Nov 10 to 17: Pennsylvania Visit and 40th Reunion

With my letter sweater in hand, Alison and I went off to Palmyra, PA to visit my parents and attend my 40th high school class reunion.

We like joining Mom and Dad in their daily routines. We had dinner with Mom’s sister and husband, Mary Ann and Roger in Elizabethtown, the town where I grew up. After dinner we had a private viewing of the Master’s Mineral Gallery at Elizabethtown College. What a great mineral and fossil collection donated to the college by a local collector. My brother Dave visited from Wilmington for an afternoon, and we gathered with some of Mom and Dad’s friends for several regularly scheduled weekly restaurant meals. At least one friend goes back to elementary school time!

Dad is the director for the Harmonizer’s, a singing group of 30+ men who live in the same community as my parents.  Their oldest member is 97 year’s old but was not present the week we visited because he was in Florida fishing.  The group performs for various church, civic, and nursing homes in the area.  They are busy during the holiday season so Alison and I were able to attend a program while we were visiting.



Dean, Chris and Cindy



Alison FORCED me to wear my Track & Field letter sweater the first evening of the reunion events.  Her reasoning, ‘Why are we keeping the sweater if you aren’t even going to wear it to the reunion?’  Well, I wore it.  We stayed with Chris and Cindy two nights and were joined by Teresa and Harold for one night.  Chris and Harold were in my high school class and all three of us and Teresa were in the same church youth group. Both Alison and I enjoyed the chance to get reacquainted, and for her, to meet, my friends after all these years.  I hadn’t been to a reunion for 30 years.  How time flies.

 

We are still good looking after 40 more years!

 One afternoon we toured Indian Echo Caverns near Middletown.  I had visited the Caverns several times when I was growing up, but probably not for 20 or 25 years or more.  (Twyla and Ryan, have you been there?)  It was worth the trip.  We were lucky to be in a small group of 6 so had a very good tour.

Because the fall has been mild in PA this year we were surprised by seeing many colorful trees still with their leaves.  It looked more like October than the middle of November.  But, when we returned to Vancouver, we woke up two days later to the first snow of the season, several inches at Barbara’s house close to the Frazer River.  Since the grass and trees still have greenish leaves, it looked unusual.  Even the local hummingbirds are still coming to the feeder.

Nov 2 to 4: California Redwoods to Vancouver

(One thing we forgot to include on Alison’s birthday was a Skype aided wine gathering with Betty, Cindy, and Marilee. We had a celebration with wine toastings and stories over the net with our Alaskan friends.)
 

Closed park visitor center



On Nov. 2nd we decided to leave the California wine country a day early so we would have time to return to the California coast and drive through the California Redwood parks along Highway 101.

First was Richardson Grove State Park. All the facilities were closed for the season but it was a great walk through the redwoods followed by lunch on our camping chairs in the sun. During the walk Alison found a very small kitten, 3 or 4 weeks old under a fallen tree. It was mewing continuously and loudly. We found several Park Rangers who were tidying up for the season and were cat friendly. They gladly took the kitten and

Little screamer

commented that cats are abandoned regularly there. We were glad to know the kitten wouldn’t be dinner for a fox or raccoon that evening.

We continued to and along the Avenue of the Giants.  This is the old Route 101 which goes through numerous groves of redwoods for 38 miles.  It was fun winding through the huge trees in the shadows even though it was a sunny day.  The forest floor was very red from the fallen needles and there was almost nothing growing on the forest floor.  We only had one mishap when we pushed one of the redwoods over.  We did enter a vortex (We know all about these from our Sedona visit.) where the trees all came to a point overhead. 

 We only had one mishap when we pushed one of the redwoods over.




We entered a vortex (We know all about these from our Sedona visit.) where the trees all came to a point overhead. Alison stood at the vortex point but luckily didn’t have a pyramid hat on to concentrate the energy. She did have lip balm on with a sunscreen rating so she didn’t burn her lips!

