bigger. You get the drift.

Since we arrived at our hotel in the dark, I was very excited to peek outside as soon as I could wipe the crusties from my eyes that morning. Yep...the view was MORE than I expected. Being springtime, the new flowers were bursting out all over the place. I'm use to a placid green in the hills around our house. Sadly, we were lacking in the Eagerness Department to scale any mountains or hike historic trails. Yep....we were doing the Car Tour. I am embarrassed to admit that we drove all this way to sit on our tushies; but there you have it. We took advantage of the Yosemite Visitors Center. You get more bang for your buck that way. We figured it was a Reader's Digest version of the first national park (you think it is Yellowstone? Wikipedia begs to differ. And as we all know, Wikipedia is the gospel truth).

Photographic evidence that our pilot was out of the car in Yosemite.
North America's tallest waterfall.
Yosemite Falls.

Gift shops are also nice when doing the Car Tour. You buy souvenirs to prove you got out of the car. Please note the cute fleece jacket Brielle is modeling from Monterey Bay. She wore the souvenir to school her first day back and lost it 3 hours later. Well....LOST is a strong word.....I dragged her to the Lost & Found after school and it never showed up. Some child who never stepped a foot in Monterey is now wearing ...............rant............rant.........
Finally out of our cozy car, we avoided the foreign-speaking tourists. We hoped they couldn't smell the laziness emanating from us. These adventurous people had obviously read and studied and planned and traveled across the world to stand next to where we were standing. The Green family was just a disgrace, and we knew when to bow out. We also knew when to snap photos. We aren't any good at photo snapping, but we do our best.

Monica and Amanda praying that they don't
have to look at the Big Tree Rings 15 feet away....>

but this random man thinks they are as fascinating as I do!! This tree is almost 2,000 years old. Wow dee dow..

When you give a bored child in the back seat a bundle of Stickerpalooza stickers you are bound to get something like this...

A short video of a Wiwok Village. There was an engaging tour going on nearby....but our family preferred reading the tiny plaques next to the structures...

And finally, here we rested from a restful day. Monica loves taking pictures of sunrises and sunsets. She has a good eye for it, really. Downtown Visalia (a little drive from Sequoia National Park) was a bit of a challenge when the sunset called to Monica.

She titled this, "Ghetto Sunset".

What you don't see is the brewery/pub next to the fabric store. I'm guessing that Visalia's louder, drunken nightlife enjoy this pub a lot.

Spring Break--Day 4

How is it possible for a fresh-faced, 29 year woman (cough cough) to start the day like this....

and end up like this?*

Well---it kinda goes like this.

We woke up so happily in our gorgeous hotel and had a whoppin' good breakfast (hence the cheery, photo shopped face above). We parked our car at the ferry landing and took the ferry across the bay to SF. The day was sunny, despite warnings of oncoming rain. We caught a cable car around SF and ended up at Ghirardelli Square. Too tired to venture further on foot, we took a different kind of street car to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch.

The whole, "Too Tired to Venture On Foot" kind of became the way of life for the next 24 hours---as you will find out. Being scared that the darkening clouds would actually rain, we returned to the ferry, and then our car. We said goodbye to San Francisco and turned on the navigation system to "fastest route" to Yosemite. Well, people, the traffic was bad. Good thing we had the DVD player, or there would have been blood shed in the back seats of the Denali.

Brielle standing guard at the ferry.
The pesky little sister routine only gets you kicked out of the Cool Girls Club.

You only get his view of San Francisco from the luxury of a ferry!!

Its pretty empowering to be in the center of the city's cable car pully system.
You see this at the Cable Car Museum.

After a somewhat eye-opening experience hanging onto the sides of a cable car, we arrived at Ghirardelli Square. The looming clouds only accentuated the sad construction of the landmark.

See....I'm not kidding! Even the black tarps were a sign of a funeral......

I admit, we were getting pretty exhausted by now. What do you expect of a family that is too attached to their computers and TVs and couches? It was time to sit in the car for a while. Our ride to Yosemite was just the ticket. Did I mention the traffic out of town? We finally blazed a trail through...well, we don't really know where. The road maps would have been more, well, straight. Our navigation system in the car was taking us through Farmland, USA. Even in the dusk, we ooh-ed and aah-ed at the beautiful, simple country. Monica found out the hard way that a belly full of Jelly Bellys would not sit well with switch-back roads climbing up to Yosemite. We can laugh now...but we just wanted to get to our hotel, and that sick girl in back got annoying. Just kidding---ill 15 year olds are easier to deal with. We took away the Jelly Bellys and told her to drink water. She was cool with that.

The Yosemite View Lodge. Pretty sweet location, right?

Okay folks, we have 1 1/2 days left of this journey. If you want to see some WOW-DEE-DOW-DOW sights, stay tuned for tomorrow's post. We stood among the giants....and got our toes got cold and wet.

