September Vacation

The trip was to California.
Colleen's family is interesting to say the least. AND famous !
But it was fun in a twisted sort of way.
Spirit Airlines is SO off my radar for EVER ! Colleen booked the flights -- not with them anymore !! Arrived at the airport and found out that there is a charge of 10 bucks a bag for luggage. That was 30 bucks blown.
You have to pay for anything other than tap water.
And you can only pay with debit or credit card !
No cash allowed.
OH ! And no barf bags -- did I mention that I had had a mild case of food poisoning for the 2 days prior to this trip ???
We had a three hour lay over in Detroit.. The terminal area we were in was minute and only had 2 choices for something to eat.
I ate a piece of toast and drank Sprite (still feeling pukey).
Hated the flight back -- shorter layover in Detroit -- but still hate Spirit and will not fly them again!
Got to LAX and argued over the vehicle -- Colleen won -- we ended up witha crossover SUV. She was good about it -- this ended up being the right one for us later in the week.
Gas in Calif is obscene!

Colleen's family was different.
Kinda weird being around quasi famous folks.

Her nephews are phenomenal. Tremendous.
On to see more of her family. We stayed in this small cabin/camp place. Could have worked had we had more time. But I don't fish -- but it was quite nice.
After we finished the rest of the family stuff we were on our own
We drove to Manzanar... The Japanese Relocation camp in the Mojave desert where we actually met a Japanese gentleman who was there to look around. We had a chat and it was quite moving really. Manzanar is not one of our prouder moments as Americans.
The gentleman was suprised when we answered how we knew about it.
This isn't something that is really discussed in school.
If you didn't know it was there, you would blow right by it on the highway.
I took a gazillion pictures -- all of what I could access.
California has finally started refurbishing what is left and making it more visitor friendly. Everyone should see it.
http://www.nps.gov/manz/ for more infoHimself and I argued about it afterward. Concentration camp -- no doubt about it -- they may have thought they were doing the right thing -- at the time.
But label it what it was !

We then headed off to Bodie California... a Ghost mining town -- way cool. Dirt road to the middle of the top of nowhere. I have tons of pictures!
We saw ELKs !
We then went over Tioga Pass.
Can you say terrified??
I was curled into the fetal position on the back seat. He was in same position in the FRONT seat. He got out once to take a picture and scared me to death. The drive and views are awesome.
It goes up to around 11,000 feet elevation and is quite scary at a few places.
The sights of the Sierra Mountains are unlike anything you would see !
We went into Yosemite valley and they were doing controlled burns of a few meadows and it was too smokey to enjoy so we drove on.
I loved Bridleveil Falls -- and have some pictures -- but it was hampered by the drought.

THIS was a surprise to me: I had NO idea we were coming down the coast.
I had whined about not getting to do anything I wanted -- and Colleen surprised me with the ocean!
We drove to Monterey CA and shopped for an a few hours and walked along the rocky shores. We then drove the '17 mile' drive which was just breath taking in its beauty.
We drove down highway 1 back to LA.
We ate and stayed in Big Sur. We saw Pfeiffer beach which was beautiful.
As we were going down the road we saw a pullover to observe the elephant seals in and out of the water. Out of the car we went. Snapping pictures like crazy.

A few miles down the road and we got to Hearst Castle where we saw the herds of the Hearst Zebras mixed in a field of cattle -- how odd.
On more and as we crossed the hills on the ocean side, we stopped for lunch.
I left my purse at a restaurant and we had to backtrack to get it -- nothing missing and I offered a reward but they wouldn't take it.
More later.

BJP pages

I have a couple done.
I just haven't been able to get them photographed and up.
I will.
I promise that to myself.

My iPod is being cranky

After the client gave the entire team (across the nation) iPod shuffles -- I was hooked and went out and got the 80 gig one.
I normally love it.
Today it is being cranky.
I may have to restore the darned thing.
argh.

oh well