Next was Humboldt Redwoods State Park, located in world famous Humboldt County. We didn’t stray to far off the road to make sure we weren’t mistaken for Federal Revenuers. To bad the California bill to legalize personal use was defeated.


We arrived in Crescent City just in time for sunset over the Pacific.

On Nov. 3^rd we woke up to fog that was thick until we were almost to I5 near Grant’s Pass.  Most of Route 199, the

Redwood Hwy

, was in fog, but the pictures were fine and the trees colorful.  We planned to spend the night or maybe 2 in Portland, but without prior reservations it would have been costly, so we pushed on and spent the night at the Lewis River Inn in Woodland, Washington.  The property backed on the Lewis River, but since we arrived after dark we didn’t get to explore.

The next day we had a quick drive through Washington on I5.  In Seattle we took the express tunnel under downtown so made very good time and had only a short wait at the boarder so arrived in Vancouver by mid-afternoon.

October 21 to 31: San Diego to Sonoma Wine Country

We are and have been in California for more than a week. We have been in city centers in San Diego and San Francisco; along the rugged sea coast along Route 1; to the Hearst Castle; to the penitentiary (Alcatraz); to the Zoo and SeaWorld; on interstates and very twisty mountain roads; and are presently visiting wineries.

Yes, life is fine! Since tomorrow is Alison’s BIRTHDAY, we visited the source of bubbly, the Korbel Winery, to get ready. Nothing like a nice champagne tasting to finish the winery visits today.

When we were in San Diego, we did see both the zoo and SeaWorld in the sun.  Each attraction took us a day to tour and see the animals and shows with the animal ‘stars’.  We also liked all the plants and the local transient winged visitors.  The hummingbirds were fun to watch and photograph.



Neptune Pool



The weather fell apart for our visit to the Hearst Castle so we missed the ‘sweeping vista’ views from the hilltop location.  Most of the reason to go to the Castle is to see the building and furnishings so the rain didn’t impact that.  All the building was done with reinforced concrete to withstand earthquakes and was continuous from 1920 to 1948 and almost bankrupted William Hearst.  The furnishings were from 2800 BC to present day.  Medieval castle ceilings and white marble statuary from Italy. It is hard to describe what was accomplished when cost is not considered.  Alison and I are trying to appropriate the Neptune pool to add to the Agate House from the Petrified Forest. 

 

The sun came out on the drive from the Hearst Castle to San Francisco. We got a nice view of the Castle during our drive up the coast. If you get the chance, drive Route 1 along the coast and take your time. The scenery is exquisite.

We had a fun 3 days in San Francisco staying right downtown on Sutter and Taylor. This was a great location for public transit and walking the hills. We did get our exercise!

We needed to get the ‘check engine’ light looked at on the Subaru and found a good garage 4 blocks from the hotel. An added advantage was we saved 3 days of valet parking charges because the car was in the garage. All is fine with the Subaru and it now purrs down the road……

We used the buses, trolleys and cable cars to get around. It was very economical. Several times the bus fare taking mechanism was broken so there was no charge for those trips! We found a Trader Joe’s at Fisherman’s Warf and got many good items to eat and drink. (And take to India.) While Alison went to a wool shop and Britex fabrics, I took the ferry to and toured Alcatraz Island. The tour is self guided with an audio tape and very informative and interesting. The view back toward downtown San Francisco was good.

 

Unexpectedly we were outside observers of the first 2 World Series games. We didn’t pay the asked $600+ for tickets but instead watched all the enthusiastic fans all over town. Some of the Super Bowl outfits were interesting and add Halloween and throw in the election antics in California and we were well entertained.

 

So here we are in Sonoma County. We did a drive-about yesterday through Sonoma, Russian River, and Napa valleys and saw many vineyards and wineries, but stopped at none. It is very picturesque and the roads are very twisty. Yesterday we did several tastings and some buying as noted above. Today we drove to and along the coast. Tomorrow we head toward Vancouver.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS, KAREN and ALISON!!!!!

55 today!!