Arizona and back

We left our friends at the Colorado river and drove the wide open spaces to Scottsdale, AZ. That drive on Hwy 10 is not that easy with many, many trucks sharing the roadway and engaging in their form of "truck wars", slowly overtaking, with the process taking miles to accomplish!

 It is pretty amazing how straight the highway is, and on this day it was windy, making for interesting driving.
We were fortunate that the weather in Scottsdale was really nice, in the 80's mostly which allowed us to use the 18 hole putting course that surrounds the complex where or friends Claire and Jim live.

Our friend Jim is also a photographer, so he and I went off to a local butterfly exhibit while Claire and Diane went and worked on their art projects. The butterfly exhibit was a lot of fun and was also enjoyed by large groups of school children and the attendant noise level. They got really excited when a butterfly landed on their clothes.

I tried to get images of some butterfly's in flight but that is really difficult!
As we were about to leave we spotted this large moth, it is about 8 inches long and was pretty much hidden from view.

Part of our week was taken up with trying to rebook a Paris apartment. The first two we booked were canceled by the hosts after about a week in each case, both for emergencies in their respective families. Our third attempt was rejected by the host as not being available, even though their calendar indicated otherwise.
All of this was via Airbnb, who also updated their website in the middle of everything which then did not work as before on this computer at least. Needless to say this was a little frustrating with some terse messages being sent to them. After our third rejection, we did get a very helpful person to communicate with at Airbnb who indicated that if I used a Chrome browser the website would look like it used to! (which it did)
We did manage to book another apartment in Paris in a location we wanted, phew! With just a week to go, I was getting a little concerned!

To add to all of this, we got a call from our bank that told us my debit card was included in one of those scams that had occurred somewhere the card had been used. Of course I cannot get a new card before we leave the country!

Even Diane got in a little putting practice before we took the long drive back to San Jose. We stayed at the Best Western on Magic Mountain Parkway in Valencia which was probably the worst BW stay we have had, give it a miss if you are headed that way.
We will leave San Francisco on Tuesday for our first stop in London, and then on to Paris.
Stay tuned.

Southern California and Colorado River

This last week we headed south from San Jose on Hwy 101 to visit family and friends. The weather was wonderful again although some rain would be good. California is headed for another year of drought, though, it looks, at times if the farmers have not got the message and we witnessed many fields being watered with overhead sprinklers in the morning sun. They could save a lot of water by irrigating later in the day.
Our first stop was in Santa Barbara and then on through LA at night. All I can say is that I am glad not to live and drive in this city. Everyone drives very fast with an apparent need to tailgate and change lanes for a possible 50ft gain on the journey. Makes this country boy a little tense.
After another short stop we were off to Calimesa to visit a long time friend of Diane's, Kris and her husband Tom.
We met at Bob's Big Boy which has some significance in their pasts!

Our visit included a get together of a couple of Kris and Diane's high school friends, a lot of fun was had by all.

Tom and I paid a visit to the air museum in Palm Springs where his dad had been a docent. He had also flown B24's during WWII.

We saw a lot of aircraft from WWII, though difficult to photograph as they are all close together.

This MIG 21 we were told was part of the film "Top Gun".

A B24 that is being restored and does fly.

 A British Spitfire which, the docent informed us, was the only plane in the collection that had fired its guns in WWII.

Kris and Tom have a place on the Colorado river near Blythe, CA, and this is what you can see from a hill nearby. I spent quite a while as the sun went down to see if I could get a good sunset image here, not sure what I captured, that will have to wait a while!

There were lots of humming birds at the feeder, so it was fun to try and capture some shots as they zoomed around and rapidly emptied the feeder. These birds are tough to photograph, but with the camera set at 1/800 sec and on rapid fire it helps. I also got a lot of images of an empty feeder as they all had flown away!

As the weather was too windy to go boating on the river, we took a drive to Parker, AZ just across the river. Lunch at the Thirsty Pirate was great as the dining area looks out over the river.

Return via Parker dam behind which is Lake Havasu. It was interesting that we were not allowed to walk on the roadway on the dam and there were road barriers as well.
That is it so far, next stop Scottsdale, AZ, stay tuned.

