California Day Three

I think I got a little smarter this time on the whole posting thing. Hopefully, I won't have to re-arrange the photo order as they upload.

Okay, I left off shopping in Monterey - I did bring home the business card for the jeweler we found, because you just never know. :)
From there we drove a few miles along the coast. . .
Hey, if I was independently wealthy, I think I’d live here. . .






With this beautiful view. . .

In Pacific Grove we stopped at the Point Pinos Lighthouse. . .

I'd happily work here. . .

Although, I don't know how you'd get ANY furniture up the spiral lighthouse stairs into this house. Craziness.


Here is the map of the Monterey area and honestly it’s not really any bigger than it looks. This lighthouse is surrounded by a golf course.



Okay, moving on as we left the lighthouse we continued on around the coast line

and I’d happily live here,

viewing this

Or here,

viewing this,



It’s not a private beach by any means, but with little place to park I can’t really imagine it completely crowded either.

Although, I have to tell ya, even through I didn't have my camera in hand for a photo. . . I was just has happy kicking through the beautiful fall leaves at a rest stop in Washington on the way home. I'd build a little home under all those trees as happily as in these beautiful coast homes.

Off we went on the 17 mile drive into pebble beach. Private community, with a private road, as in you have to pay 9.50 to dive through their community and stay on the coast line. They give you a cool map with view points along the way. Really most of it’s not that impressive and although the homes seemed beautiful it’s really sad that they have to be completely gated and even then signs posted about no trespassing and no beach access and stuff. I don’t think I’d like to live here.

Hello,

I think I could get used to golf pebble beach style though. . .

However, although this is to be the site of the 2010 US Open, I won't be going down to visit. Ugg. . . crowds just aren't my thing and in the beautiful, although tiny piece of earth. . . I'm not doing it. We got to watch them set up a little putt putt tournament on the green behind the lodge (in front of the shops) and you can just see how the monster camera would dive in and play that shot to be something else entirely. Hollywood at it's best to be sure.

California saying good evening. . .

I called my mom most every morning on the trip because I really like the sunshiny way that California says good morning.

We missed some little things we thought about doing in Carmel because sunset was upon us and we really didn’t have a realistic idea of how far we had yet to travel for the day. . . and no hotel reservations.

However, because the Bixby Bridge was on the top of our "extras" list and I was driving, we headed off Hwy 101 onto the Old Coast Hwy.

This photo of Bixby Bridge with the sun coming through it was the ONLY high point of the 10 plus mile gravel road that folks used to have to travel to get north. Silly, silly move at Dusk.

We did eventually find a hotel in Big Sur in the DARK -- risky move, especially with no cell service in the area. We had a great time giving the gentleman at the desk of the highly priced lodge a hard time. We were all laughing so hard I really thought someone was gonna wet their pants. The one good thing about Big Sur is that EVERYWHERE that you stop they will hand you another Big Sur Guide and Map. It's a 4 page news paper with a VERY Detailed Map. . . which I should photograph for you because it's a lot of words and info to fit into 5 miles of map.

Back to the point because if they had not have handed us that fabulous map we would not have realized that by taking the OLD COAST HWY we completely missed the next days stop. The first stop of the top 4 things to hit on this trip.

I'm gonna walk where?

California Day One plus

I don't know how many photos the system will let me have so I imagine I'll have to tell you about California in several posts. Of course, maybe I'll get tired of uploading images. . . or tired of arranging them, anyway. . .

We left Everett at 3:30 in the afternoon, expecting it to take 14 hours to get to San Francisco.
Getting Started. :)

As you can see, I got bored in a hurry!




We stopped for a sit down dinner in Centralia and stopped at Walmart right after that. Already dark, so I took over driving. We hit another Walmart somewhere in Oregon. (For those that don't know, I met my travel partner while I was working at Walmart and she gets a discount. So anytime we thought of 3-4 things we needed, we stopped at a Walmart. Our handy map told us where all the Walmarts could be found.) I don't recommend a book light, it only worked a few hours, we ended up returning that further down the road. I do recommend the book "The Shack" which I picked up at that first Walmart stop and finished hum somewhere mid-trip.

Since we weren't going to make San Francisco by 6am we decided to go on past toward our first stop in the Santa Cruz area. We almost missed our 11:00 train tour through the redwoods.

Roaring Camp Railroads:
We made it. I guess there were about 6 open cars with a fun conductor. We were in the caboose which had a roof so we didn't sit in the hot sun before heading out.

These redwoods are just babies at 200-500 years old.

Aren't they beautiful!! The ride was fun and at the top we got to learn how God designed the forest to rejuvenate itself. How a grandma tree will grow children and even grandchildren onto her root system and how even a "dead" tree can produce life. It was pretty amazing info.

So the train ride costs a bit more than we felt it was worth, it was very informative and a nice rest for us after only an hour and a half of sleep in the car. We headed off to the mystery spot to learn about the absence of gravity, but the steep, steep climb scared us off so we passed on that one.

We drove down to the Santa Cruz pier -- I'm never going here during "the season" and probably never on a weekend. We got there and it was fairly dead and a good thing to. The driving was bad enough with no other cars to worry about. The Beach was beautiful.

