John's visit, July 2010

On July 3rd, our friend John came for a visit.  He took a page out of our book, and left the dead of winter in New Zealand for three weeks in the California summer sun!  Well, most of the time, anyway, as Moss Beach was sporting it's normal July fog and gloom!  Fortunately, in about 30 minutes in any direction, you can be in sunshine.

John was here for the 4th of July, so we did the "small town" Half Moon Bay parade and then bar-b-qued steaks.  Unfortunately, there were no fireworks, due to funding issues.

We decided to take advantage of John's good nature and willingness to spend hours in the car, by taking a road trip so that John could see more of CA than just the bay area.  Our road trip took us from Moss Beach, to Lake Tahoe, and then Reno, where we spent two nights at a fancy casino.  From there we traveled down Hwy 395 along the Sierras, where we spent the night in Lee Vining, then onto Yosemite via the Tioga Pass, a night in Oakhurst, a visit with Gary and Joyce in Coarsegold, then finally on to Jim's in Grover Beach! 
We celebrated Lee's birthday and John's arrival at Jims, visited San Luis Obispo, did some wine tasting, had picnics, and totally enjoyed three days of NOT being in the car.  On Tuesday (July 13th), we left for Cambria, where we spent the night, before visiting Hearst Castle on Wednesday, and winding our way back home via Highway 1 - an incredibly beautiful and picturesque drive, and incredibly curvy!

We then had several days at home, and did some shopping, the California Academy of Science, Filoli and a concert at Stern Grove.  We got in a walk up to the Distillery, too, where we sat outside with G&T's, and pretended that the sun would come out!  Fortunately, the Distillery provides its guests with wool blankets to bundle up in, and they have great fire pits, too.

For Lee's birthday, I made us reservations on the Napa Valley Wine Train, and we spent three glorious days in the sunshine in Calistoga, enjoying the warm weather, wine tasting and just lounging about!

We got home on Friday afternoon, and Saturday was spent getting organized for John's return flight that night.  There was a flurry of packing, picture exchanging (between the three of us, there were hundreds of pictures!) and then it was off to the airport.  It was sad to see John go.  He's such a great travel companion, and we so enjoyed his visit here.

John arrives in Moss Beach!  Note the New Zealand flag that greeted him!

Some of the horses in the 4th of July parade

One of the old cars, all decorated.  You can see the tractor in the background - SO "small town USA"

A shot of the back yard, with the bar-b-que going!

Master Chef checking the steaks, while John gives his approval

Lake Tahoe!  Such a beautiful place!  It's definitely on the "do again" list, we could easily spend several days there - lots of hiking and beautiful scenery

Lake Tahoe

Lee and John at the Lake

Emerald Bay

This shot was taken from Hwy 341, on our way to Virginia City.  If you enlarge this photo, you can see our hotel in the upper right hand part of the page - a tall building in the desert.  This area seemed to be the ruins of a roadside stop, although we couldn't find any signs telling us

John, overlooking Reno

John and Pat, crossing the street under the world-know Reno sign.

The entrance to Harrahs!

Meanwhile, back at the casino in our hotel, John feeds a dollar into the Star Trek machine, which promptly ate it, and gave him nothing in return!  Actually, for non-gamblers, we did really well - John put in a few dollars on Tuesday night and cashed out with over $30.  The next night Lee put in a few dollars and cashed out with $76!  I think that I broke even.  And if you add in the free Coronas, they didn't make any money on us!

Virginia City - note the wooden sidewalks and sagging roofs!

Talk about high fashion - this lady's gown is made up of silver dollars!

Off to the races!

This caught our attention!

So, in we went, for a Bucket of Blood beer!

Well, we've left Reno, and are heading down Hwy 395, along the back side of the Sierras - next stop - Lee Vining!

A long, non-winding road, in the middle of absolutely no where!

I lied!  The next stop wasn't Lee Vining - it was in Bodie, a ghost town!

Once a bustling mining town, Bodie was abandoned in the 1930's and is now in a state of "arrested decay" - meaning that it won't be restored to it's former glory, but neither will it be allowed to decay any further.

Exploring a real, live ghost town!

John and Lee look through the old, wavy glass window of one of the abandoned houses.

Home sweet home!  You can see the many layers of lino on the floor.  The remaining families just walked away, and left many of the items of every day life in the houses.  It was kinda eerie, actually.

There was an amazing array of junk there! 

I guess no body is home.....

Ok, now we're on our way to Lee Vining!  The lake that you see is Mono Lake - a large salt-water lake that is estimated to be at least 1 million years old.  It's too salty for most species to survive, but the brine shrimp and flies are doing very well.

Mono Lake

Tufas!!  Who knew??  None of us had ever heard of a "tufa" before, but Mono Lake has lots of them!  Apparently there are fresh water springs deep under Mono Lake that allow calcium carbonate to seep up into the lake.  It's sort of like the stalactites in a cave - as the deposits continue to rise, they build up towers.  The tufas were exposed as the water level in the lake dropped, due to diversion of some of the rivers that feed it.

