Mike's Birthday

Today being my 64th (old hah?) birthday Cindy and I went out and celebrated. We went to the USS Midway Aircraft Museum on Harbor Drive. I've always wanted to see it and it was really interesting. There are a lot of pipes, cables and wires and low hanging ducts and low door ways you have to step over. In other words it is ugly, compared to a cruise ship. But I guess it has to be utilitarian and not a vacation ship. The sleeping q uarters are really compact. It has to be to fit 5000 people in all those bunks. The admiral has it pretty good though. He's the 0nly one that gets a real bed and his own bathroom and dining room. The top deck has two runways and is the size of 4 football fields. It was self guided tour with audio headphones so we learned a lot.

Then we were famished and went over to Seaport Village and ate at Buster's Beach cuisine. It has island type food. I had a delicious thin crust pizza and Cindy had a portabello wrap. For dessert we had a huge thin crust (like the pizza) with fresh tropical fruits on a layer of strusel. We're not eating much dinner tonight.

Thank you all for the nice birthday cards, virtual and real. What a great birthday!

Latest Home Improvement Project

We've had a week to recuperate from our 7 week trip and are ready to start a new project. The fence overlooking the down side hill in our back yard is so bad that about half of it is actually laying flat on the ground. It is all shot! Completely rotted away. The picture on the right is just to the right of where Dan and Steve's "secret hideout" used to be. Cindy was talking to the city gardener there who maintains the city property and he said the fence was laying on the sprinkler heads and needs to be removed; So we decided to get busy on it. It is chain link fencing on a wood frame. We were going to remove the chain link and reuse it but it is too hard to remove from the wood. Cindy suggested an all wood fence which is a little more expensive but it will block the ugly view of the City's shrubbery. I figure if I install 3 posts a day I will have all the posts in- in about a week, well maybe 2 or 3 weeks- you know how that goes.

Home At Last

Today we left our last camping site in Bakersfield and drove through the Mojave Desert (107 degrees) to I-15 to complete our trip. Now we can start planning for the next trip when we and Dan drive our motor home to Texas to visit Steve and Sudi in November during Thanksgiving.

BLOGGING ON THE ROAD and BAKERSFIELD

I thought I would try blogging while actually moving in our motor home. I am in the passenger seat in the cab and Cindy is driving. I tried using the computer while travelling before on the dinette table but it was just too jiggly. We are travelling on HWY 101 south with a good Sprint broadband wireless signal. We just left Gonsales after having lunch. It is a big farming community. We can see lettuce growing on both sides of the highway.

We are kinda playing it by ear on the way home now. We are about 4oo miles from Chula Vista. We may go as far as Bakersfield. There is a town right before Bakersfield called Greenacres. Maybe we will camp there tonight and see Arnold the pig. Remember that tv show? Oh, now we see grapes in the fields. Fruits and vegetables...YAY! So I would say we will be home sometime Sunday.

7:pm: We are now at a nice new rv park in Bakersfield. We are going to check out the pool. On the way just before we hit Bakersfield we saw thousands of oil wells, thought we were in Texas. We also came upon a car accident. Just one car and they life flighted the people away.

Really hot here, it was 97 when we arrived. Well, tomorrow we should arrive home, unless we see something really interesting to stay for.

Oh, when we were camped out yesterday visiting with Cathy and Joe we had our own blackberry bushes by our motor home. We went berry picking. We will put some on our pancakes tomorrow morning!

Cathy and Joe

Today we spent the day with Cathy and Joe. They treated us to lunch at an Indian Restaurant in Santa Cruze and then gave us a tour of the downtown area and then a nearby state park.

Millenium Restaurant

Today is our second day in Half Moon Bay. After taking a walk around the golf course resort here we drove 30 miles into San Francisco to eat dinner at our favorite restaurant in the world..Millenium Vegetarian Restaurant. After a delicious baby romaine salad with vegan caesar dressing we enjoyed our entrees. Cindy had a multi mushroom dish and I had a gourmet tamale dish which didn't taste at all like the traditional greasy tamale. It just tasted delicious with a corn mixture and beans and red quinoa. Then we finished up the feast with tasty vegan dessert.

Half Moon Bay

We drove from Sacramento to Half Moon Bay in San Francisco. It was about a 3 hour drive. We had to pay an $8.50 toll fee to go over the Oakland Bay Bridge. Is that highway robbery? Well we had to pay for 2 vehicles. Still that is a steep toll charge. We are camping at the Pelican Point RV Park at Half Moon Bay. There is the Ritz Carlton Resort about a 5 minute walk down the beach. We walked down the stairs to the small beach. It is hemmed in by cliffs on each side so you can not go too far on the beach. We went back up the stairs and walked along the top of the cliffs. Surrounding the Ritz Carlton Resort is a gorgeous golf course.

Downtown Sacramento

We toured historical downtown Sacramento. The Capital building was restored in 1978 and we got to see the results on a guided tour. We saw the ourside of Arnold's office which is in the annex added on to the original building. We then walked a mile to tour the Governor's mansion which was last used by Ronald Reagan.

We visited "Old downtown Sacramento" which was restored to it's original mid 1850's look...wooden sidewalks and little shops all around with a restored train station.

From Tahoe to Sacramento

Here are a few pics as we travel from Lake Tahoe to Sacramento.

It was about a 3 hour drive. We stopped in a shopping center in Pacerville for lunch. I was looking out the RV window while eating and I was an empty, unattended, rogue shopping car rolling right for our car. I jumped out of the RV and ran to the cart to stop it from broad siding our car. I put the cart in its place and then went back to my lunch. Just another day in a grocery store parking lot.

Lake Tahoe

We took a two hour cruise on Lake Tahoe and didn't get shipwrecked. Part is in Nevada and part in California. There is enough water in it to cover California with 8 inches of water. It is 22 miles long. A beautiful lake and shoreline. We drove all the way around it-71 miles. It has a bunch of little towns as you drive around it. Tomorrow we leave for Sacramento.

Carson and Virginia City

We toured a nice museum in Carson City. We saw a dinosaur skeleton that was found in the Nevada desert. They have a replica of a Carson City gold mine. Then we drove 20 miles away to Virginia City. The unique thing is that it looks just like it did in the 1860's. They have the original buildings with some restoration of course. We took a tram tour pulled by a tractor. We attended Mass in the oldest Catholic church in Nevada which is beautiful.

Tomorrow we are going to Lake Tahoe about 30 miles away.

Carson City, Nevada

We left Reno today for Carson City where we are based in an RV park. We will spend at least 3 days touring in our car Carson City, Virginia City and Lake Tahoe which are close together. Today we toured Carson City, the capital of Nevada. We did a drive by tour of historical homes and churches. We saw the governor's mansion built in the 1860's which is still used. We saw a historical house which is for sale across from the governor's house. It is in need of restoration. We think the owner can't afford to fix it up so is selling. We wanted to buy it as a fixer upper.

We toured the original state capital building which is still used. It has marble floors and walls from Alaska built in 1871. The landscaping is gorgeous with lots of trees and flowers.