Yards and yards and yards of HOT, white sand. We didn't enjoy it for very long and I can't imagine it completely covered with bodies. . . We had places to go though so off we headed to Monterey. I recommend that should you every decide to drive to California and think driving straight through would be a good idea. . . I wouldn't recommend it. . . most especially if you don't have a hotel reservation on the other end. We made it into Monterey and we did get a VERY NICE and inexpensive hotel room, but figuring out the roads and maps and rates and what have you just isn't worth it when your so tired.

We headed down to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner. Did you know that every coastal town in all of California has a Fisherman's Wharf? A little confusing. We did a little research ahead of time, but we were to tired and ended up looking for a restaurant CALLED Fisherman's Wharf and being highly disappointed when it wasn't where the map said it'd be. Anyway, we had a very nice (tasty) dinner. Serenaded by these little fellows.

Masses of these little fellows. Fran didn't care for these guys but I found their noise to be kinda "white noise" like and actually enjoyed it. Even when I awoke to it the next morning.

Our plan this day was to tour some old homes as part of the Monterey State History Park but the info and web sites were highly misleading so we ditched that plan and instead went shopping.



Fascinating and fun shopping to be found. A fairly nice lunch, highly overpriced and a store I feel completely in love with. It's a good thing the store is far from home because I could easily spend a small fortune. We went off to find another shopping area as well. It's housed in an old Cannery factory (HUGE OPEN Space) very nice shopping but apparently rent is overpriced because not many stores to be found. Of course we did stumble across a very nice jeweler. . . dangerous grounds to be sure.

Okay, I'm already tired to fiddling with photos and we're only through day one of 10 days of travel and the most boring day to boot. So stay tuned, I've got 55 more photos as I take you through my travels and the most pretty come up next.

Motivation

So, if you scroll back through my blog posts I was all excited about a cleared off desk and an empty wire basket.

I want to get there again.

This doesn't look terribly intimidating, but although I try -- over and over again, somehow I never seem to clear it off.

And the silly basket. You think I'd have been able to keep it empty more than a couple of hours.

On a happy Note, my stamps are all completly organized -- I've sold off about half of the duplicates and such (still two full boxes left to sell) and am preparing to lable.

Can you say, WAY to many stamps?

They aren't all mine, some of them are Mom's -- remember she moved all her craft stuff to my house.

Speaking of organized though. If you scrol back through my messages you'll recall this shelf in the back of my garage that used to be practically empty. Not so empty anymore and you see those cloth boxes at the top, they now house my ribbons and fibers and I am so much happier with this arrangment. I was highly hesitent to puchase yet another organizational item and they were spendy in my opinion but they make me happy.

You know what else strangly makes me happy this year. Corn Fields. I haven't photographed any but lately I've been noticing corn everywhere and when I have the opportunity to drive past a corn field I point it out to whomever is in the car with me. They just make me smile.

Isn't this fun -- Happy Birthday Mommy!

tiny chuckle

sadly this quote made me chuckle this morning.

David Frost
"He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed."

Isn't life grand

Isn't life grand?

I think so

Huge Sigh of Relief

For several months I had lost the 1st birthday photos. I searched high and low, yesterday I searched the recycle box of my computer. I couldn't figure out how they could just disappear but I was getting very sad about the whole thing. My fabulous husband was able to find them with only a small amount of effort. I'm thrilled. To cute to be lost.

Color me Annoyed

I've been searching for photos to blog about for several days and was going to do the start of school and what we do while the one is at school, but none of the photos are that great.
I'm having a great day, but color me annoyed that silly yahoo. . . . there is an advertisement that stretches across the whole screen and flashes very quickly the whole time I'm looking at messages. It's really starting to tick me off. I wonder how long they bought that spot for. I'm not gonna be able to check my mail for day's. It's not even really advertising anything. It's a fake winner thing, the 999,999,999th person to click or some dumb nonsense.
If you are a parent of school age children. . . let me know how you get them to school and if you drive, how long is the drive?

summers almost over

I've had an incredibly lazy summer. We haven't gone anywhere, we haven't done anything. I watched the TV series Dr. Quinn this summer, that's it. The little man started swim lessons here in August and loves it. So with the lazy summer the idea of blogging was just to much work, but others have recently posted again to their blogs so I'm feeling compelled to join suit. Went to find a photo -- here's what you get.

There is just something about marshmellows. . .

Should have taken photos

So I should have taken photos out the window the day the little man and I sat here watching it rain. So pretty -- I'm completely shocked, so out of character for him to sit here with me for almost an hour watching it rain.

What I did finally take a photo of is this incredibly large Rhododendron shrub that I pass by several times a day. It catches my eye everyday and I'm finally getting it.

Someone else posted on their blog today about what they look forward to in summer and it made me realize that for the first time since my own school days I'm actually looking forward to summer. Interesting change for me. It also reminded me about the "mad, wet, impetuous day" in college. Wow, talk about some serious rain. I wish those photos were digital and easy to share. Of course they are really, really dark and we all look like drowned rats. What nice memories.

Accomplishments: So, I've been an organizing maniac for the past week or so. I read through photo freedom and am picking up tips from some that are taking the Library of Memories class. It feels so good to get organized. This weekend I was rewarded with this.

This work surface is rarely if ever cleaned off. Because I also have a craft table in the room this desk surface is kind of a drop all. However. . .

The immensely exciting part of all of this is that this basket

(we'll call it an "in" basket, but it's really kind of a junk drawer for paper) is completely empty. It's never in all my life been completely empty. I have goals of emptying it but usually I get tired and I get it down there but there is usually a stack of stuff I put back into it. I had to take a photo because it's going in the 101 things I want to scrap before I die. It might go on my "have an empty to-do list" page.

Happy Monday - made me smile

None of that Sissy Stuff
Are you tired of those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good,
but never actually come close to reality?
Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship.
You will see no cutesy little smiley faces on this card-
Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.
1. When you are sad --I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile -- I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.

4. When you're scared -- we will high tail it out of here.

5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining, ya big baby!!!!

6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.

7. When you are sick --Stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.

8. When you fall -- I'll pick you up and dust you off.

9. This is my oath...I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask -- because you are my FRIEND!
Friendship is like peeing your pants,
everyone can see it,
but only you can feel the true warmth.

Send this to 10 of your closest friends,
Then get depressed because you can only think
of 4.

We had a party

You want some of my cake?
It's really yummy and lots of fun
Gushy too!
Are you sure you don't want some?

Peaches, are you serious?

Okay, so when you visit Georgia it's required that you try something "peach". Of course it wasn't peach season so seeing the factory in working conditions wasn't an option and peach not being my favorite flavor I opted for ice cream. Mine is the small one in the photo and I bought it to "share" with three other people.



I have to tell you though, I really liked this ice cream. It was really creamy and a nice subtle flavor that was really good.

I tried some peach ice cream locally when I headed up tulip way and I have to tell you, it was nasty. It's no wonder peach isn't my favorite flavor. I bet if I lived in Georgia where people know how to handle and peach and what to do with it, I might enjoy it a lot more.

Aren't the neice and nephew handsome kids? They are so sweet! I can't believe how big they are. They all moved when the nephew finished 3rd grade (he just got his learners permit), and I always see the neice as about three years old. I can't believe she's quickly showing that she is becoming a woman. And soon, they will both have perfect teeth (although perfection can be overrated.)

Spending Monday

Look how mommy spoiled me


I never did share what all I gained during the paper chase. I did have to pay her back some, but mommy spent a lot of money on the paper chase. This is just my haul, her's pretty much equaled mine in space, but I think she had more spendy items.

Oh and why do they call it a lap top, I suppose you can use it on your lap, but A) I generally need to be near an outlet as my battery doesn't have much juice and B) (most important it should have been a) its so stinkin' hot I burn my lap.

smart decisions

So, when I left the house Friday morning for Hawaiian day at the kiddo's school it was raining and I felt a little foolish - especially including the fact that I was headed to work after Hawaiian day.

Of course later in the day I felt a lot more foolish - Such a smart decision it was to wear sandles onFriday.

Our poor tree's - the weight proved to heavy for the fresh blossoms. One of the branches did break. I'm concerned about the tulip fields, we thought we'd go next week - maybe not.

beyond simply beautiful

So the photos don't do it justice and at 6,000 feet its certainly a different kind of beauty; but I loved being in the Smokey Mountains. Touring Cades Cove (a place where in the right season time stands still) was a huge highlight.




So much so that I was ready to stay around to bid on this home that is up for auction on the 19th and have my "stuff" shipped to me. I found this home after driving much to quickly across a one way mountain road where 12 miles took me 45 minutes to pass. I can't tell you what this visit did for my heart and soul.

The whole trip was fabulous and I saw lots of great things.

We did miss our flight and had to hang out a few hours.

Spring Sweater

So this doesn't exactly show off my wonderful spring sweater, but it does show me making the most (or maybe it's the best) of a beautiful day.
Happy Birthday Mr. Rogers!



This is the Kindergarten Easter party that the littlest man made it hard to photograph and enjoy.

photo software crazy or fabulous

So, my XP photo viewing and what not has been driving me crazy. It's a change and we all know how anti change I am. I've been complaining for months. Last night it was being obnoxious again, but I worked through it. Today, I finally decided I'm tired of fighting this thing, I'm going to click all these buttons and learn how to work with it. It's fabulous!!! Everything is so much simpler to do with this. Viewing, and deleting and I've just learned how to fix red eyes in less then a snap. It's simply fabulous -- I think the frustration comes in that my fab hubby doesn't mess with pictures so he can't tell me what the system can do, I have to figure it out on my own.

I took it myself

So, I took 10 month pictures all by myself, isn't my boy a cutie?

haircut

So I had planned to share some before and after photos of my haircut yesterday, however. . . the pictures are terrible and you really can't see the difference other than a bit shorter, I needed to turn my head sideways for the photo and that didn't happen because I had a baby in my arms. So, no photos to share. I did an inverted bob look, where the back is really short and the front is chin length. I also had it colored again. All set for summer.