*And to my siblings-- a warning---I'm totally copyrighting this photo, so you can't take it and blackmail me later. I'm submitting it to all the CSI shows out there as my audition photo. I'm quite sure I'd rock at being a corpse.

Spring Break -- Day 3

Well...my little chapter book of a Spring Break went on hold due to another teensy road trip. My family and I went to Utah for our church's General Conference in Salt Lake City. It was a wonderful experience for James, Me, Monica and Amanda. Jenna and Brielle stayed behind at their Aunt Annie's house. But I will have to write about that later. For now, I get to reminisce about the tastiest day of our Spring Break Trip!!

We got up early in the morning to get to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, just 40 minutes north of SF. We hoped to get in the 1st tour at 9:15 am. It was a good thing, because the next groups of tourists were more crowded. I like less-crowded groups. The factory was making Green Apple Jelly Bellys that day. A bonus to the tour was the Mrs. Grossman's Stickerpalooza going on in a room upstairs. Jenna, Brielle and I got plenty of stickers for a buck. Wait for tomorrow's post to see what sort of mischief a girl can get into with stickers and a long car ride.

Brielle and Jenna in the Jelly Belly Gift shop.















We drove to Berkeley to get grab some lunch at a Burger King. Let me not sugar-coat how weird Berkeley appeared to our family. You see, our family rarely sees the transient hobos in action. One guy was seriously mentally challenged while demonstrating his use of the newspaper vending racks to stash his found food. Although James forbade me to look, I looked. Our girls were curious as to why our local hobos were not as entertaining. Could it be that Berkeley people were more tolerant than our local leaders? We didn't stick around to ask.

Tour #2
James was determined to reserve a tour of a Dark Chocolate-making factory at 12:30. He kinda didn't care that Jenna wasn't old enough to take the tour. But Jenna and I showed him!! We had some delicious hot cocoa in the Scharffen Berger Cafe while waiting for the tour to finish.


Afterwards, looking for something to do, we drove to the west side of San Francisco to see the sites of Golden Gate Park. This little-known park is comparable in size to Central Park in NYC. We chose to spend our time in the Japanese Gardens and then walked over to the Botanical Gardens and Conservatory, and a very fun kids playground.

A cute note about this Conservatory and the Butterfly Gardens-- James spent time in and around San Francisco as a boy because his grandparents lived in nearby San Raphael. As a group, his family would visit GG Park, but James' father would not spend the money to enter the tempting glass-walled conservatory. That made little Jamie sad. James has finally lived the dream. I am truly happy we got to be there with him for that.

The flowery gardens outside the conservatory.

A desperate would-be escapee from the Butterfly Garden on James' backpack.

The climate inside the conservatory would be so sticky-humid and hot in one room and then very cold and humid in another. This photo kinda shows how huge some of these plants have become.
After the park, we jumped into the Denali and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to San Raphael. We drove around his grandparents former neighborhood. Amanda got her wish of the day and we dined at Quizno's. Our hotel that night was our favorite! I recommend the Embassy Suites in Mill Valley with all my heart!
Phew!! Wasn't that awesome? Hello? ((crickets)) Oh well, we had a wonderful day. I was accused of taking a chemical substance which enhanced my happiness, but I am quite sure I was high on life instead. Spending quality time with my family is the best type of happiness there is!

Next up... finding out that the navigation system in our car is better than any road map because it doesn't care if you take the main road......

Spring Break -- Day 2

Through Jenna's Eyes

What happens when you give control of the camera to a 6 year old? Let's find out, shall we?

Disclaimer: Jenna moves the camera with her subjects. About 75% of her photos just had to be deleted due to severe nausea while viewing. These are her better shots. I think they are 'Artsy' and belong in an art museum. Not really.

"Waiting for dad to buy tickets to the Monterey Bay Aquarium"

"a hammerhead shark"
"the best otter picture I got....those otters are super-fast"

"a dragonfish. It is the craziest seahorse ever."

"more blurry fish...sardines or anchovies?"

"A domed ceiling with circling sardines...or is it anchovies?"

"A group of ...well I don't even care now...I'll call them 'Finding Nemo' fish cuz they bundled together to make fun shapes. This group would go on to make a heart-shape in 3 more seconds."

"Dinner in Chinatown. The food just kept coming!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Day 2 of our trip we woke up in Monterey Bay. We promptly ate breakfast, checked out of the hotel and parked near the Aquarium. Good thing we were early-birds for once, because when we left 2 hours later there was a line around the block to get into the already crowded aquarium. Spring Breakers.....sheesh.