Easter and San Francisco

We arrived to see the San Jose grandchildren on the eve of Good Friday in time to rest up before the Easter egg hunt on Sunday. It is interesting that the grandchildren still embrace the idea of the Easter Bunny, it must just be the idea of lots of chocolate. We had a great time with a lovely meal of rotisserie chicken and all the fixing followed by large helpings of pavlova, (more sugar YUM).

Looks like a good haul, it was difficult for them to stop long enough for a photo when the potential of more chocolate was in the offing.

We all took a trip to San Francisco to visit the Mission and to visit a few other places. The weather was fantastic, clear and sunny and warm. The Mission was pretty interesting for the adults, a bit less so for 9 year old twins.

The inside of the Mission is quite impressive, made, we were told of 36,000 adobe bricks made and placed by the local Indian tribe that resided in the area art the time. The alter piece was made in Mexico and transported to the Mission and assembled there.

 There was some really nice light coming through the windows that was enticing for the camera. All of the photos are taken with a Sony a6000 and the 16-50mm lens.

A slightly closer view of the alter piece.

It was interesting to see many graves associated with the Mission, to be of Irish people and since our daughter-in-law is Irish of additional interest. The dates on the gravestones, which included many children, were mostly from the middle 1800's. We surmised that this was also about the time of the potato famine in Ireland and the emigration that took place at that time.

We went to a very nice local store, BiRite, that also had a deli to get sandwiches for lunch, they were scrumptious. Just close by on the same street is Tartine, the famous bakery, so I just had to take a peek. Since it was lunchtime there were long lines and very busy. This shot was one of those, over your head and hope shots, it was only later that I realized that the camera has a tilting screen!!

Near the Mission is Dolores Park where they have just finished a wonderful playground which is just what the twins wanted to see. We all ate our sandwiches and the twins went full blast for the next hour, they make me tired just watching.

 Lots of FUN

This is the view from the top of the slide area, and as you can see a beautiful day.

Next was a visit to Coit Tower, a pretty famous San Francisco landmark. We all decided to climb the steps from the area near the Levi Plaza instead of trying to park at the base of the monument.

I don't know how many steps there are, all I can say it felt like there was 1,000. They did not seem to phase the 9yr old's who practically ran to the top!

The views were well worth the climb, tho' at the time I had my doubts!!

Back to Levi's Plaza for a revival latte and begin to think about heading back to San Jose.
We went to pick up David from his work and think about where to eat. By David' work there is another small playground, where the twins just had to check it out.

Just where does all that energy come from?

We are now headed towards S California and Arizona. Stay tuned.

Oregon and California Coast

As we left Medford, we decided to drive down the coast highways to our first stop in San Jose to see the grandchildren. Packing the car was a fun challenge, where did all those bags come from!
We drove north on I5 and then headed towards Coquille to visit a long time friend and natural home builder and teacher.

 This was our tiny house for the night.

 Our friend, Ianto, preparing an evening meal in their outdoor kitchen. The majority of the ingredients were from their large organic garden.

We are so privelaged to live with such a magnificent coast on our doorstep.

We just had to stop and get a lunchtime pizza at a favorite place in Brookings harbor. Just the art graffiti on the walls alone is worth the stop.

Stopping in Fortuna was a good choice and a chance to visit Ferndale, Victorian houses and all.

The gentleman riding this BMW bike and sidecar had flown from Kentucky to Seattle to pick it up and was now riding it back to Kentucky.
From Ferndale we decided to take the coast road out to Point Mendocino since we had never visited that part of the coast. It was an amazing journey, very steep roads, expansive views that were difficult to capture in a photo and quiet, everywhere, just the wind and singing birds.

I tried the panorama feature on the camera and my apologies to my SOPF friends for the non level horizon!! This image is only half of the panorama that faced us when we got down to sea level.

 Later in the week we headed further south with a lunch stop in Mendocino, clear skies all the way.

We also drove down Hwy 1 from Willets and headed back to Hwy 101 at Jenner. I had forgotten what a twisty road hwy 1 is.

We also spent most of a day in San Francisco, lunch with a special friend and a visit to the Asian Art Museum. We are using a Garmin GPS system that we have affectionately named Greta and so far she has been pretty good, though she seems to get a little testy if we divert to a road that we know works, but  Greta seems not to agree that will fit her plans.