Off Again

Steve and I will begin our Alaskan cruise next week and afterward will tour Denali National Park for four days. So the intention is to try to blog while I am away. Hopefully I remember how. Thank you to my friends who have been after me to get back on my blog!

Crater Lake, OR

Steve and I decided to pose in front of this painted backdrop and call it our vacation at Crater Lake. Honestly it is the real thing! Crater Lake was formed by the volcano Mount Mazama thousands of years ago. It is the deepest lake in the United States and is a beautiful cobalt blue almost purple color. We declined to go swimming since the water is a chilling 44 degrees. We are spending the night in Bend, OR and plan to travel back to the Oregon coast tomorrow.

More of the Coast Highway

Today Steve and I traveled up more of Highway 1 from Bodega Bay to Mendocino with a side trip to Sebastopol and Bodega. We were attracted to Sebastopol because it is known for being the southern most Russian outpost in North America during the 1800's. What we found there was a wonderful farmer's market. The fruits and vegetables look more sculpted than grown. And the varieties of each fruit and vegetable! They didn't just sell peaches but they had sun crest and Arctic gems and another variety. There must have been a dozen different varieties of tomatoes. The vendors were also selling huge bunches of herbs for two dollars. On the way back to the coast we went through Bodega which is famous for being one of the locations used in Alfred Hitchcock's film "The Birds". Here is a picture of the school house used in the film. It is now occupied as a house with a gift store on the bottom floor. Guess what the main theme in the gift store is?

Point Reyes National Seashore

Point Reyes is a peninsula which sticks out from the California coast and the San Andreas fault. This is beautiful rugged country dotted with old farms. The old lighthouse although no longer in use is open for visitors. The trek down included 300 stairs. The little town of Point Reyes Station outside the park has some cute shops and restaurants. We also visited Cowgirl Creamery where they make some of the most wonderful cheese and sell other cheese from around northern California. We watched them make red hawk cheese yesterday. You can check them out online at www.cowgirlcreamery.com.

more houseboats

Here is another couple of houseboats. Each boat had a sign on the dock stating the home owner's name, the boat name and what type of boat it was originally. Most boats were either life boats or tug boats. See the previous post for more pictures and description.

Capitola, California

This is a view from the cliff overlooking the pier and beach at Capitola, California. It is hard to make out in the picture but right at the beginning of the pier is a row of brightly colored tiny homes. These are the first condominiums in California. Steve and I are actually staying in #11 this year. The sun does come out each day somewhere between noon and 2 pm. We really don't care if it doesn't show. The cool, misty mornings are the best.

Yosemite National Park

Steve and I are on a road trip through northern California, Oregon and Washington. It is really too hot to stay in Vegas if you can help it. We spent today touring through Yosemite National Park for the first time. What a treat! The scenery is a study of contrasts between the hugh gray granite monoliths, the stately sequoias and other pines and the cascading waterfalls. The first picture is a view of Bridal Veil Falls in the early morning. The second picture is a view of Yosemite Valley after passing through the tunnel carved out of solid granite. The rock on the left is El Capitan.We had only one day to spend here but you could easily spend a week hiking, biking, rafting, horse back riding, etc.

Giverny, France

Steve and I recently spent two weeks in France visiting Paris and northern France. I wasn't able to blog while there so over the next few days I'll upload some pictures of what we saw. Every travel book of Paris mentions Giverny which is an hour outside of Paris. Being interested in art I have always wanted to see Claude Monet's gardens which were the inspiration of his famous water lily paintings. I saw the paintings in the Musee de Orangerie on my last visit to France so when our Paris friends mentioned taking us to Giverny I was thrilled. The gardens and lily ponds are gorgeous. This is a picture of just a small portion of the lily pond and one of the Japanese bridges.

The end of our Olympic Experience

So this is it - we are going home tomorrow. Steve and I have had a great time here is Vancouver, British Colombia enjoying the people, the events and the landmarks. Vancouver is a beautiful metropolitan city. Granville Island in Vancouver has a public market that has everything including fresh produce and meats, already prepared food, and food items from around the world. The surrounding area outside of Vancouver is wild and wonderful. I certainly have a new appreciation for some sports such as curling, cross country skiing and hockey. We did a whole package deal through CoSports and we understand that they are also going to handle packages for the 2012 London summer games.

HOCKEY!

Last night we went to the Russian versus Slovakia men's hockey game. We had the premier seats in the first row behind the Russian players. In my seat I could see the players come out of the locker room. I'm sorry I didn't know more about the players but they look really rough up close. The game itself was great. At the end of regulation play Russia and Slovakia was tied one all. There was no score in the 5 minute overtime so they went to a shoot out. It was tied two all after three shots so the shoot out became a sudden death. Slovakia won on the seventh shot.