This picture points out both how tall the tufas are, and how far the water level has dropped.  Apparently a law was passed to prevent the diversion of water to Mono Lake, so at some point, the water level will rise again.

Our arrival into Yosemite was via the Tioga Pass - something that Lee had always wanted to do.  In this picture you can see the back of Half Dome in the center of the picture.

Lee and John at Tuolumne Meadows.  Coming into Yosemite this way really gave us an appreciation of the size of the park - from this point it was another hour + to the valley floor.  It actually takes longer than that, because you just have to stop and view all of the incredible scenery!

The Ahwahnee Lodge - the grand old lodge of Yosemite.  We tried to get reservations to stay for the night, but they were totally booked - next time!

Yosemite Falls in all it's glory!  The huge amount of winter rainfall made all of the falls just spectacular!

John and Pat, with Yosemite Falls in the back ground.

The Yosemite Valley with Bridal Veil falls in the background

What a great background for a great shot of John!

Half Dome, as seen from Glacier Point

Glacier Point - waiting for the sunset, with Half Dome in the background

Half Dome as the sun begins to set

The Yosemite Valley - isn't it spectacular?

Yosemite Falls from Glacier Point

Happy Birthday, Lee and Welcome, John!  A great shot of the guys, and the decorations that Jim put up to celebrate Lee's birthday!

Ok, this is a bit strange, but it's a "must" on the tourist stops in San Luis Obispo - it's know as Bubble Gum Alley!

And here's why!!  YUCK!

Solvang - a great little Danish community, just a bit south of Jim.

All of the buildings are of Danish architecture - a really cute, quaint town, with lots of shops, restaurants and a mission.

The Santa Inez Mission at Solvang

Morro Rock and kayakers on Morro Bay.  This is on the coast, on the way to Cambria and Hearst Castle

We loved this pirate ship kite!  It looked like it was flying through the air.

A pleasant stop for a beer, along side the waterfront in Cambria

Hearst Castle!

Entrance to one of the three guest houses

 

Neptune Pool - the outside swimming pool.

The main dining room

The indoor swimming pool

Driving home from Hearst Castle - some of the beautiful scenery along the way.

A beautiful, clear, warm day!

Soaking up the sunshine, before we reached the fog in Moss Beach!

Filoli's rose garden

Sunday's concert at Stern Grove.  There were two groups - one was Spanish, and one was French.  The music was really good.  We took a picnic lunch, picked up the Sunday paper, and made a day of it!

Picnicking at Stern Grove - as you can see, it wasn't very warm!

John and Lee at the California Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park

Picnicking at V. Sattui winery in St. Helena - a loaf of bread, wine and cheese - what more could you want?  Life is GOOD

I made all of our accommodation reservations online for our trips, with mixed results!  But, the Washington Street Lodging in Calistoga was great!  We had a little cabin and a great deck outside the front door that had lots of seating for relaxing, AND this great hammock!  This is what you do after a day of wine tasting!

The Clos Pegase Winery

In addition to great wines, the winery had a great selection of sculptures - we gave this one a "thumbs up"!

Riding the tram up to wine taste at Sterling Vineyards.  The vineyard is located at the top of a hill, and is just beautiful.

At Sterling Vineyards

We toured the Petrified Forrest in Calistoga - a first for all of us.  It was really quite interesting!

The Calistoga Museum - we spent quite a bit of time in there, and learned a lot about the settlement of the Napa Valley

John went on a hot air balloon trip!  There is a ballooning company that flies out of Calistoga.  It's an early morning sport - John had to call at 5:30 am and confirm that he was still going, and they picked him up at 6:00 am.

Firing the burner to keep the air heated.  John said that he wished he had brought a hat!

This balloon was up at the same time that John's balloon was up.

Smooth landing!  John proclaimed the whole experience as "brilliant"!!  We were so glad that he took advantage of the opportunity and went for a ride.

Ok, more wine tasting!  Charles Krug is the oldest winery in the Napa Valley

Charles Krug Winery

Fountain at Beringer Winery.  Beringer claims to be the oldest continuously operating winery in Napa Valley.  It seems that they had the contract to supply wine to the Catholic church during prohibition!

All dressed up and ready for the Napa Valley Wine Train!

Seated for the first two courses of the meal

Handsome, happy guys!

Happy Birthday, Lee!

I think that if John had stayed a bit longer, we could have converted him to a red wine drinker!  Here he is, enjoying a lovely glass of zinfandel!

Enjoying an after-dinner port in the observation car.  Life is GOOD!

On Friday we visited Mumms - they make sparkling wine.  The process is completely different from making wine, and the tour was great.  We also got to taste three different sparkling wines.  The grounds were beautiful and we would have loved to tarry, but the car was loaded, and it was time to head back to the fog!

So, now you've joined us for our visit with John.  We had a fantastic time, and already have mapped out an itinerary for next year, which includes Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon!  Come and join us!