Brielle is in 4th grade and any California parent knows this means learning about California Missions. Back in Monica's 4th grade days, the school district was crazy for "Projects that Involved Parents Way Too Much" (PTIPWTM). I'm a little fuzzy about the curriculum at that time since I was sleep-deprived with a newborn and we had just moved into the new house. What I DO remember is the California Missions. Students were discouraged from purchasing the pre-fab styrofoam mission kits....but when you and your parents don't understand English adequately then it is not enforced. (wink) OUR outstanding family also shunned the kits, stupidly, and spent way too many hours constructing Monica's mission out of gingerbread. I love gingerbread houses. Monica just likes to decorate stuff. It brought our the worst of our ADD. Our finished product didn't resemble the actual structure much, but that isn't important; it had four sides and a roof. And it was edible with lots of candy---even the cemetery was delicious.
By the time Amanda got to her mission experience, all parents had had enough and severely reduced PTIPWTM. We dipped California-grown strawberries in chocolate and called it a day.

Back to our trip! Brielle was thrilled to know we'd be on a road trip and assumed we'd go to her assigned Mission. Lucky enough, it truly was smack-dab in the middle of our map. She and her dad made a video journal for her mission report. After some editing, we also called it a day and the DVD is being turned in early.

So the Santa Clara Mission was in the middle of Silicone Valley. Poor James. All those buildings we passed with logos of the front-runners of technology! He couldn't even get us to turn our unimpressed heads. If it wasn't the promise of the bay or the Golden Gate Bridge then we weren't interested. I apologized for sitting next to him when any one of his brothers would have been more welcome.

We arrived in San Fran and went to a hotel that was waiting for us in the heart of the city. Again, unimpressed with the possibility of a shoebox of a room, we ventured North of the city to Mill Valley and found a room for the night. We mosied back to Chinatown for dinner, but didn't linger much- due to a very unfamiliar nightlife. James and I realized that families of 6 were not conducive to the Big City. Large SUVs are as ridiculous as they are rare.


We needed to get a good night's sleep 'cuz tomorrow would be one of the busiest days of the trip...

Spring Break--Day 1

Last Tuesday, we started our Spring Break road trip. We didn't want to fuss over the details, but most days had a basic outline of events. Warning: I tend to babble. Please move to your next friend's blogpage immediately if you start feeling sleepy and/or restless while browsing this page.

At noon we landed in Solvang. It is a quaint, Scandinavian village about 2 hours North of home. We wanted to see it mainly because of my mom's Danish heritage. The shops and restaurants are so cute. I thought the fun details on the outside of these structures were home-y....the kids said it reminded them of Disneyland. I didn't even try to explain how backward they got it.
After eating the danish sausages and aebleskivers (yum), we drove farther North to San Simeon. Although the amazing Hearst Castle is nearby, we used our valuable time more wisely at the Elephant Seal beach. Where have the seals gone? We were disappointed by the small group of seals. Nevertheless, we had the obligatory few lounging around for their photo ops.

The ride up Hwy 1 is not James' idea of fun (too winding). Brielle was very unsettled by the steep cliffs overlooking the edge of the world (to her). I thought it was all heavenly. Monica clicked away with the camera. Amanda read her books voraciously. Jenna was doing her job being cute.

We found a little hotel in Monterey Bay, then feasted on Panda Express. Ugh. How ironic that we would plan to have Chinese Food the next night in world-famous Chinatown in San Francisco!


Lets not forget our favorite accessory on our trip...the DVD player!! This little gem is what makes or breaks those long, boring stretches of road. I get to nap because James isn't threatening lives in the back seats. If there is unrest in the back seats, I don't get my nap and then no one is happy. I luv you, DVD player!!

Aha! Rust!

No one is aware of my amnesia as much as me, but I can't remember such a wonderful product as this one I used today. Yes--just today, people!!


You see, I have a favorite cream-colored knit cardigan that I like to wear with everything. It (tragically) was left in our ancient dryer for a day. We inherited the dryer when we were married. It was ancient even 18 years ago. Thats the same dryer that was built back when Things Didn't Wear Out. The dryer heat settings have been reduced to Super Hot, Mostly Hot, and No Heat. There used to be several more settings.....but I digress. I blame this gifted dryer for a lot of woes in my life---because it can't defend itself, mostly. The years of tumbling Levi's rivets have taken their toll on this dryer's insides and created rusty gouges. If the not-totally-dried clothes have not been immediately removed, then the Rusting begins. I have tossed out many pieces of clothing and tablecloths. For, you see, not ALL fabrics choose to be on a Mostly Hot setting. Again, I digress. I couldn't bear to part with this particular sweater this time around. I found the Carbona solution in my grocery store. I expected this process of de-rusting to last all day. Good thing I cleared my morning schedule (jk). I applied some solution to spots on one sleeve, and methodically dabbed in a clockwise fashion. Boring enough yet? The stains were gone before I returned to the first sleeve. Wow. Don't walk; run to the nearest store and buy this product. But then again, you have probably never seen rust stains on your clothes.

Note: We are accepting applications for donated dryers. The less rusty, the better.

Don't forget to check back tomorrow to view "The Best Spring Break Road Trip Ever" issue #1.