Men's 1000 meter speed skating

Speed skating two days in a row. So you thought I saw all the orange I could yesterday? Wrong! Today I saw a man in an orange suit, someone who used an orange pylon as a hat and finally an orange hard hat with an ice skate attached to the top. The Dutch take orange to a whole new level! But the event was mostly USA. Shani Davis of the US won the gold, Korea took the silver and USA took the bronze. I hear the coverage in the US leaves a lot to be desired. Here in Canada there are two different stations carrying Olympic events. Olympic coverage runs 24 hours. We sat in the bar at the hotel tonight and every other TV was either tuned to one of the hockey games or the Ladies downhill.

Day Six Olympics

Steve and I are in Vancouver with a tour company called CoSports which handled the tickets, hotel and transportation. So today we get on our bus to go to the men's 1000 meters speed skating event and we are surprised by the fact that Bonnie Blair (5 time Olympian in speed skating) is on the bus with us and is going to talk about speed skating on the way to the venue. What a gracious lady. She answered questions, signed tickets and posed for pictures. She is the woman in the green turtleneck.

Day Five Olympics

Today Steve and I went to the 500 meter women's speed skating event. Speed skating is a fun event. At least one third of the fans to a world speed skating event are Dutch and they dress so that everyone knows that they are Dutch. I saw orange everything including orange jackets, t-shirts, cowboy hats, hair, scarfs, hats, gloves, even bathrobes and slippers. Check out one of the pictures. In the other picture the couple is from Germany. Alot of fun is had by all. The gold medal was won by a Korean girl, Germany took silver and China took the bronze. There was a lot of fast skating.

Free Program Pairs Figure Skating

Of course figure skating is beautiful but the best part about watching it live is not having to listen to Dick Buttons' or Scott Hamilton's whispered commentary. The performances are so wonderful with just the music. This picture is of the Chinese couple who won the free program but placed second in the medal standing.

Day Four Olympics

Today was a busy day. In the morning we traveled to Cypress Mountain to see the men's snowboard cross event. This is as exciting as it gets. Four snowboarders traveling down the course at one time. The first two winners in each heat advance to the next round until they are down to just four riders. If you fall you are out of the competition. It was an exciting race. An American named Wescott won the gold medal. Canada took the silver and France took the bronze. Because this venue lacked any snow except what they drove in by truck; it required climbing 240 stairs to get to the stands. Talk about a workout.

Day Three Olympics

We started out today taking a bus from downtown Vancouver to Whistler for the luge competition. The day looked sunny when we arrived but an hour later when we were ready to take the gondola up the mountain to the Sliding Center it was pouring rain. Then shortly after the competition started the rain stopped and the sun came out again. So far we have not had any delays getting through security at any of the venues. They call that "mag and bag" here! Even getting down the mountain on the gondola was going really quickly. As our car came into the station at the bottom it seemed to jump the cable and was dragging on the ground and the car behind crashed into our car! No one was seriously hurt and they had the gondola running again in just a few minutes.

Day One Vancouver

Steve and I are enjoying downtown Vancouver with our friends John and Jody from Ft. Worth, Texas. This is Day One in Vancouver and what a fabulous welcome we got. Canadians are so friendly and Vancouver is a beautiful city. We are staying at the Fairmont Hotel which just happens to be the same hotel that Vice President Bidden is staying at along with the Russian committee organizing the 2014 winter games in Sochi. We're having a great time meeting people from all over.

More of the Virgin River

This is an area of the Virgin River called big springs about four miles from where the walkway ends at the last shuttle bus stop in the canyon. That back pack I'm carrying probably weighs about thirty pounds. We rented water shoes, neoprene socks and the wooden hiking poles from the Zion Narrows Outfitters. The equipment worked out great. I also rented and carried dry pants but didn't end up using them. After a while you just get used to being wet and it doesn't bother you. I had a garbage bag in my back pack which kept most of the contents dry.

Sequoia National Park, California

Steve and I are in Sequoia National Park outside of Three Rivers, California.  These trees are immense.  The park is a great place to visit with a variety of views and sites.  We climbed the over 200 steps to the top of Morro Rock, hike to the largest tree named the Sherman Tree (at least the largest in volume), and toured a marble cave.  We also saw a total of 4 bears; one we found walking up the road we were traveling on and a mother and two cubs we discovered routing around in the dirt above the road we were on.  

Stockholm, Sweden

This is a picture of the Vasa which was a Swedish ship that sank in the Baltic Sea in 1628 on its maiden voyage just 1,500 meters from the coast. The ship was built too top heavy and was too narrow. A gust of wind came up and the ship just tilted over. In the 1950's the ship was discovered in the bottom of the sea and a massive effort was started to raise the vessel in tact. The project was a huge undertaking and lasted many years. After the ship was raised, it was dried out and coated with chemicals to keep it from deteriorating any further. It is now the oldest intact vessel of its kind. The museum also showed how life on a ship worked, the colors of the wood carvings on the ship and how much was learned from the restoration. This is my last blog entry until we arrived home since we will be leaving the ship tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed!