Life of Keith

Cylons - From Toaster to Number Six

2011-12-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

Ordered all six of the Cylon figures from the NBC Universal store online. Sale was all six for $29 and free shipping. Pretty good figures, well made and very well packed.

All six Cylon Models

Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: Best Of Photos

2011-12-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

Lisbon, Madrid and Toledo

Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: The Long Trip Home

2011-12-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

The Famous Bear and Tree

Our bus didn't leave until noon, but we wanted to have a few hours in Madrid before we left, so no sleeping in once again. And yes, I was still sick. Another breakfast at the hotel, perhaps our last meal for a while, as we didn't know if there would be any places to get food on the bus ride. We spent our last hours in Madrid walking around the local streets, looking for an open book store along the way. It was also the sunniest day of the trip so I got a few last photos in, including one of a bear and tree statue, a symbol we saw all over Madrid which is the official symbol of Madrid. You can Google that if you want more information. We did find a book store and bought a book, then headed back to the hotel to check out.

Now we had to take the metro to the bus station, dragging our luggage with us. We all packed light which made waking up and down the subway stairs not too tiring. Once at the stop nearest the bus station, we eventually found the station, but it wasn't all the easy to see from the street. We still had plenty of time before the bus departed, so we relaxed until they posted the gate number. Until now we had no idea what kind of bus it was and were happy to see that it was a large bus with big, roomy seats that had way more room than our last flight. Also, it wasn't full, so I had a row to myself, or maybe there was only one seat on my side of the bus, I can't remember. Now we were all dreading an eight hour bus ride, but once we got going the ride wasn't all that bad. And as a bonus, the bus had free wireless Internet access, provided I assume by some kind of Wi-Fi (or Wi-Max) along the freeway.

I spent some time on the Internet, even getting assigned seats on my flights for the next day. Otherwise I listened to music on my iPod, read my book and watched to countryside. There wasn't a lot to see, some small towns along the way, but there was at least one large castle on a hill. There were also lots of farms with cows and sheep, and I even saw one sheep with a duck riding on its back. No one believes me because I didn't get a photo, but I really did see it. The bus made one 15 minute food/bathroom break, but there was no pre-made sandwiches, so I just got some chips from a vending machine. The bus also stopped at two or three other cities to let for passengers not going all the way to Lisbon. In fact at the last stop about half the bus emptied out, and once everyone was off the bus it drove away with all our luggage! Well, the driver actually just went to fill it up with fuel so it returned in five minutes.

Warning sign on the Metro

When we crossed the border into Portugal the bus had to stop for inspection. An immigrations officer boarded the bus and checked everyone's identification. Most people had some kind of ID card, but when he got to me and saw I had a passport he asked me many questions. I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition! Then again, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. After satisfied that I was entering the country legally he gave my brother and his wife the 3rd degree (whatever that means). By now people are looking at us, probably just annoyed that we were holding up the bus. It must have been a slow day, because there were also two or three officers outside the bus checking the luggage compartment and I even saw a dog, probably checking for drugs. We eventually got on our way. We were six hours into the ride and it was starting to get dark. After more driving we saw the lights of Lisbon, and took a very long bridge over the bay before pulling into the bus station.

Once off the bus, we tried looking for a place to eat there, but nothing looked good. So we got a cab to our hotel, a quick 10 minute drive. When we checked in, the receptionist was really nice, and gave us both free Internet access and said we would have a food bag, or basket, when we checked out. She also told us where there was a restaurant within walking distance. After a quick break in our rooms we walked the deserted streets in this industrial section of the city to the restaurant, which was small but had a simple menu and of course cold beer. We all ordered fish, and my brother's came as a whole fish on a plate, head, eyes and all. I guess this was our Thanksgiving meal, but it sure didn't feel like Thanksgiving and I kept forgetting it was. We all thought the food was good, and after paying we walked back to the hotel, our last one of the trip, and decided we should leave by 5 AM for the airport. Since the airport was shut down this day due to the general strike, we didn't know what to expect the next morning. It was either going to be a zoo with long lines and perhaps even missing planes, or there would be no issues at all.

View from our bus in Madrid. It got better.

We lucked-out. No lines and our plane was there. Since we were flying business class we got access to the Blue Lounge, which offered free food and drinks. When we checked in we were told the lounge was far from our departing gate, but we didn't know how far. We were one of the last ones on the plane as we had to go through passport control and the plane boarded way earlier that we expected. The flight left on time and after two hours we were back at London Heathrow. Our connecting flight left from terminal 5, so we had to take a shuttle to get there, but we also had five hours before our flight left. So we went to the British Airways lounge and helped ourselves to the free food and lots of coffee. When they finally posted the gate number, this time we made our way to the gate as fast as we could and we made it there about 20 minutes before the started boarding.

This was my first time flying business class in a 777, and thanks to my brother I had a nice isolated seat, one that I could get in and out of without having to walk in front of anyone, and no one had to walk in front of me. The only downside was I was facing backwards! Also, the business section was only about half full, so there was no one in the seat next to me. Once we took off, they started serving dinner, which included appetizers and a desert along with more beer. I only watched one movie on the flight, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. I enjoyed part two much more that part one. After the movie ended, and after they dimmed to cabin lights, I attempted to get some sleep. The seat reclined fully flat, but I couldn't recline it all the way because my feet hit the bulkhead. Still, way more comfortable than flying in coach. When I went to bed we were about four hours into our 11 hour flight. I did fall asleep, but must have woken up about 20 times. I didn't think I got much sleep, but when they turned the lights on to serve another meal, there were two hours left, so five hours went by pretty quickly. The plane took the Polar route, flying north of Iceland and then down through Canada. We were above Salt Lake City when I woke up.

After our light lunch, the time went quickly and soon we were preparing to land. It was nice landing in San Diego and not having to jump on another plane. This was our first time arriving in San Diego on an international flight, so I didn't know what to expect for passport on control and customs, but we got through quickly. It took awhile for our luggage to arrive, but once it did we left the airport to catch the shuttle to the parking. By the time I got home 24 hours had passed since I woke up. It was about 8 PM, and as usual, I can't just go to bed no matter how tired I am. I emptied my luggage, took a shower and read my e-mail. Then I had the sudden urge to sleep and sleep I did. A solid 11 hours! We flew home on a Friday, so I had two days to recover before going back to work, but overall I experienced very little jet-lag. So another fun-filled Thanksgiving vacation was over, sadly with out our sister, who was in the middle of her three week work trip. Where are we going next year? Maybe the Maldives, a small island country somewhere off the coast of India. Now that's going to be a long trip.

Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: Toledo and Madrid, Spain

2011-12-03T12:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, you know what's coming next. My alarm went off at 6:45 AM so I could be ready to be at breakfast for our 15 minute alloted eating time and then off to the train station. What I didn't like is my throat felt very sore and I felt like I might have a cold. Not good. I'd hoped it was just from the cold, dry air from the conditioner. The elevator actually had a floor labeled "Breakfast", which was floor one. I got there five minutes early and had to wait with another man, not knowing that some people were already eating. They found a different entrance that wasn't blocked by a red, velvet rope. Once inside, I quickly grabbed some food and made a fresh cappuccino using the coffee machine. The food was much better than the breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Lisbon. After about five minutes my traveling companions showed up and our 15 minute food break lasted longer than expected (no, I'm not blaming you guys, just stating facts). When we left for the train, we thought we had plenty of time to catch our train. The Metros were all on time and we arrived at the train station about five minutes before our train to Toledo was to depart. We thought we didn't need to rush, and were lucky there were no delays getting there. Once we found our seats we settled in for the 30 minute ride to Toledo.

The train was a high speed express train, with no stops, only a few slow-down points. It was sunny when we left but the skis got darker as we headed south. I enjoyed looking out at the countryside, even if there wasn't much to see other than green hills. When we arrived at the train station in Toledo, we got a taxi to take us up the hill to the main sites, as suggested by Rick Steves, who's book we were using as a travel guide. We were apparently early as most of the sites didn't open until 10 AM and it was only 9:30. So we wandered around the steep and narrow streets looking for our first stop, the Cathedral of Toledo, listed as the largest Cathedral in Spain. Due to the narrow, curvy, streets and high buildings, it was difficult to see much beyond a few buildings, but we managed to find the Cathedral. Since we had time to spare, we wandered around the streets some more, finding a cute cat that was waiting for birds to eat the bread crumbs left by the owner, I assume. This cat was not afraid of people or cars and was happy to be petted.

Then as we walked some more, a nice man speaking Spanish told us of a shop that was open and encouraged us to visit it. Luckily my sister-in-law spook enough Spanish to understand him. Of course he worked there and that was his job - to get people to the shop. When we entered he took us to the factory where they make the products they sell, showing us how they use very thin strips of gold to decorate the trinkets, such as ear rings and necklaces. So then we spent a few minutes in the shop, not planning to buy anything as the prices were probably very high since they were not labeled on the merchandise. So we made our escape, only to run into the man, and one of his co-workers later. They were desperate for business, I guess. Back at the Cathedral the crowds had increased, including tour groups. At ten the ticket office opened and we bought our entrance tickets plus access to the tower, whatever that was.

Once inside the Cathedral we were not disappointed. It was heavily decorated with very expensive, ornate woodwork, paintings and sculptors. Once again, no photography was allowed, except everyone seemed to be taking pictures. Yes, I took a picture just before we left, but was discrete about it. Our trip up to the tower was scheduled for 10:30, so we wandered to the meeting point. We had to be led by a man who unlocked various doors as we made our way up some stairs, eventually leading to the tower, where the stairs were very steep and the passageways was narrow and twisting. Along the way there were spots to take pictures of the city. The highest we could go was up to the bell tower, where there were great views of the city, but the windows were blocked by metal guards. Everyone in this group took many pictures and after about 15 minutes we were led back down.

We spent some more time exploring the Cathedral, looking into each open room, one of which had a collection of very expensive and heavy looking robes. Another room had national treasures, including a very complex and shiny gold Processional Monstrance. I still don't know what that is, but it contains 5,600 pieces joined by 12,500 screws. This is where I took my forbidden picture. Well, we had enough of this site so we headed back out to find our next destination, but once we got there we decided it wasn't worth it to go in. So we explored a few shops, where I almost bought one of my souvenir magnets, or even a small painted cow or cat statue, but I didn't. By now the sun was finally starting to shine and we also thought it best to get some food. We found a nice place to eat outside, one with a wide variety of menu items. This was the first time I've seen a place that charges slightly more for the food if you eat outside, but sitting outside is great for people watching, so outside we sat. I ordered pizza, which was good but not great. We had our one and only group photo taken here by the waitress. After paying our bill, we looked at the clock and felt it was time to head back to the train station. We only allowed ourselves less then four hours here in Toledo, as we wanted to get back to Madrid before dark. It would have been nice to have another hour there, as there was some train ride that took you on a tour around and outside the city.

The train to Madrid arrived on time, and we quickly zipped back to Madrid. From the train station, the next museum we wanted to visit, the one that was closed the day before, was a short walk away. This museum, the Paseo Del Arte Prado, I believe, had more modern artwork by artists such as Pablo Picasso. Specifically, we, or at least my sister-in-law, wanted to see his painting Guernica, a famous painting depicting WWII bombing of a city in Spain by the Germans. There was also a series of pictures taken during the painting, showing the progression of the artwork. I found that very interesting as well. We didn't want to spend too much time in this museum as there were other sites to see before dark. We next headed to the Royal Palace of Madrid. At first we thought it was closed because there were signs saying closed due to special event. But there was also a line forming at the entrance, so we got in line and tried to figure out what the line was for. Turns out the Palace was opening at 3:30, and also this day it was free to locals. We seemed to be the only non-locals in line, but there was no way they would deny our entrance.

Even better. We got in for free! The man asked us where we were from and my brother replied "America". Then he asked again and our response was "Europe". The man finally said "You are from England" and he smiled and let us in. I guess he liked us, because we did see other people paying for their tickets. Security was tight at the Palace. We had to have all our stuff put through a scanner just like an airport. We were lucky to get in so quick, however, we got stuck behind several large, slow moving tour groups. You have to follow a path that takes you through many overly decorated and large rooms. Once again, no photos allowed, and they were serious. Armed guards were watching you at times. Each room had a purpose and was uniquely decorated with furniture, paintings and carpet. There was a giant room who's purpose was a dressing room. Another room was for dining, with a table that could seat over 100 people. The next room had the silverware, made of real silver, and other serving ware. Once we got by the tour groups the rooms were less crowded.

We then explored a few more rooms in the Palace, one of which had violins made by Antonio Stradivari. Another room had very old and working clocks. This was a special exhibit at the Palace. The last room we saw contained lots of armor and armory. Since we had seen a similar exhibit in Vienna last year, we didn't spend too much time here. So we left the Palace and looked for a place to get some coffee. My throat was feeling much worse and some hot coffee sounded good. We stopped in at a chain restaurant called Pans. The drink did make me feel better, but I could tell my cold was getting worse. We left there and headed to another plaza, only to find a Christmas market being constructed. It looked as if it would be ready to open the next day, the day we left. So no Gluhwein for me this year, then again, that drink was in Vienna and Germany. We continued to wander the streets, eventually making our way back towards our hotel. Along the way we ended up at Sol plaza again, and now the Christmas tree was lit up. I snapped a few photos with the sunset in the background. Also, there were a lot more people out today than there were the day before, probably because it wasn't raining. This also meant that we needed to be slightly more concerned about pick-pockets.

Back at the hotel we took another pre-dinner break before heading back out. To our surprise, there was some big event going on near the theater, with news vans and lots of people. Interested, we crossed the street where there was a large screen. They were interviewer stars from Puss In Boots, but we couldn't tell if they were actually there or not. We saw them on the screen with the background looking like the walls that everyone was looking at, but we never actually saw any of the actors, even when we got closer. We later found out that they were there, including Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek. After this excitement we wandered the streets looking for a place to eat, eventually deciding on a buffet. Once again we were early, but that just meant more food for use. The food was pretty good, but most of it shoudld have been warmer. We knew if our sister was there she would be avoiding this food as food poisoning is always a risk if it isn't hot enough, but I'm happy to say we didn't get sick. The best food was the lasagna, which was also the hottest entree. Of course, the deserts were good, but also limited in choices. We left with full stomaches, and after more walking, we went back to the hotel to get ready for checking out the next day. I hopped I would wake up feeling better, because we had our eight hour bus ride and I didn't want to be coughing and what not all day long.

Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: Madrid, Spain Day 1

2011-12-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

I has happy that I slept pretty well this night. Usually it is the second night on an overseas trip where I wake up 20 times or at 1 AM and can't get back to sleep. We have yet another flight to catch and need to figure out what to do about the upcoming strike. We skip breakfast at the hotel and grab a taxi to the airport. This ride was very quick and cost only 10 Euros. My taxi driver from the airport must have taken the longest route possible. Now I know why the group of men in line before me didn't get into her cab but took the next one instead. Once at the airport we quickly checked-in. Our flight was on Iberia airlines, and after checking in we found the sales desk to ask about the strike. Now for some reason, no one in Portugal seemed to know anything about this strike. They all said "What are you talking about?". After looking at the computer, the agent finally admitted that our flight and all flights on the 24th were canceled. She said there was a flight on the 23rd that left Madrid at 3:30, but we didn't want to do that, because we'd have less than a day in Madrid and then would need to spend a day in Portugal during the strike when the transportation was all shut down. More thinking, mostly by my brother who was very concerned about our situation. We had time for breakfast at the airport, and I selected pancakes at McDonald's. Bad choice as they were very small and I was hungry a few hours later.

Our plane departed on time, and luckily it was a short flight because our seats had no leg room. My brother and I's legs were jammed against the seat back. When we landed in Madrid and got our bags, we checked again for an alternative way back. After a long wait we did book a return flight the next day, but really didn't want to use it. We also looked into renting a car one way, but that was going to cost at least 700 Euros! No way. Another cab ride to the hotel, which was about a 30 minute drive from the airport. We didn't get ripped-off, which was nice. Once in the hotel and check-in to our rooms, we asked the man at the front desk about ways to get to Lisbon, such as train or bus. He looked on the Internet and found a train, but it left too late or early. Then he found a bus that left on the 24th at noon and arrived in Lisbon at 7 PM. We ended up getting seats on this bus so now we had a way back and could enjoy our time in Madrid.

We started walking towards our first destination, one of the three main museums. Just like in Lisbon, most of the people walking had places to go and work to do, but as we approached the first museum the number of tourists increased. I believe we went to the Paseo Del Arte Museum first, where we bought tickets for all three museums. This museum was very large with lots of rooms, and no cameras allowed. The paintings were the usual ones, mostly religious, depicting Jesus as a baby or on the cross. We'd felt like we had seem them all before in other museums in other European cities. It would have taken all day to see all the artwork, so we didn't spend too much time in each room. When we started to run low on energy, we found our way to the cafeteria and had a light lunch. The food was surprisingly good and I was glad to get some water. All that walking made me dehydrated, and I'm used to drinking lots of water as many of you know. After lunch we made our way back to the coat check to get our coats, and then left for the next museum.

Turns out this one was closed on Tuesdays. So what next. Across the street we saw a big building that my brother said looked like a train station. And since we needed train tickets for our trip to Toledo the next day we walked over there. To our amazement, the station had a giant indoor tropical garden, compete with palm trees, ponds and lots of turtles. They kept it very humid with misters spraying water. After snapping some photos, we found where to buy our tickets, and ended up buying them right then. We also figured out where to catch the train, and also where the Metro station was in the train station, as we needed to take the Metro there from our hotel in the morning.

It was starting to get dark, and had rained while we were in the museum. After walking around some more we took the Metro back to our hotel for a pre-dinner break. For dinner I had already decided that we were going to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe since it was within walking distance of our hotel. This Hard Rock looked just like all the others and had the same food on the menu. I ordered a beer, of course, and a 10 ounce cheeseburger with onion rings. Yum! Our waitress was very nice, and the music and videos provided even more entertainment. Afterwards, we walked back to our hotel and then explored the pedestrian shopping zones near by. It was only 9:30, but the prostitutes were out in force. They were not trying to hide. There must have been 10 or more women in skimpy outfits standing in the middle of the walkway looking for business. It was funny that just around the corner there was a police station. I guess this activity is tolerated but not necessarily legal. I did not bring one of them back to the hotel just in case you wondered. It would have been like a scene from Pretty Woman.

We ended up in Sol Plaza, where there was a large metal Christmas Tree that was not lit up yet. In fact all the street were lined with Christmas lights that were not turned on. In past trips to Europe they seem to turn the lights on the day we leave. We took a different path back to the hotel, avoiding the ladies of the evening, and headed back to our rooms. Our train left at 8:10 in the morning, and we would have just enough time to get our free breakfast, which didn't start until 7:30. So after getting on the Internet, which was free in this hotel, the Best Western Hotel Atlantico, I went to bed sometime before midnight. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.

Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: Lisbon, Portugal.

2011-12-01T18:41:00.000-08:00

So my alarm goes off at 7:15 AM and I "jump" out of bed. I slept pretty well, considering the eight hour time difference. I was down in the lobby of the hotel by eight, where I sat and waited until by brother and his wife came down. I waited until 8:20 and then walked to the front desk and asked if they had checked in last night. The answer was "no". Great. They got stuck in London and I had no idea when they'd show up. So I was forced to pay the 20 Euro for one day's access to the Internet, as that was the only way I could contact them. Our phones don't work outside the US.

Back up in my room, I booted my laptop and logged into Facebook, and sure enough there were messages for me saying that their flight was canceled and they would be arriving in the morning around 11 AM. This was good news, but now I had three hours to kill until they showed up. So after eating breakfast at the hotel, which wasn't very good, especially for 10 Euros, I asked the people at the front desk where I could walk to for some photo opportunities. They gave me a map of the city and showed me two places near by, one was a museum, which was closed, and the other was a park that had good views on a clear day. It was not clear and had rained during the night.

I was now on my own, walking down the streets of a foreign city, trying not to look like a tourist, which was pretty hard since I was the only tourist. Everyone else on the streets was walking somewhere with a purpose - not looking at maps of taking photos. The area around the museum wasn't very interesting. A pond with ducks, some statues and a homeless man. Then I walked to a park, called the Eduardo VII Park. This place did have a great view towards the harbor, and even though it was cloudy, I was still able to get some good photos of the city. Plus, there were a few other tourists there, but not many. I did some more walking, and around 10:30 I decided I'd better head back to the hotel.

It took me exactly 30 minutes to get to the hotel, and I walked in right a 11 AM and there they were, my brother and his wife checking in at the front desk! They made it. After a short turnaround, we headed out, as there wasn't much time left to see the whole city. Our main destination was St. George's Castle, the biggest landmark in the city, sitting high on a hill near the harbor. Our first adventure was finding the metro station and buying tickets. Finding the station was easy - just a few blocks away. But I took longer to figure out where and how to buy a day-pass for the metro. The kiosks didn't have instructions in English. When we thought we got the passes, we tried to use them at the metro entrance and were rejected. Turns out we bought train passes. So we tried again and this time we got the correct tickets and proceeded to the metro. It took two metro lines and less than 10 minutes to get to the castle stop.

We spent some time wandering around this historic district of Lisbon. Down by the harbor we saw a cruise ship, so we knew there would be small crowd at the castle. We opted to walk up the steep streets leading to the castle, and even though it was cold, I got quite warm. Once we bought our tickets, we entered the castle and found a spot that had a great view of the city. I took many photos and even a short movie. Then when the Sun came out, I took more photos, this time with better light. Eventually we entered the main castle. There really isn't much to see in the castle, but what was fun was climbing all the stairs and exploring the various lookout posts, which provided ever better views of the city. One thing we noticed is that there weren't many safety rails in some places. You could walk across a walkway with no railing and if you fall it was a good 100 feet below. There were also many cats walking around, one of which was sleeping surrounded by bird feathers. He must have had a very filling lunch.

Eventually we realized that we needed lunch too. There was a small cafe where I bought a sandwich and water. We ate outside, where brightly colored, and very brave peacocks were looking for a free handout. This was a new experience for me. After lunch we continued to explore the castle, making our way to an archaeological site where they were excavating ancient ruins. Not much to see, really, so we walked around some more until we got tired of the castle and headed back down the hill. We took a different path down to explore the city, not getting lost, but not really knowing where we would end up.

We soon found ourselves near a church that looked ruined, one we saw from the castle. So our next goal was to get in this church. There was no direct route, so we walked up the street, up some steps and back down the next block before we found the entrance. It was only 3 Euros so we paid and went in. The courtyard was open, with arches above, and various statues along the walls. There was also a museum inside, which had some artifacts from the area, and a model of what the church used to look like. I believe the name of this church is The Carmo Church (or perhaps Convent).

After leaving the church, we wandered the increasingly crowded streets some more. It also began to rain some, but not too hard. We now were thinking about dinner, and knew there was a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere in Lisbon, but we had no idea where. I asked one man at a magazine booth and he just gave me a blank stare. None of the restaurants looked inviting, plus, we were in the tourist part of the city, and it was also early, way too early for the locals to eat. We decided to head back to the hotel, take a short break and find a place to eat there or nearby. It was getting dark, and we didn't want to get stuck in one of the "bad" parts of the town where there were "troublesome youths".

After a short break at the hotel, we looked for a place to eat there, and there wasn't. So we asked the nice woman at the front desk where eat, and she gave us directions to a Portuguese restaurant. Well, her directions were hard to follow, as are the streets and hard to read street names. It doesn't help that all three of us can't read without glasses, especially in the dark. We finally found our way and entered the restaurant. It was close to 8 PM and we were still the first ones there. We sat at our table and the waiter immediately brought us appetizers and bread. Well, in Europe they tend to do this and only charge you if you eat the food. So we left it alone.

Before eating, I needed a beer. So I asked about beer and my only choice as big or small. Okay, I'll take a big. I still don't know what the name of the beer was, and it wasn't much better than your typical fuzzy yellow American beer. However, he also brought us a free shot of Port wine, which is the wine Portugal is famous for. The wine was very sweet and had a different taste than most wines. On another day I would have bought a glass, but today it was just beer. We each ordered something different, I forget what I got, chicken I think, which came with vegetables and some kind of potato chips. The food was good, but nothing special. After a full day of walking, any food would have tasted good. After we finished, the waiter gave us a dessert menu and pointed to the specialties. I opted for the fruit and ice cream dessert and wasn't disappointed. It was huge, with lots of fruit and soft ice cream. However, after the ice cream melted, it became a big plate of brown goo. I had my fill and we were ready to leave when another waiter brought us a different Port wine to try - this one was a red wine. I didn't like it as much as the first. We got our bill and made sure we weren't overcharged, which we weren't.

The walk back to the hotel took half the time as we took the direct route, not the roundabout one to get there. Well, this was the end of our Lisbon trip. We had a flight to Madrid the next day, so we went to bed to get as much rest as possible. The one major concern we had was that the general strike that they had been talking about in Portugal was going to happen. The strike was on Thursday, the day we were traveling back from Madrid to Lisbon, and all airports were going to be shut down. We knew we had to find a way back to catch our flights home, but we'd worry about that the next day.

Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: Travel to Europe Day

2011-11-30T18:58:00.000-08:00

The title of this year's annual Thanksgiving vacation is "Planes, Trains, Buses, Taxis, and Metros". I think we spent more time traveling than we did "vacationing". However, some of the travel time was unexpected and out of our control. I'll get to that later. The main destination this year was Madrid, Spain, with a side trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Our plan was to spend one day in Lisbon and almost three days in Madrid. We made our travel plans and reservations earlier in the year. Me, my brother and his wife booked a round trip to Lisbon, and then a separate round trip from Lisbon to Madrid. This was actually easier than making a "triangle" trip from London to Lisbon to Madrid to London. Since my sister had been to Lisbon before, her side trip was to Belfast, Northern Ireland, meeting up with us in Madrid. Unfortunately, her work had other plans for her. A few weeks before the trip, she announced that she couldn't make the vacation because she had to travel elsewhere for work. That was a big disappointment for all of us, especially my sister. But sometimes you have to make these sacrifices, after all, we are all lucky we have a job right now.

For the first time, I had to travel alone to Europe. I booked my flights through American Airlines, and my brother and his wife used British Airways. I was scheduled to arrive is Lisbon about four hours before them. I was a little nervous about flying alone to a new country, but what I really didn't look forward to was not having anyone to talk to or watch my stuff while taking bathroom breaks. What made the trip better was that I was flying business class on all legs of the flight. This game me access to the Admirals Club in each airport - San Diego, Chicago and London.

So on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, my alarm went off and it was time to start my vacation. My flight didn't leave too early, so I didn't have to wake up too early. I got to the airport and checked in with time to spare. So I went to the Admirals Club and took advantage of their free wireless Internet access to read my e-mail and check in using Foursquare. My flight was on time and I boarded the plane for Chicago. Since this was a smaller plane, I was actually in first class. The bigger seats with more leg room were nice. The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Chicago on time. I had about a three hour layover, so I once again went to the club to relax and enjoy free Wi-Fi and snacks. As time got close, I headed to the gate to board the 767 to London Heathrow.

The seats in business class on a 767 have almost enough leg room for someone like me. If I put the seat in the "sleep" position I can almost stretch my legs, but not quite. Anyways, as soon as I was seated I was offered wine, water or champagne. I opted for champagne. About this time the man sitting next to me showed up. He had apparently been drinking lots of wine. I'm not going to say he was annoying or a jerk, because he was actually nice to me, but I was glad when he fell asleep two hours into the flight. I think he was German, based on his accent, and he admitted to me that he was going to drink wine until he slept. He basically yelled at a man for answering his cell phone while boarding, saying "I guess your cell phone call is more important than your son." Yes, the man with the phone did stop to answer it and in the process hit the guy next to me with his bag and held up other passengers, but... Then, after we took off, he kept taking to me and as I tried to read the USA Today, he was reading over my shoulder and kept commenting on the headlines, saying things like "there's the car - that BMW. Great car.". So after dinner when he fell asleep, for the entire flight, I was glad.

They really feed you well on trans-Atlantic fights in business class. I had plenty of food and beer. For movies, I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, which I had yet to see. It is hard to watch a movie on an airplane with some many distractions, so I can't say I really enjoyed the movie, but at least after watching it I was able to watch Part 2 - on the return flight. Once the lights on the plane were turned off, I did my best to sleep, knowing that in a few hours the lights would come back on and they would serve breakfast. I may have gotten about three hours of sleep, but that's the best you can hope for on a flight like this.

We arrived in London on time, however, we had a 30 minute delay landing due to fog. So we circled around until given clearance to land. Since I had a three hour layover, I wasn't worried about missing my connection. Once on the ground, I exited the plane and followed the signs to my connecting flight, which was on British Airways. Most of their flights leave from terminal 5, but the flight to Lisbon was from terminal 3, the one we landed at, making for a short walk. I still had to go through security again, and once though, I headed to the Admirals Club, where I took out my new netbook/laptop (this is the first time I've traveled with a computer) and let everyone on Facebook know I made it to London.

After a two hours, I left the lounge and headed to the main waiting area. At this airport, you don't know what gate your plane departs from until about an hour before. You have to look at the board to see what gate to head to, and depending on the gate, it may take 5 to 15 minutes to get there. As my departure time got closer I began to worry the flight was delayed, as many others were. Then the departure time kept getting later and later. Eventually I realized that my brother and his wife would be arriving soon. So I walked around until I saw them. They were surprised I was still there, as my flight should have already left. Turns out that the fog the delayed our landing was delaying all takeoffs. So after we sat for over an hour, they finally posted my gate. I was leaving three hours late. We arranged to meet in the lobby of the hotel at eight in the morning on Monday (somehow Saturday turned into Sunday by now). I headed quickly to the gate - just to wait another 30 minutes before boarding a bus that took us to the plane.

Once on the plane, the pilot announced that we would not leave for 50 more minutes! So we sat and waited. Now the flight was four hours late. Finally, around 8PM, we got clearance to leave and took off to Lisbon. The flight was bout 2 1/2 hours. This plane was an Airbus, and the business class section had more room that coach, plus I had a whole row to myself. We got a light dinner, and the flight was rather relaxing as I watched out the window at the city lights below.

We arrived in Lisbon on time. I was one of the first people off the plane, and although I had no connections to make, I was walking my usual fast pace. The walk down the hallways to customs took about 10 minutes. I got my passport stamped with a Portugal stamp, and headed to the baggage claim. My one small bag was there, so I grabbed it, found an ATM, got some Euros, and then found a cab. There was a warning about cabs in Lisbon. They said get a pre-paid one form the airport, but I couldn't find where to do this, so I just went out to the cab line and caught the first one. Well, this was a mistake. Apparently she wasn't an honest cab driver, and I was charged 36 Euros for trip to the hotel, which should have been only 10 Euros. So what can I do? I paid her and learned my lesson - check for a meter in the cab!

I had a minor problem checking into the hotel, since the room was in my sister's name and not mine, but eventually I worked this out and headed to my room for some much needed sleep. It was a Holiday Inn and the room was very nice. After a quick shower I crawled into bed and hoped for some sleep, as my alarm was set for 7:30 AM local time, which was who-knows-when Pacific Standard Time. My other worry was did my brother and his wife make their flight? I hoped so, but would know until the morning. So off to sleep I went - with the help of a extra strength nighttime Tylenol.

Blog Action Day - Healthy Foods

2011-10-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today is Blog Action Day 2011, and the topic is food. I suppose we should write about how lucky we are to have three meals a day while people all over the world are starving, but instead I'm writing a short post about my eating habits and how they can be improved. First off I have to say that I love eating and I'm always hungry. I'm also lucky enough to have a high metabolism, at least I'm told I do, so I don't gain wait. I also exercise regularly and try to eat healthy. However, I'm also very lazy when it comes to preparing my meals. I don't like to spend a lot of time. Therefor, I tend to eat pre-made, frozen meals with lots of unknown ingredients, sandwiches with processed lunch meat, and overall lots of carbohydrates. I try to eat more fruits and vegetables, but once again I'm lazy and only eat easy-to-eat fruit like bananas, which I'm getting tired of, and no matter how hard I try, I just don't like broccoli and other nutritious vegetables unless they are covered in cheese or some other kind of sauce. Plus I read more about people dying from eating contaminated fruits than meats or grains. I plan to live a long time, and I don't want a fruit or vegetable to be the cause of my death. So, in conclusion of this rambling post, I will try to eat less processed foods, breads and carbohydrates and more basic foods like fish, chicken and maybe even some leafy, green vegetables.

San Gorgonio Summit Hike

2011-07-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to say that I have stood on the peak of San Gorgonio Mountain. I've wanted to summit this mountain for over 15 years. It was about 15 years ago that I got into more serious hiking, and somehow I never had the opportunity to hike San Gorgonio until last year, when my friends and I attempted a summit via the Vivian Creek trail - and didn't quite make it. Even though we were totally exhausted after the hike last year, I knew I wanted to try to summit again. I'm not going to let a mountain get the better of me. So earlier this year I started planning another hike up San Gorgonio. I wanted the same crew, more or less, as last year to hike with me. So over the past few months we started practice hikes in the local San Diego mountains, mostly Iron Mountain, Mt. Woodson and one trip up Cuyamaca Peak. Well, as time passed my hiking partners started dropping out, for various reasons beyond their control. So it came down to just Lee and I.

My day hiking permit was for July 1st. Because I wanted to get an early start and not have to wake up too early, I got a hotel room in Redlands, the closest city with decent hotels, for the night before. So after work Lee and I drove up, checked into the hotel, had dinner and then it was bed time. The alarm went off nice and early at 5:30 AM. My original plan was to start hiking by 7 AM, but somewhere along the way I was convinced by one of my friends who ended up not going (sorry, Dan), that a 6 AM start was better. No matter how hard you try, everything takes longer in the morning than you expect. By the time we ate and left the hotel, we didn't get to the trail head until almost 8 AM.

When we pulled into the parking lot at Forest Falls, we were immediately attacked by swarms of bugs including blood-sucking mosquitoes. I didn't bother bringing any bug spray, because it never seems to work. So once we got all our hiking gear on, we set off. Even though it was later than I had hoped for, we still were starting about two hours earlier than the year before, when we drove up from San Diego the morning of the hike. The beginning of the hike was easier, because it wasn't detoured through the river bed like last year. We got to take the regular dirt trail, making the trip to the beginning of the Vivian Creek trail much easier and quicker. However, unlike last year, no big horn sheep sightings. In fact, we saw very little wildlife on the whole trip. Other than some chipmunks and birds, the sighting of a quail and her offspring was the only wildlife viewing highlight of the hike.

Since we had just done most of this hike the year before, we concentrated on getting to the summit, and not spending much time stopping to take pictures. We did make sure to stop every 60 to 90 minutes to eat some food and rest. The very beginning of the trail, as some of you may know, is VERY steep. However, this year I was mentally prepared. We actually made it up this section stopping only once, and that was to talk to a man that had already lost track of this wife and friend. He said his friend was behind him and his wife was ahead of him. We told him if we saw either of them we'd let them know that he was waiting for him.

Even though we were in no hurry, we made pretty good time. We arrived at the junction for Halfway Camp much faster than last year, and I still don't know why it's called "halfway". Halfway to what? Soon we caught up to the man's wife. I must admit she was more prepared than us, hiking gear-wise. She had a head-net to keep the bugs out and long pants and jacket. After talking to her, she thought that her friend was in front of her, not behind, and I'm not sure she knew where her husband was, but we told her that he was behind, waiting for the friend, who was described as "short". So once again, we told her that if we saw the friend we'd let her know that she was ahead of her hiking partners.

Continuing on the hike, we were passed by two very fast hikers who were very nice. We talked briefly, and as hiking goes, we later passed them as they rested and then later they passed us. As we approached High Creek, at about noon, we stopped for a break and since this was the last source of water, we used my water filter to refill our water for the final trek to the summit. Also, we ran into the "friend". She too was wearing head netting. And, like her hiking partners, was confused as to their location. She thought that they were both ahead of her, and we told her that they were behind her. She told us that they, plus two others, had permits to hike the John Muir trial in September, a three week trip. That sounded great, but they better work on their hiking-together skills. Lee was very nice and offered to filter water for her, and she accepted. Once we left the creek we wished her good luck, and that was the last we saw of her or her friends.

So this was the section of the trail that last year someone we met on the trail told us that it was 15 minutes up these switchbacks and then 45 minutes to the summit. Last year it took one hour to reach the "saddle" at the top of the switchbacks, and this year it took the same amount of time. The saddle is the spot last year where Lee and our friend Jim stopped, and the rest of us kept going. We took a break here, had some food (a very sweet and moist brownie for me), re-tied our boot laces, and then set out for the summit. It was about 1 PM, and my goal to reach the summit by 2 PM seemed optimistic.

Before long, the trail got really steep, and soon, like last year, we were stopping every few minutes to catch our breath. I had forgotten how difficult this section was. Eventually we reached the plateau that last year had the most snow. This year, even though there was record snowfall in these mountains, there was actually much less snow. In fact, we didn't have to hike through any snow at all. Also, the creeks seemed to be running lower. It was hot, so the snow must have melted quicker than last year, even though we were hiking about two weeks later than last year.

It seemed to take forever to get to the point where I stopped last year, but once there, the trail was all new to me. It wasn't long before we encountered the people who had passed us earlier as they descended from the summit. They let us know that we were very close. What's funny about the summit, is that you can't see it until you are almost there. You see peaks that look like a summit, but they are not. As we slowly continued on, I was really feeling the altitude. We were above 10,000 feet, and I had a slight headache and felt dizzy, despite drinking lots of water and taking aspirin. I also knew that we would reach the summit, thus giving me some summit-fever energy.

Soon we reached a trail junction. From here it was only .6 miles to the summit. We also met another hiker who had lost her friend. She was looking for a "fair-skinned" woman with a head bandanna. We told her we had seen no other women on the trail. So she shouted her friend's name (Crystal), after after the echo, she heard her friend respond. So she took off to the summit, leaving us slow, old men behind.

However, it wasn't long before we came to a crest, and for the first time the summit was in sight. We saw three people on the summit, which is basically a big pile of rocks. Within a few minutes were at the summit of San Gorgonio! Time to celebrate and take photos to prove that we were there. We arrived about 3:15, so that's about 7 hours of hiking, covering 8 miles. Just over 1 MPH average. That seems slow, but we did stop about 10 to 12 times along the way.

After eating more food, including a second brownie, I took many pictures of the view from the summit. It was a very clear and sunny day, but unfortunately there was quite a bit of smog and haze in the valleys below, limiting the view. I was glad that you could see Big Bear Lake, as well as a few other lakes, and of course, Mt. San Jacinto. I also took my usual 360 degree, narrated movie from the summit, making sure to not sound too tired. After about 20 minutes we were ready to head back down. Our goal was to get back to the car before dark, even though be both had head lamps.As expected, hiking down was much faster. We hiked almost non-stop back to High Creek. I did run out of water along the way, but I never got dehydrated. Overall, I think I drank 8 liters of water, so it's good that there was a water source, because there is no way I could have packed enough water for the hike.

At the creek, we filtered water, and I also put on a fresh pair of dry socks, applying new blister pads on two of my toes. After the stop we made good progress down the mountain, but now my knees were starting to hurt me, despite having the hiking poles. I knew the steep section at the end would be painful, but I'd deal with that later. I didn't want the rest of the trip to be un-fun, so I made a point to stop along the way and take some "funny" photos, which didn't turn out all that funny. I had Lee take a photo of me "stuck" trying to cross a fallen tree, but the photo didn't capture my facial expression very good, making it look like I was doing something "obscene" with the log. Oh well. Speaking of fallen trees, there seemed to be less this year, implying that some had been cleared since last year. There was only one tree that was semi-difficult to get around. On the way up I went under it, but on the way back I went over it which was much easier.

I was keeping on eye on the time and sun, trying to determine if we were ahead of last year of behind. It felt like there was less light than last year when we finally reached the San Gorgonio Wilderness sign, but we still didn't feel the need to get our lights out. From here the trail gets steep, and my knees were killing me. Literally! I hiked down slower than I did going up, but eventually when I reached the river bed, I got a standing ovation from Lee. Better than in 2007 when I got back down from summiting Mt. Whitney and I was told to "get in the car now!".

Even though the sun had set, there was enough light to see the trail. We crossed Mill Creek, I believe it is called, and then got to the dirt trail/road back to the car. Since we were tired, the trial seemed much longer than it did 12 hours earlier. Just like last year, we got back to the car with just enough daylight to see without using our head lamps, as there are not lights in the parking lot. After a quick change of shoes (man, it felt good to get those boots off) we got in the car and headed back into town for dinner. The night before after leaving Red Robin, I saw what looked like a sign for Five Guys Burgers and Fries. So that was our goal. As we got closer to the freeway, I thought I made a wrong turn, but by dumb luck, we ended up driving directly to the restaurant.

Neither of us had eaten here before, so this was new adventure. We both got the bacon cheese burger, and we shared the fries on the advice of the cashier who said they fries will server two people. I must have been hungry because I devoured the burger and fries in a mater of minutes. As it was approaching 10 PM, we left and headed home. The drive went by pretty quick, but we didn't get to my house until 11:30, and Lee still and to dive even further to get to his home. Just like any other long trip, I can't just get home and go to bed. I had to shower to remove the layers of dirt, sweat and sunscreen. Then I unpacked, checked my e-mail, and as promised, by me, I drank a cold beer in celebration of my accomplishment. I finally went to bed at 1 AM on Sunday, making it a 20 hour day.

I slept very well, and when I woke up I was a little sore, but my knees, muscles and joints felt much better. My biggest concert was all the bug bites on my lets and arms. Now, four days later, most of the bug bites have healed, and so have my muscles. In fact, I plan on going on a bike ride tomorrow after work. Having just bought a new bike, I plan on doing more biking than hiking the rest of this Summer.

Will I hike San Gorgonio again? Well, as of now, I'm not planning on it, but who knows how I'll feel next year. If I do hike it again, I'm going to be a follower, not a leader. I'm more than happy to let someone else plan and organize the hike.

Cuyamaca Peak Hike

2011-06-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to hike Cuyamaca Peak, which is located in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and the Cleveland National Forest, for many years. My friends and I are training for a hike up San Gorgonio on July 1st, and I thought Cuyamaca Peak would be a great training hike as well as an enjoyable day hike. Out of the five people who are planning to hike Gorgonio, only my friend Dan and I made this hike.

Looking at various maps and web sites, I saw that the easiest route up the mountain was the Lookout Fire Road from Paso Picacho campground. The round tip is about six miles (every site lists different distances, from 2.5 to 3.5 miles one way) but I wanted to extend the hike a little longer. So I found a route from LocalHikes which sounded interesting.

We arrived at the Paso Picahco campground around 9 AM and began hike by 9:15. We purchased a map of the park when we paid our $8 day use permit. Looking at this map, and comparing it to the one I had printed the day before, I noticed that the trail names from one map weren't on the other. So we decided just to start hiking on what seemed like the correct trail. The goal was to take Azalea Glen Trail to the Conejos Trail, which then connected to the Lookout Fire Road. The beginning of the hike was on a narrow trail with very tall vegetation on both sides. This made for a nice, cool hike, but when we caught up to a large group of slow hikers (mostly children), it took a little maneuvering to pass them.

Still not knowing the exact route to take, each time we came to a trail junction I'd take out the map to see where we were. Many of the trails we saw weren't on the map, so when in doubt we just kept on the same trail. I was pretty sure that the rail would intersect with Azalea Springs Fire Road. Along the way we talked to another group and they also weren't sure if they were on the right trail. They were just doing the "loop", but the hike was taking longer than they thought and their kids were getting tired. We both looked at the map, and using my cool new Casio Pathfinder watch, which has an altimeter, I saw we were at about 5100 feet elevation, so following the contour lines on the map I estimated our location, determined we were on the correct path, and continued to hike on.

At the beginning of the trail there was evidence that the trail had been recently closed, and we saw many trees that had fallen down across the trial had been recently cut, plus we could hear chain saws in the distance. The entire Cuyamaca park was almost completely devastated by the Cedar fire in 2003. You could see that almost all the tall trees were burnt, and all the new growth was smaller trees and bushes.

After hiking for about an hour, we made it to the fire road. From here, the trail was marked with signs and white chalk indicating which direction to go. The trail was closed to the north, but we knew we wanted to keep going southwest. Then we came across another trail junction. Looking at my map, it looked as if we should have kept going straight, but that trail looked closed, so we followed the white chalk arrows again, which led to a very muddy tail. Wearing good hiking boots prevented my feet from getting wet, but there was girl with the other group wearing sandals, and she wasn't very happy to be hiking through the mud.

Eventually we made it to the Lookout Fire Road. However, we never saw the Conejos trail I wanted to take. Unfortunately, the fire road was just that, a paved road. Not much fun for hiking, as the pavement is harder than dirt, and not very scenic. As we continued to hike, I saw a peak nearby, and wondered if that was Cuyamaca Peak. So I took out my cell phone and launched an application called BackCountry Navigator. I had installed the application the day before and downloaded a topographical map of the area onto my phone. The program allows you to use your phone's GPS to track your route using the maps offline (without a cell signal). Since I had never used this app before, I wasn't sure how to determine direction, so I didn't know where that peak was in relation to our position. I was a little concerned we were on the wrong path, especially since we couldn't see any other peak. I quickly gave up, turned off the phone, put the map away and proceeded up the road. (I located that peak on-line when I got home and found it was Stonewall Peak, which is actually on the east side of highway 79.)

When we finally saw other people hiking down the road, we figured we were going the right way. Then we could see the peak, or at least some towers and antennas. The road was quite steep, as it was designed for vehicles and not people. As we got higher the views got better, but I knew the best views would be from the top, where you could see 360 degrees and 100 miles on a clear day, and today was very clear, as least in the mountains. It was in the mid 70s, with a slight breeze. Perfect hiking weather.

The peak that at first looked really far away quickly got closer, and before we knew it, we were at the top! Well, actually I went ahead of Dan and reached what I thought was the peak, but after about five minutes of waiting for Dan, I realized that the trail just before the peak must have been the correct trail to take, and sure enough it was. So Dan reached the summit before me, not that we were in any kind of race.

There were only a few other people on the summit, including a couple that passed us along the way, and we overheard the woman saying something like "She's going through a divorce, so she probably has a gun.". Hmm - let's avoid them. Except they were the only ones at the top available to take a group photo of Dan and I, and there were both very nice.

From the summit, the views were amazing. Looking west, you couldn't quite see the Pacific Ocean because it was covered in June Gloom. Off to the North you could see many mountains, some covered with snow. Using a web site when I got home, it showed that San Jacinto and San Gorgonio were visible. Kind of cool that we could see the mountain we were going to be hiking the three weeks from so far away. Off to the east the mountains of the Anza-Borrego desert were visible, and finally looking south towards Mexico, there was lots of haze in the air, limiting the view making it the least picturesque direction.

After taking my fill of photos, and the standard 30 second, narrated movie, we headed down. When I hike, I'm usually oblivious to my surroundings. I tend to concentrate on the hike, taking time to look up and notice the scenery in the distance and not noticing what's just along the trial. My friend Dan tends to notice everything, such as flowers, plant, bugs and rattle snakes. Yes, if he hadn't said anything I might have stepped on the rattle snake laying in the middle of the road. It was about 10 feet away and just laying there, not coiled up. But as we stepped closer, he began to slither away, shaking his rattle to warn us, but quickly disappearing in to the brush. The snake was the biggest wildlife we saw. No dear, mountain lions (which is good) and not even a rabbit.

Once the snake was gone we continued hiking down. Up to this point I hadn't experience much pain in my muscles, knees or feet. But I could feel one toe starting to burn, like I was getting a blister. So we stopped so I could put on a blister pad. It made a big difference and my foot felt better, but just a few minutes later we came around a corner and there was the camp ground. I had to laugh at myself. If I had waited just two minutes I would not have needed to stop to put on the pad. The hike down was much quicker and neither of us knew how close to the camp we were.Also, we were hiking so fast we never even saw the trail we took to get to the fire road. Oh yeah, on the way up I finally did see the Conejos trail, but who knows what path we should have taken to get there. I read online that the trail was actually a "hodge-podge" of trails, which kind of makes since.

Back at the car, I looked at my watch and it was 2 PM. So we hiked for about 5 hours. I still not sure how far, but I estimated it was less than 8 miles. Still, a very good training hike. I must say, it felt good to take off my boots and put on comfortable shoes.

My plan for the day was to eat lunch on the way home and then once home, take an afternoon nap. However, since the hike took longer than expected, lunch at 3:00 became "lunner", and the nap became bed time. It was a good day, and when I woke up this morning, I still felt good and better yet my knees don't hurt and my leg muscles aren't too sore or tight. Maybe it will catch up to me tomorrow at work. Work - yuck!

Mission Hills Bike Ride

2011-05-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

On a beautiful Saturday morning in San Diego, I put my bike on my car's bike rack and drove to my friend's house to go for a casual bike ride with him and his girlfriend. Our plan was to ride to and explore the Mission Hills neighborhood of San Diego. I've never really spent much time in this area, but once we survived the non-bike-friendly streets of Hillcrest, mostly Washington Street, we arrived in a very nice, quaint neighborhood, with very nice houses that had plenty of curb appeal.

The styles and colors of the houses were very diverse. Some looked like small cottages, some were huge mansions, and some looked like a house you would see in Germany or some other European country. And the colors were blue, pink, yellow, green and every shade in between. Not only were the houses unique, but so were the streets. We explored many "Not a Through Street" streets and found ourselves biking down steep hills just to have to ride back up again. In these areas were houses built on steep canyons, some with views of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean.

After about an hour we decided to ride down Juan Street, the steep road that takes you in to Old Town. We got a little turned around (not lost), and I actually had to use my Android phone and Google Maps to find our way to the street. So we road down Juan Street, which is steep and narrow, but not as steep as I thought it would be. Once at the bottom we found that the roads into Old Town were closed to cars. But we could ride our bikes, and to our surprise, we found a Cinco de Mayo street fair celebration taking place. We had no idea, so this was a bonus. We just wanted some tacos.

We locked up our bikes and walked around, quickly finding a taco stand where we each bought one very delicious, and hot, taco. So after a taco you need a beer. We found that too, and drank a beer or two while watching all sorts of interesting people walk by. Then we headed back out to explore the festival. Along the way we watched a wrestling demonstration, which was very popular, based on the crowd, a lowrider car show, with lots of brightly painted, custom cars, and then some kind of equestrian event with women in bright, colorful dresses riding horses, side-saddle of course.

Knowing we had to ride back, we walked back to our bikes and headed home. I opted to ride my bike, not walk it, up Juan Street without stopping, which I did, but the two tacos and two beers sitting in my stomach made the ride more challenging. We took the most direct route back to our starting point, completing a very fun and physical bike ride.

Spring Training 2011

2011-03-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

I've been going to watch Spring Training baseball in the Phoenix area with my friends almost every year since '93, 1993 that is (inside joke). This year we had eight people along for the trip, six of us on the same flight from San Diego. We actually got to the airport earlier than normal, just to find the security line for Southwest about an hour long! By the time we got through security we only had time for one beer!

We arrived in Phoenix about on time, after a short flight where everyone got a free drink for St. Patrick's Day. Before checking into the hotel, we made a stop at the Tilted Kilt for some beer and food. This location was having a huge party out back, which cost $5 to enter, but for some reason, even at 10PM, the DJ was packing up his equipment. However, we got seated inside quickly and all had a nice meal.

We then checked into the hotel and got ready for our four-day adventure.

We had tickets for every day except the first day. We wanted to see (and did see) the Dodgers at San Fransisco in Scottsdale, and these tickets sell out very quick. So we had to buy them the old fashion way - from someone outside the stadium. Luckily the person who organizes the trip, Steve, is very good at buying good seats at a decent price, and he didn't let us down. Regular scalpers, and there are always tons of them, were asking $100 for lawn seats. We bought our tickets from a man who had extra tickets at face value, so for $30 a ticket the seats were pretty good.

The stadium was sold out, and they announced that there was a new attendance record, which still doesn't make since to me how you can keep having sell-outs AND break attendance records. Do they keep adding more seats?

After the game, which I really watch very little of, as usual, we jetted back to the hotel. Back when we were young, we'd go straight to the happy hour for our free drinks from 5:30 to 7:30. Now days most of us need a quick nap in between. A quick shower to wash off the sunscreen helps too.

On Saturday our game was in Peoria to see the Cubs at the Padres. Almost every year our trip coincides with the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament. With about 48 games played over the four days, there is always some good college basketball games to watch before and after the baseball game. But this year we had the Aztecs in the tournament, and they played Saturday at 3:40. So when we got to the park Saturday morning, we went to go watch the beginning of the UCLA game at McDuffy's across the street, just to find that it was gone, just like the one in Tempe. But luckily there was a sports bar next door that had beer, food and lots of TVs showing all the games. So we had some food, beer and even played checkers! I'm embarrassed to say that it had been so long since I had played checkers that I forgot how. But somehow I won the first game and lost the second.

As the baseball game start time approached, most of us left to go see the Padres play. We stayed through the end of the game and then returned to the bar to see the Aztecs win! Yes, the Aztecs finally won a NCAA game. Since this bar was near the Padres ballpark, there were lots of San Diego fans cheering for SDSU.

Saturday is our traditional night to get "dressed-up" and eat at a nice steakhouse. In years past, we went to a place called Fresher's. This year we tried a different place, the Stockyard. It was located in the middle of nowhere, near the airport, but was very crowded so apparently well known by the locals. Their food was good, I got the 12 oz Filet Mignon, medium well, and it was satisfying, but I guess I'm just not a big fan of steak, because I don't think the steak tastes better the more you pay for it. The highlight of the meal for me was the dessert, a root beer float with Jack Daniels. It was surprisingly good.

For Sunday we had planned a very full day. It started with waking up at 6 AM so we could get in a hike. In previous years, we had hiked Camelback mountain, alternating our hike up the east and west sides. This year we explored a new mountain, South Mountain, described at the largest urban park in the US, or something like that. I own an apology to the guys in the next room, because they wanted to hike also and due to poor planning they got left behind.

The nice part about this mountain was that is was easier to get to and there was plenty of parking. Also, the park was very large, I'd say 20 miles long and 5 miles wide. There were tons of trails, so you could spend your whole day hiking, or just hike for an hour or two. We took a trail that followed a ridge, which took us up some really steep trails. Unlike hikes in the past, it was not not. In fact, it was quite cold and in places the wind was blowing our hats off. I think we hiked for about 90 minutes before heading back to the hotel.

Our third game was at a new ballpark in Scottsdale to see the Rockies play the Angels. This park was actually on an Indian reservation, which made in convenient to go to a casino before the game. We had about an hour to lose money. I just played some video poker and slots, but wished I'd played the new roulette table. They now have automated roulette where the wheel spins automatically and you place your bets on a computer screen, taking the human and group-play element out of the game.

The new stadium is nice, like most of the new ballparks, but they need to work on better access and parking. We did get a good parking spot, and our seats were also good, as can be seen by the photo above. I believe this game was tied after 9 innings, so we left and went back to the hotel.

After the shower/nap/happy hour, we headed out to dinner, this time we went to a place we had not been to before, Four Peaks Brewing Company. They brewed their own beer, and I, of course drank the darkest Stout. For dinner I think I had a bacon cheeseburger.

After our meal, we made it too our second destination for the night - bowling! A quick shout-out to Rick, who was our designated driver for the trip. Just a few weeks before I ate at a place near home that had a bowling alley, and mentioned that it had been over 15 years since I had bowled, and I said I didn't need to ever bowl again. But even though I only scored 99 on my first game, I had tons of fun. In fact, we all had fun bowling.

After bowling, most of us went to another bar, where we stayed until 2AM, well past our bedtimes. But hey, we were on vacation, and this was our last night.

Waking up before 9AM on Monday was hard, but getting my free breakfast was important. Nothing better than a cook to order omelet. It's always nice when the cook remembers you and says see you next year. Pam has been working there for a long time, but she gave us a warning - wear a hat because the rain expected on Monday would be radioactive. OK, good advice.

It is always sad when we have to pack up and check out of the hotel. It means the fun is over. We had planned it well to have our last game in Tempe, to see the Angels play someone, at the ballpark closet to the hotel and airport. We arrived in plenty of time to hang out at the van and finish the ice cold beers, at least for those of us who could still drink after our bender of a weekend. The forecast was for cold and rain, and rainy and cold it was. The game wasn't canceled, so we went into the stadium, but since it was raining the whole time, I never even got to sit in our seast. We ended up leaving before the third inning, and drove back into town to have some food at Dave and Buster's.

After eating, and playing some games, we returned the van and checked-in at the airport. The line for security was very short, however, three of us got in the wrong line for scanning. Apparently they were training someone new, and our line moved VERY slowly. We still had plenty of time, ever more so since our flight was delayed 50 minutes. When we finally boarded the plane, after some time of sitting the pilot announce that we were waiting to be de-iced! Yes, in Phoenix. They explained that the plane had been on a long flight, and that caused the fuel to get cold, and since it was humid outside, the wing was icy. So another 20 minute of sitting. Then there was an incident that most people didn't notice, a passenger a few rows in front of us did something to cause the flight attendant to get in her face. So even after taxing away from the gate, we stopped and sat some more. Then they announce that we needed to return to a different gate to take care of a situation. Meanwhile, some man starting yelling something about voting to have that person kicked off the flight, and then another man yelled at him to stop yelling because nobody cared what he thought. When we finally reached the gate, a woman showed up (not an armed security) to escort the passenger off the plane, who was also a woman. This woman then began to yell at the flight attendant saying "why are you doing this to me? I didn't do anything wrong!". It wasn't until we finally landed in San Diego, two hours late, that we found out what happened. The woman who was kicked off kept complaining that she had a headache from the smell of exhaust fumes and had demanded that she be given oxygen. Like that was going to happen.

So we got our luggage, took the shuttle to the parking and I was home by 10:30 PM. Did I have a good time? Yes. Too good of a time. I worked for one day before getting sick and missing two days of work. Now, six days later, I'm still recovering from my cold, and yes, I can't wait until next year.

Mt. Woodson Snow Hike

2011-02-28T18:57:00.000-08:00

Six days after my last hike up Mt. Woodson I was once again hiking up the trail to the summit. This time the snow level was supposed to be down to 2000 feet, so I was hoping to actually see some snow on the trail. Around the halfway point, I started to see some snow, or frozen hail, in shady spots along the trail. But as I got higher, there was more "snow", even where it was exposed to the sun.

There were young people hiking the mountain faster than me, and I let them pass as I took some photos. Soon, they were throwing snowballs at each other.

As I got higher, the snow was on the trail, and I actually was glad I had my hiking boots and poles. Once I hit the pavement, there was a shady spot where the ice was slippery and I had to walk slow.

Once I made it to the top, where there were pine trees with melting snow dripping on me, I once again, like last week, headed to the east side where there were great views of the snow on the mountains to the east, like Cuyamaca and Luguna. I took a short movie that covered about 270 degrees of visibility.

Even though there was lots of snow at lower elevations, I believe that the snow level was lower in 2008, as can be seen in this link taken from Iron Mountain in Feb. 2008 - by me!

As I hiked back down from the summit, I felt really good about life in general. I was relaxed and not worried about anything - just enjoying the moment. I started the day at 8:30 AM, started hiking at 10:30, and got home at 2:30 PM. The hike took more or the entire day, but it was well worth it.

Mt. Woodson President's Day Hike

2011-02-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be a perfect day for a hike. The storm was over, the clouds had parted and the mountains were covered in snow. Assuming that Iron Mt. would be too busy due to the President's Day holiday, I chose to hike Mt. Woodson from Lake Poway for the first time since last June.

I arrived at the parking lot at 10 AM and was surprised to find it mostly empty. Seems that the local schools didn't have the day off, so there were fewer people out than I expected. Also, it was warmer than expected. Even though it may have been "only" 60 degrees, I didn't need a jacket, just my hiking pants and short sleeve shirt.

I might have started hiking too fast, because I quickly ran out of breath (as the expression goes), but that didn't slow me down. I passed everyone on the trail. Everyone including two ladies with three dogs (not on leashes), a father, son, grandfather trio, and a man with a mustache.

I wasn't in a hurry, so I stopped as often as I needed to take photos of the surrounding snow-covered mountains, blue lakes and green valleys. I did take a break at the "shady tree" to eat a protein bar, rest and stretch my leg muscles. While there a couple passed by and asked how much further to the top. I told them about 30 minutes, which later turned out to be way off, as I encountered them on my hike down as they were still headed up. They too had a dog, so they must have taken more breaks, or got lost because I never passed them again on the way up.

Once I got to the summit, I took a short detour down the other side just far enough so I could get a good view of the mountains in the east which also had lots of snow. I then took about a ten minute break to eat, adjust my boots, check-in on Foursquare and upload a photo to Facebook. It had taken me just over 90 minutes to hike to the top, but I knew I'd get back faster as I planned to not stop on the way down, and not stop I did. Along the way I encountered almost all the people who I passed on the way up, some were still hiking up, others must have turned around before summiting. There were also lots more people, most young people, hiking up as it was now afternoon.

I got back to my car about 1 PM, so the total hike time was three hours, just as I had estimated. I was prepared this time to not get blisters by putting blister pads on my toes before hiking. I was a little sore and tired, but nothing that an afternoon nap and good night's sleep can't cure. If it is not raining this weekend, another hike would be fun, and they expect the snow level to get even lower. How cool would it be to have it snow on me at the top of Mt. Woodson?

Iron Mountain Valentine's Day Hike

2011-02-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

I hadn't planned to take Valentine's Day off work, but due to contractual issues with the government, I was forced to take a day of vacation. So what better way to spend a day off than to climb Iron Mountain on a beautiful, clear, sunny day? I was surprised at the number of cars in the parking lot considering it was a work day. Also, for some reason, there quite a few school-aged children with their parents on the trails, so they most have taken some family time off. There was a mother hiking down with her two small kids and as the 4 year old boy saw me he said "Happy Valentine's Day and enjoy your hike." How nice! Apparently he was saying this to everyone on the trail. His mom seemed to tolerate it and his sister accused him of steeling that line from her.

Butterfly or alien in center.

Even though there were more hikers than I expected, there were a lot less than my last hike up. And to avoid the horrible blister I got on that hike five weeks ago (that are still healing), I put blister pads on before hiking. I didn't plan to hike very fast, but somehow made it up in 55 minutes.

Along the way I saw a poor women being helped down by two people. She twisted and sprained her ankle and was making very slow progress. In fact, I passed her on the way down, about 45 minutes later, and she had only made it maybe 1/8 of a mile! At that rate she'll be lucky to get down by sunset. Hope she is OK.

Looking East

Once I made it to the top I saw how crowded it was. There must have been 20 or more people, including a large group of what sounded like British citizens. After stretching, eating a snack and taking these photos, I headed down. My timing was bad because I left a few minutes after the large group of hikers left. So I had to pass them all on the way down, trying not to run them off the trail (they were all in their 50s or 60s).

Looking West

Speaking of trails, I noticed that the trail had been improved since my last hike. Many of rain-induced ruts were filled in with fresh dirt, making the trail much safer. As I neared the new trail junction, I saw about 15 people in bright red coveralls hiking up. I assumed they were headed up to do more trail improvements. And back at the new trail junction, there was a bright red truck that belonged to the California Department of Corrections. So they were low-risk prisoners performing services for what ever crime they committed. They were not wearing chains, so I assume they weren't from Arizona.

It was a good hike and I plan on another one soon, perhaps Mt. Woodson on President's Day?

2011 San Diego International Auto Show Photos.

2011-01-02T14:34:00.001-08:00

2011SD_AutoShow

2011 San Diego International Auto Show Photos. Much busier this year. Good sign that the economy is improving.

Star Trek Enterprise and Futurama Series 9

2010-12-22T14:36:00.000-08:00

Went to the local post office today to pick up a package I missed when it was delivered to my house. It contained two items I bought from Entertainment Earth. The Star Trek Movie Enterprise Vehicle, pictured above, I bought because it was on sale, 60% off. However, I thought I was buying the 2010 Hallmark Star Trek ornament, which looks exactly like this model, except this model is 10 times bigger! I'm still happy I bought it, but now I have to go find the ornament and hope the stores has not sold out.

I also bought the Futurama Series 9 figures, even though they were not on sale. I guess that's how they make their money, but I was going to buy the Bender and URL figures anyways. Now I just need to find space on my walls to display them.

Foursquare Cache on Phone

2010-12-19T18:09:00.000-08:00

FQ_Cache

I was exploring the files on my Android HTC EVO phone today and stumbled on a folder that contained thumbnail photos of over 300 people from the Foursquare application. My guess is these are all the people who had checked-in to the same place I had. So that means there are people out there with MY photo on their phone. Google does like to collect and save personal data.

Vienna Photos - Best Of

2010-12-09T20:45:00.001-08:00

Vienna 2010 Enhanced

Vienna 2010: Trip home via Frankfurt

2010-12-07T19:25:00.000-08:00


Me in snow at ruin.

Our flights out of Vienna weren’t until after noon, so we got to sleep in a little and not rush to the airport. We met in the lobby, except for my sister who wanted to get more sleep, and made one last walk to the café. Another two pastries and a coffee was my last meal in Vienna.

Back at the hotel I finished packing and we all met downstairs for you pre-arranged taxi ride. When we asked for taxi the night before, they were worried that the standard taxi car would not hold luggage for four people, especially Americans, who tend to over pack. We insisted that we didn’t have too much luggage, but since a van picked us up I guess they didn’t believe us. At least it was the same price and we had plenty of room.

We arrived at the airport over three hours before our fight left. My brother and his wife headed toward the British Airways check-in and my sister and I went to the United counter. It took almost no time to check in and get through security. We walked to the Star Alliance club, where we found a comfortable seat and grabbed from free food and more coffee. I was happy to find out that they provided free Wi-Fi Internet, so for the first time since I left San Francisco I was able to check my e-mail and Facebook accounts.


Frankfurt Dom

As our boarding time got near we headed to the gate and boarded the plane. I believe that we once again had to take a shuttle to our plane and then walk up the steps from the tarmac. I wasn’t dressed for the freezing temperatures, but it was a short walk between the shuttle and plane. On this leg we were in coach, and this plane had very little leg-room, but since the flight was only one hour it really didn’t matter. Even though it was a short flight they still served a sandwich and drink.

We arrived in Frankfurt on time and once off the plane we followed the signs to baggage claim. But once we reached the airport exit, we realized that we made a wrong turn. After walking around we retraced our path and found the door to the baggage claim that somehow we missed. We saw at least one other man do the same. At the baggage carousel our bags were waiting for us to pick them up.

Now we walked to the exit and got a taxi. It was about a 20-minute ride to the Westin hotel. Along the way we looked at possible sites to see later. Inside the warm hotel get got in line to check in, but apparently a woman with her husband had decided that they were more important than us and rudely cut in front of us. At the same time another man walked up to one of the hotel clerks who was busy with a customer and started demanding something. It was at this point that I realized that people in Frankfurt, at least at this hotel, were not as polite as they were in Vienna. So we just had to wait a little longer to get to our rooms.


Christmas Market From Dom

It was already 3 PM so we made a quick turn-around and headed outside into what became the coldest part of the trip. If fact it started to snow shortly after. Our first destination was the large cathedral that we saw on the drive there and I could also see from my hotel room window. However, once there, we saw that it was not that large and not very picture-worthy. So we continued our walk to find the Christmas market that was near-by. Yes, this was our fourth country and fourth Christmas market. As we walked along the crowed pedestrian shopping area, I spotted a church down the street. We walked there and even though we really never figured out the name (I think it is just called the Dom Cathedral) of this church, it was defiantly the biggest one around. Plus, as a bonus, it had a dome – and it was still open! We paid our 3 Euros and entered the door to the tower. It was starting to snow harder and the sun had already set, so I guess I felt the need to “run” up the steps so I could get some photos before it got too dark. I don’t know how many steps there were, but I’m sure there were more that the dome in Vienna. At this dome we were able to walk to the very top, where there was an outside walkway with 360-degree views of the city. I walked around, taking as many photos as possible, but since it was snowing and getting dark, most of my photos turned out hazy, but still captured the old city below and even the new skyscrapers that were all build after WWII. Much (or most) of Frankfurt was destroyed in the war, and this building was one of the few that survived.

Christmas Tree.

There were only two other people at the top crazy enough to be outside in this weather. After we had our fill of the view, we walked back down the narrow passageway, and I was surprised to find at least one person climbing up. Once outside, we walked back towards the Christmas market which was very busy, but then again it was a Friday night. Thanks to my sister for buying a cone of fries. Hot food was what we needed to keep going. We did have plan for the evening. My sister and arranged to meet the creator of a “my.flightmemory.com”, a web site she uses to track her airplane trips around the world. We need to be back at the hotel by 6:30 to meet him. So after exploring the market and listening to yet another local band (of singers) sign Christmas songs, we meandered back to the hotel. My sister kept in contact with Sam and when he said he was in the hotel she told him to look for her brother, the tallest person. So as soon as I stood up, a man looked at me and yes, it was Sam.

Sam was very nice had happy to meet us. He actually lived about an hour away from Frankfurt, so it was very nice of him to make the drive to hook up with us. We were relying on him to take us to a local German pub where we could drink some good dark beer. Outside the hotel he said we could either walk or take the subway. We decided to walk, not realizing how far the walk was. We had to walk to the other side of the river Main. The walk actually went rather quickly as we talked to Sam about his web site and Germany. Sam spoke perfect English and understood everything we said. Our destination was an area of Frankfurt known for its bars. This place had a name, but I don’t know what it is.


Snow at Pub

Once we arrived, we looked at the menus of some of the bars and walked into one that looked promising. Sam asked the bartender what dark beers they had, and I opted for a dark hefeweizen and my sister got a dark bock. We sat and talked as we drank our beers. It was rather quite as we were the only ones in the bar. Also, the bartender was smoking, and Sam was surprised because smoking is not allowed in any German bar or restaurant. After we finished our first beer, I made the decision to try a different bar. This may have been a bad choice because we at the next stop not only did they have less of a selection of beers, the employees and customers were smoking even more! So much for having smoke-free clothes to wear on the flight home. We asked for dark beer, and they basically told us to just to order beer, meaning drink whatever beer they had on tap. We did and the beer was pretty good.

Our next stop needed to be a place that served food. We looked at the menu outside a nearby place and all agreed that there was something on the menu we could eat. Once inside I was happy to see that this place was a very casual restaurant where you sit on a bench at a long table. Also there was no smoking and a man was playing German songs on his guitar, or some other instrument. For my meal I finally ordered the Schnitzel. I’m not sure if was veal, but it was breaded and fried, and included a local Frankfurt green sauce, which had a unique flavor.

After our meal, we were ready to go back to the hotel. Sam used his phone to find the nearest subway station, and it was far enough away that it would have been shorter to walk back. But with it being so cold, we just took a taxi for a 10 minute drive back. At the hotel we thanked Sam for meeting us and said goodbye, as he had a one hour drive back home in the snow.


Christmas Market

Once again, our flight the next day didn’t leave until after noon, so we were able to get more sleep. We met downstairs in the morning, checked out and took a taxi to the airport. This time the taxi, after asking us, took the autobahn to the airport. Sam had told us that all freeways in Germany are called autobahns, so the term does not mean a road with no speed limit. However, our taxi drive hit 160 kpm at one point, and we got to the airport much faster that the trip from the airport.

We checked in and made the usual trip to the Star Alliance club where we got food and coffee. Unfortunately, there was no free Internet. While we were waiting, we could see the runway and gates, and saw our place arrive and be blocked by another air plane that needed to be towed for some reason. Then our plane sat, apparently waiting for an open gate. Turns out that there was less than a 30-minute delay in our departure time. Once we boarded the plane and found our business-class seats (this time we had to pay to upgrade), we were served our champagne, just to wait some more. An unfortunate event took place near us that caused another 20-minute delay. A man didn’t quite make it to the lavatory before he got “sick” all over the floor. It took a long time before the situation was taken care of, but eventually we departed.

The flight was from Frankfurt to San Francisco, an estimated time of 11 ½ hours. This was an unusual day, as we left Frankfurt on a Saturday and arrived in San Francisco on Saturday. During the flight, I saw the sun set, rise and set again. The flight took the polar route, so we flew over Greenland and down through Canada. At the beginning of the flight we were fed dinner. During this time I watched another movie called “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale”. This movie, which I had never heard of before, starred Richard Gere, and was “A drama based on the true story of a college professor's bond with the abandoned dog he takes into his home” (via IMDb). If you have not watched this movie – you should. It is a very touching film which draws you in. It helps if you like dogs – and who doesn’t?


Cheers!

After the movie was over I listed to music on my iPod. As I started to get tired, I played my self-hypnosis CD “Confidence building”. Side “A” takes you though a self-hypnosis session, and side “B” is just some very relaxing music with soft, almost subliminal suggestions. After it was over I not only fell asleep, I slept for four to five hours! I didn’t wake up until they started serving breakfast, about on hour before landing. However, since it was 3 PM local time, it was actually lunch, once again making this an unusual flight.

We landed about 30 minutes early, despite leave late. This was my first time entering the US in the San Francisco airport, and the first time using my global entry pass that I was granted a few months before. With this pass, you can bypass the line for customs and just use a kiosk, where you look into a camera, answer some questions and get your fingerprints digitally scanned. We got though very quickly, but for some reason, it took over 30 minutes for our luggage to arrive, and by this time everyone on the plane had cleared customs. Once we got our luggage, we had to re-check it and then go through security again. So for this first time I got selected to go through the new x-ray scanner. I wasn’t worried about radiation and the who process took less than a minute.

With one leg left, we had almost two hours before our flight. So after taking the long way to the club, we eventually made it to the lounge and found a spot to relax, watch some college football, and read e-mail. Our plane departed on time and this time we had first-class seats for the 90-minute flight to San Diego. Before long we landed in San Diego, departed the plane and walked to the shuttle pick-up area. I said goodbye to my sister, who was leaving for American Samoa in a few days.

Karen in Dom with Snow

I had another bad experience on the shuttle to the parking lot, as the driver let too many people on the bus and was rude to the many who wasn’t happy about the driving putting someone’s luggage on his backpack containing his computer. At the parking lot, I quickly exited the bus rather than waiting for it to take me to my car. I got home by 10 PM, but as usual, as tired as I was, I could not just go to bed. I had to unpack, take a shower, turn on my computer and check e-mail and then relax in front of the TV.

Around 11 PM I “hit the hay” and slept in Sunday morning, knowing that this was my only day to sleep in before returning to work. On Sunday I just relaxed, watched football, took a long jet-lagged nap, relaxed some more and then went to bed with the alarm set for 6 AM.

This was a whirlwind of a trip four countries in eight days. I’m glad I took so many photos so I could remember what I saw and did. So what is our destination next year? Perhaps the Maldives, a small island nation off the southwest coast of India. Now that will be a long journey.

Vienna 2010: Thanksgiving Day

2010-12-06T20:17:00.000-08:00


Palace Gardens

For the fifth year in a row I celebrated Thanksgiving in a foreign country, where they, of course, do not celebrate the holiday. If you watch BBC or CNN International they’ll talk briefly about Thanksgiving, but mostly in conjunction with it being the day before the biggest shopping day of the year in America. Our goal today, other than see the rest of the sites we wanted to see around Vienna, was to have a nice dinner for Thanksgiving.

We had a few specific plans for they day, but none that required us to wake up really early, but as usual, we wanted to get an early start to maximize the daylight. So we met in the lobby at 8 AM and rather than going straight to the café, I wanted to see the gardens and Gloriette at the Schönbrunn Palace. We made the short walk and found the entrance to the gardens, which were free, and at this time in the morning, cold and not very crowded. About the only people there were joggers and a few other tourist. We wandered around the gardens where there were a few statues to look at before we started the climb up the hill towards the Gloriette, which sat at the top of the hill behind the palace. The sun was out so it was a good time to snap a few photos.


Us above Palace

Before we entered the gardens we were going to eat at the café in the palace, but it didn’t open until 9:30. We were surprised to find that there was a café in the Gloriette, but when we walked in we saw that they had a very slim choice of pastries, and even though we were hungry, we decided just to wait for breakfast and head back to our usual café. So we walked back down the hill, noticing a few very bushy squirrels that wouldn’t stand still long enough for a photo.

Back at the café we had our pastries and coffee. From there we planned to take the U-Bahn to a site (I forget what site) outside the city, but before we boarded the subway we realized that it was closed. So our backup plan was to go to the Vienna Opera house. Once there we were “accosted” by men dressed up in “opera” outfits trying to get us to buy tickets for the opera. We told them that we had no time to see an opera but wanted to tour the opera house. They were very nice and told us that the tours started at 2 PM and tickets went on sale shortly before then. This gave us time see some more sites.


Piano

I think it was my brother that suggested going to the Ephesus Museum, which included the Collection of Arms and Armor and Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments. Include was an audio device that you could enter the number listed on each exhibit and hear a story about it. For some of the instruments, you could also listen to a short audio of it being played.

Most of instruments in this museum were very rare; some were one of a kind. There were all sorts of very early pianos, the most interesting one called a harmonium, I think. The most striking feature of this piano was that there was a different tone for B# and Cb, and E# and Fb. I would have loved to play this piano, but of course the keyboard was protected by a Plexiglas cover and there were the usual swarms of museum personal watching everyone. I didn’t realize until I was almost finished looking at the instruments that you could take non-flash photos. So I only have a few photos of the exhibits.


Armor

They next section of the museum consisted of old arms and armor, the kind used in jousting and other such battles. I was less interested in these artifacts, as I am not into arms and armor, but it was still fun to see all the exhibits, some of which were very rare. There were more swords and armor to see than musical instruments, and I think we all got tired and were ready to leave.

We still had time to grab a quick lunch before heading back to the opera house, so we ordered some pizza to go, except we ate it in the restaurant, which may have been against the local customs. When we were in Rome, I remember that if you order food and drinks in a café, you pay extra if you sit at a table, as the locals ate their food at the counter and then left. Either way, I’m sure they knew we were tourist and didn’t kick us out.

It was time to walk back to the opera house, or maybe we took the subway – I forget. Wait, we did take the subway and actually got back too early. Now I remember that we ate the pizza on our first day, and today we had our lunch down in the subway station tunnel, where there were lots of shops and palaces to eat. After lunch we walked back to the opera house and found it was already open and there was a line to buy tickets. Luckily the line went quick, and once we bought our tickets we walked to the section labeled “English”. There was at least a hundred people or more waiting for the tour, lined up in their native language section. There were so many in the English section that they stated that tour early. We were in the second English tour.


Opera House in Vienna

Our tour guide was a very nice woman who spoke very good English. As she led us to our first stop, I was wondering how they were going to handle up to eight different groups at once, but they had a semi-efficient plan where each group took a different path through the opera house, except where sometimes two or even three groups ended up in the same room and once. Photos were allowed, but some of the rooms were too large to photograph, so most of my photos ended up in the “reject” folder on my computer. Our group was lucky, our last stop was the actual opera house, where we sat in the prime seats for an explanation of the opera. We were told that they never play the same opera two nights in a row, so they have to change the set every single day. In fact, we saw the workers building the set for this night’s opera.

The price of the seats for an opera varied from very expensive to very cheap. The cheap seats were actually standing room only, but for just three Euros, I believe, was a great deal. Kind of like getting the lawn seats at Petco Park for a Padre game.

As expected, like in an episode of The Simpson's, the tour ended in the gift shop. We quickly exited the shop, but since the tickets included entrance to the opera museum, we decide to check it out, despite having a hard time finding it – as did others. It provided a few good photos, and there were pictures of all the famous singers that performed at the opera, none of which I knew except for Pavarotti.


Christmas Lights in Vienna

It was now starting to get dark. That meant it was time to head back to the shopping pedestrian zone to see all the Christmas lights turned on. I was disappointed at first to see many of the light not on, but as we continued along, I was happy to see that the lights strung above the street were shining brightly. Even thought it was difficult to take good photographs of the lights, I was satisfied to see them in person. I’ve loved lights, especially Christmas light since I was a kid, and even at the age of 44 seeing these decorations brought back happy childhood memories.

So now it was time to find a restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a book that suggested good placed to eat, but find these places proved difficult to find. Finally, after much walking around in neighborhoods that we had not been to before, we found a restaurant that had a menu that we all agreed we liked. The downside was that smoking was allowed. Austria still allowed smoking in some bars and restaurants, but we were not going to let that stop us. My Thanksgiving dinner was pasta with larger chucks of turkey. It was one of the best meals I had on the trip so far. Add to the meal a local beer and the Thanksgiving experience was complete. The smoking wasn’t too bad, but apparently most people wait until after eating to smoke, and somehow everyone finished eating at once. This meant that what ever clothes we were wearing would not be worn again on this trip.


Thanksgiving Dinner 2010

After dinner we walked around a little more along the way to the subway. Once one the subway we were quickly back at our hotel. This was our last night in Vienna, and the next day, Friday, we were flying to our next destination. My sister and I were headed to Frankfurt, and my brother and his wife were off to London. We arranged for a taxi ride to the airport the next morning, even thought our flights left one hour apart. Back in my room I packed all my dirty and smoky clothes in my checked luggage and all my clean clothes in my carry-on bag. I quickly fell asleep after a long day of walking and was ready for the trip home via Frankfurt, Germany.

Vienna 2010: Bratislava Day Trip

2010-12-03T21:46:00.000-08:00

We had planned a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia back when we decided to go to Vienna. Bratislava is only a one hour train ride away from Vienna. But since daylight was an issue, we wanted to get an early start. So we met up in the lobby of the hotel at 7 AM and made our daily trek down the street to the café for pastries and coffee. There was a subway station near the café, and we bought a two day pass, knowing that we would be using the subway for the next two days.

So looking at the map of the subway and where the train station was that we needed to get to for the ride to Bratislava, we determined that it was rather simple to take two lines to get to the train station. However, at the second stop, we looked at the map and thought that the train station was within walking distance. So we took the stairs up to the streets and quickly found ourselves lost amongst a construction zone. We saw the train tracks, but no train station. Eventually we asked a construction worker where the train station was but he did not speak English nor did he know where the station was even after looking at a map. So we retraced our steps and got back to the U-Bahn. Once there we followed the signs that led us to our stop and soon realized that we needed to take the S-Bahn (Stadtschnellbahn" (meaning "urban rapid railway")).

Lucky the subways and trains come at least every five minutes, and when the S-Bahn arrived our stop was just one stop away. This time we saw the train station and quickly walked there and bought four round-trip tickets to Bratislava. The train was leaving in 10 minutes so we didn’t have long to wait. Once on the train we found some nice comfortable seats. There were plenty of open seats as the train was not crowded at all. The trip to Bratislava took about an hour. This was the express train, which did not stop at all stations, but we did stop several times to allow other trains to pass by on the shared tracks.

We arrived in Bratislava around 11 AM, I believe, and once we left the train station we knew that the city center was a short 15 minute walk away, mostly down hill since we were waling towards a river. Our first unusual experience in Slovakia was a mentally disturbed man who was walking along and yelling and spitting on the ground. We purposely walked fast to avoid him. Soon we found our first stop, a bright-white palace. At this time the weather was cold but the sun was out. After taking a few photos we continued towards the city-center. The night before, my sister-in-law had mapped-out a few sites to see, so we at least had a destination – the oldest street in Bratislava. Along the way, there were many interesting buildings to see.

Our first destination was “the oldest street in Bratislava”. Now that may not sound too interesting, but just the journey of trying to find the street turned into an adventure. We found the general area, and the streets defiantly looked old, but we never know for sure which was the actual oldest street. Along the way we took many photos, and in some cases had people walking by looking at us strangely.

Our next stop was a castle on a hill. Reading up on the site, we knew it was under construction and not open, but still worth visiting. The castle sat atop a hill, so we walked up steep streets to reach it. Once there, the views of the city were spectacular. We could see the river below, the “UFO” tower and the brightly painted Soviet-style buildings across the river. Once again, these sites would have looked much better in the sunlight, but it was actually starting to get colder and darker. We ended up in souvenir shop where I bought my standard magnate to add to my collection on my refrigerator.

It was lunch time and we were all hungry. So we walked back down to the historic city center and looked for a place to eat. We wanted to eat at a restaurant that served local food, but somehow ended up at an Irish Pub. As it turned out, the food here was excellent! The meal was much better than the one in Budapest, and even the local beer was slightly better.

When we left the restaurant we realized that the weather was becoming dark and cold. We once again ended up in a Christmas market, when it started to rain. We all had umbrellas, which kept us dry but not necessarily warm. It was starting to get dark, so we knew we had limited daylight. We found an information center where we finally got a local map. Reading the local guild book we had, we knew there was one more site to see – the blue church. There were actually signs that were labeled “Blue Church” that we followed and soon found the church that was very indeed, painted blue. We took many photographs of the church and its blue paint, and even though the church was closed, the front doors were open and inside we saw that it was just as blue and took more photos.

At this point we knew we had seen all that we needed to see. So we headed back to the train station. The rain stopped and we put away our umbrellas, but it was still cold. The walk back to the train station was all uphill, which wasn’t that steep, but after days of walking made our legs feel quite tired. Once at the station we found that we had just missed a train, and had to wait for over an hour for the next one. Surprising, the wait went by rather quickly, and when our train arrived it was on track #1, so we were able to walk to the train directly from the first floor of the station. We had expected that the train would be busier since it was “rush hour”, but once again there were plenty of open seats. The train left right on time, and like before, we had our tickets checked twice.

The train seemed to make less stops on the way back, and we arrived in Vienna in less than one hour. Now that we knew the how to get back to our hotel, the trip took less time. Take the A-Bahn to the U-Bahn, two stops and transfer to another line and pretty soon we were at our hotel. Having eaten a hardy lunch, we didn’t need a dinner. So our plan was to meet down in the lobby at 8 AM the next morning. This allowed us time to sleep in – somewhat. I was surprised at how tired I was and found myself falling asleep by 8:30. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving day, and we had no specific plans other than to see sites we had not yet seen and have nice Thanksgiving meal.

Vienna 2010: Budapest Day Trip

2010-12-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

Two days before we verified that the trip to Budapest was still on. If there weren’t enough people signed up then the company could cancel. We were told that the shuttle would pick us up at our hotel, and that we needed to be at the Opera House meeting point by 7:30, but we were not told when the shuttle would arrive. We assumed that 6:30 was early enough, so we planned to meet in the lobby then. However, at 6:15 my phone rang and it was my sister telling me that the shuttle driver was downstairs waiting for us. Luckily I was ready to go, since I had been up for 90 minutes. I ran downstairs to make sure the drive didn’t leave without us.

Once we were all ready, we boarded the shuttle, which made one more stop to pick up more passengers before we got to the tour bus. We arrived in plenty of time and the bus left once everyone was on board. There were about 20 people on this tour, which isn’t a lot unless you consider that it was a Tuesday during the off-season. The tour guide was a nice woman who apparently spoke English, Hungarian, Spanish and German. All but two of the passengers spoke English, so had to repeat everything in Spanish. There was one man from Russia that didn’t speak English very well, but his wife ( I assume it was his wife ) translated for him.

The bus ride to Budapest takes about two hours, and during that time the guide spoke about Budapest and Hungary. Once again it was information overload. I’d say that the two most important facts I remember is that Budapest is made up of two cities, Buda and Pest, and Pest is pronounced “Pesht”. Plus, once we arrived she pointed out that the Buda side was on a hill and the Pest side was completely flat. They were separated by a river Duna (or Danube). During the ride she also played a DVD about Hungary, which she called a “special surprise”, but we had read the reviews of this trip, all of which were positive, so we knew about the DVD. Many of the passengers either slept or listened to their iPods during this video.

I enjoyed the ride. It was nice to just relax and look out the window at the countryside. There were lots of farms, many with power-generating windmills, and small towns with small houses sitting amongst the green hills. I tried to take some photos out the window, but most turned out blurry. Once we arrived in Budapest the guide once again pointed out sites of significance. In some cases, she repeated herself two and even three times. Our first stop was, well, even after being told three or four time, I can’t remember the name, but there was memorial, music house and perhaps a museum. As we drove through the center of Budapest the guide kept pointing out buildings that you could only see briefly if you looked down “the next street to the right”. Not much opportunity for photos.

At our first stop we immediately headed to the bathrooms. The bus had a bathroom, but it was very small like in an airplane, so I opted to wait. We only had about 15 minutes to walk around, so I took as many photos as I could of the buildings. Unfortunately, it was once again cloudy, with the sun poking out from behind the clouds occasionally. Lots of the buildings in this city were brightly painted and would have looked better with more sunlight. After our 15 minutes everyone boarded the bus for our next stop – lunch!

We crossed the river again and drove up a hill where the bus had to stop because large buses are not allowed to drive on the top of this hill because there are cave underneath and the buses could shake the ground and cause a collapse, I guess. So we walked five minutes to the designated restaurant for the lunch that we pre-paid for on the bus ride there. We had a choice of the standard Hungarian meal or a vegetarian substitute. Most people got the standard meal, which included Goulash soup, chicken with rice and a desert. My sister and I had a Hungarian beer because our goal was to have a local beer in each of the four countries. The beer was just another yellow fizzy beer, not much better than Budweiser. Overall I was not impressed with the food, and the family that skipped the lunch had the right idea.

After lunch the next leg of the trip was a one-hour walking tour of the area with a local guide. She led us around the streets, once again pointing out site of interest and also allowing us time to take photos. We ended up at a place that had a great view of the river and city below. There are quite a few very large and uniquely designed buildings, none of which we got to see up close or go inside, but were able to take photos of. At this point I think we all realized that it might be worth a return trip to stay a few days in Budapest. There is a lot to see and our time was limited on this trip.

After the walking tour ended, we got on the bus and continued the bus tour of Budapest. We drove back over the river to the Pest side, drove by more buildings, including the second largest Synagogue in the world. Who know that the second largest Synagogue would be in Hungary? The area we drove around was pretty near where we were dropped off for our two hours of free time, so we had an opportunity to explore some of these sites later.

Around 3:30 in the afternoon we were dropped off and given two hours to explore the city. The guild was pushing everyone to check out the Christmas market and the Café next door. With the sun setting fast, I did my best to get us to some sites before it got too dark for photos. We headed for the nearest Cathedral, or in this case a Basilica, which I can’t remember the name of, because they always make for good photos and have a climbable tower. I believe this one had a tower, but like most places in Budapest, they only took the local currency and not Euros. We could have exchanged some of our Euros, but decided it wasn’t worth it. So walked into the Basilica where I took my token photo of the pipe from the pipe organ. As we walked around we found the room that contained a mummified hand that belonged to someone. While we were looking, someone paid the 2 Euros to have the small case lit up. I snapped a few photos not realizing yet that someone had just paid for this, but I’m sure they didn’t mind.

Once outside the church, we looked at our map to see what else we could visit before we needed to head back. We walked down the street to the Opera House, but it was a rather boring building, so we started our walk back to the Christmas market. Along the way we took an underground tunnel where there was a train museum, but they didn’t take Euros so we skipped that site too.

Back at the market, we walked around some, but this market was not as good as the one in Vienna. They were selling more “made in China” merchandise and less homemade crafts. There was also a band playing what I assume was Hungarian Christmas music so we listened to them for a few minutes. It was starting to get very cold, and about that time a man that was on our bus walked by and said the café did serve good coffee, plus it was warm. So we went in and eventually ordered some coffee or cappuccino. We were getting short on time so we paid the bill and walked back to the bus. By now it was getting dark and many of the buildings along river are lit up very brightly at night, which provided great photo opportunities.

We then boarded the bus, which was comfortably warm. Everyone made it back on time except for the family with the rather well behaved son, who they must have taken 100 photos of. Once they made it to the bus, we headed out. The guide continued her commentary until we were outside the city. She promised that she would talk less on the way home, which she did. Since it was dark outside there wasn’t much to see. Luckily I brought my iPod and listened to music. I even fell asleep for at most five minutes, but that was long enough to give me a second wind. The ride seemed to take forever, but soon I recognized the Vienna airport, so I knew we were just 30 minutes away. The bus dropped a few passengers off before returning to the Opera House. Once there we boarded the smaller shuttle which took us to our hotel.

Even though it had been a long day, we were hungry and needed some food. So off to Wienerwald we went. I ordered the same beer and food as before and we had the same waitress. As I said before, the people in Vienna are very nice, but the people who worked in customer service were also very professional and took their job seriously. There was no small talk, just take the order and serve the food, but in a friendly way.

We got back to the hotel near 10 PM. Having been awake since 5 AM, it had been a very long but fulfilling day. I knew I would sleep well, even though we had another semi-early wake up time. Wednesday was our day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. We wanted to maximize our time in the daylight, so we planned on a 7 AM meeting time in the lobby. Once I was in bed, I fell asleep quickly and into dreamland I went.

Vienna 2010: First Full Day

2010-12-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

Me In Vienna.

By 7 AM I was already awake, having not slept too well I woke up around six and just laid in bed for an hour. After figuring out how to use the coffee maker, which was nothing more than a water boiler that boiled water in about one minute and instant coffee, I got dressed for a cold day in Vienna. I was down in the lobby before our meeting time of 8 and was happy to see my brother and his wife made it to Vienna. Once my sister arrived we walked to the café down the street. I wish I would have written the name of this café down, but I didn’t, so for now on it is just “the café”.

Today was the day we had tickets for the hop-on-hop off bus tour. This is a great way to see all of a city in one day and spend more time some of sites along the way. There were a total of three lines, red, green and blue, which stopped at 15 different locations, and each location had for to eight sites to see. The first bus arrived at 10 AM at the Schönbrunn Palace, so we had time to visit the palace before the bus arrived. So we walked back to the palace and bought tickets for a self-guided audio tour. The tour took you through about 40 of the 400 rooms of the palace, and in each room you could listen to a description of the room and learn about the history of Austria and the palace in general. Unfortunately, the audio recording could not be fast-forwarded, so you were forced to hear the whole speech before proceeding to the next room. This leads to information overload. The most interesting fact I learned was that at one time Elisabeth of Bavaria, the Empress of Austria lived there. Her nickname was Sisi, and she had a reputation for always complaining, and that is where the term “sissy” comes from.

Buildings in Vienna.

After the tour we walked to the bus stop. The bus arrived on time and I handed the voucher to the man by the door that was smoking a cigarette. He looked at it and let us on the bus, which was almost empty. Some of the seats had headphones, so we (my sister) grabbed one each, assuming they weren’t going to had out any more - which they didn't. Between stops you can listen to the audio, which describes the significant buildings and sites we passed by. We decided to make our first stop at Heroes’ Square, where we visited the Treasury. First a disclaimer, I’m trying to remember what we saw each day using my memory, maps and the Internet. I may sometimes not have the correct name or place due to poor memory from the long trip there, lack of sleep and the nine hour time difference (or old age). So anyways, this museum contains “a unique panorama covering over a millennium of European history. This is the home of the most important collection of medieval royal objects: the insignia and jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, including the Imperial Crown and the Holy Lance.” Like most museums, no photos were allowed, but you can see the jewels on the site’s web page.

After seeing all we wanted to see, we ventured back outside and wandered around some more. Our next stop was the stables, where they keep the horses that pull the carriages. There wasn’t much to see here except some nice white horses sticking their heads out of the stable, but my sister wanted to get some photos for a friend who really likes horses. Continuing our walking, we found some Roman ruins, including a city wall! It is important to always find the Roman city wall in any European city.

White Horses in Vienna.

We were going to get back on the bus to go to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, but looking at the map we realized it was just a short walk away, and we were in the city center where there is lots to see. As we got closer to the Cathedral, we entered a very busy pedestrian shopping zone that was decorated with all sorts of lights above the street, but since it was day the lights were not off. At this point I knew I needed to come back after dark to see the lights turned on. That would have to wait until Thursday. Once we got to the Cathedral we walked in. Like most Cathedrals, it is open and free, but also an active church, so you need to be quiet and respect the people who are there to do whatever one does in a church during the day. I snapped a few photos, without a flash, but it was dark inside and they didn’t turn out too well. I did get a good photo of the pipes (not pictured) from the pipe organ and unfortunately the organ was not playing. In fact, in all the cathedrals we visited there was no music playing.

The "Golden Cabbage".

Our goal was to climb the tower, as every major cathedral has a tower to climb. We found the entrance outside and paid our three Euros for the privilege to climb 350 stairs up a narrow passageway with sticky walls. Well, the climb is always worth is because at the top, or in this case the middle, since the stairs to the very top (500+ steps) were not open, the view of the city is spectacular. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy and hazy outside, but there was still a great 360 degree view of Vienna, and you could see other churches and other sites all over the city.

Cathedral in Vienna.

We then walked back down, washed our hands with handy-wipes, and then set out for some lunch. We ended up at a pizza place and each had a large slice of pizza. This provided energy for the rest of the day. We walked around some more and then went back to catch the bus. Since the next bus wasn’t due for 15 more minutes, we decided to walk back to where we got off the bus earlier so we could see the other stop along the tour. Once the bus showed up we walked on and this time when I gave the drive my voucher he actually took the time to look at it and give us four tickets. Also, this bus was larger and had a second deck where we sat and put on our headphone.

We were on the red line once again, and when we arrived at the Opera House stop, which was the main stop of the tour, the bus “turned into” the blue line, which was the bus we wanted to see the rest of the stops. The blue line tour took one hour, returning to the Opera House. It was starting to get dark outside, and as we drove around I did my best to take photos of significant sites, such as the building with the “golden cabbage”. The history behind this building was that it was built sometime in the early 20^th century, but the locals thought it was ugly, and called it the golden cabbage. Then in World War II the building was mostly destroyed by bombs. But then after the war, the occupying America ambassador had the building reconstructed, which the locals were not too happy about. I guess you just can’t win.

Dome from Dome in Vienna.

Once back at the Opera House, we had to switch to the green line bus which took us back to our original stop, the Schönbrunn Palace. My sister and I were eager to show our brother and his wife the wonderful Christmas market we had discovered the night before. However, for some reason there were a lot fewer people and there was no band playing. We did have time to shop and I actually bought a souvenir, a porcelain cat with a candle, which is now sitting in my guest bathroom. My sister and I once again drank two Glühweins each, which helped warm us up. Each day of the trip the temperature got colder and the chance of rain or snow increased.

After about an hour in the square, we were starting to get tired. Since we needed to get up early the next day for our trip to Budapest, we went to the café to buy our breakfast for the next morning to save time. We needed to be ready to go by 6:30 the next morning. Also, we skipped dinner, except I bought a sandwich at a store on the way back to the hotel.

Lights in the daytime in Vienna.

Back to my room on the third floor, I got ready for bed and was asleep by 9 PM. I tried to stay awake longer, but with only three English-speaking channels, all news stations, I got board and turned the TV off. Tuesday was going to be a very long and busy day, so I needed all the sleep I could get.

Vienna 2010: Travel to Day

2010-11-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

This year our Thanksgiving vacation was in Vienna, Austria. Even though Vienna was our main destination, the trip included day trips to Budapest, Hungary and Bratislava, Slovakia, as well as an overnight stay in Frankfurt, Germany. That meant four new countries for me to add to my list of countries I’ve visited. We, meaning my sister, brother, his wife and I, had five nights in Vienna plus one night on the trip home. I opted to fly with my sister on United, since she has status on that airline and was able to get us upgraded to business class on the overseas leg, which was from San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany.

So on Saturday morning my alarm went off at 4:30 AM. I had packed the day before so it didn’t take long to get ready and head to the airport. I gave myself plenty of time which was good because there was a long wait for the shuttle at the airport parking. For some reason they didn’t have enough shuttles, and I waited 15 minutes for one to show up, as did 20 other unhappy people.

At the terminal, I met up with my sister and we checked-in with no issues. In fact, we were able to get our bags checked all the way to Vienna, even thought we booked two round trips – one from San Diego to Frankfurt on United and one from Frankfurt to Vienna on Lufthansa. After clearing security, where I did not have to be scanned by a machine or person, we proceeded to the United red carpet club, another benefit of traveling with someone who has elite status on an airline. Food and drinks are free here.

The flight to San Francisco was quick and once at the airport we once again entered the red carpet club. We had plenty of time before our flight to relax and check Facebook and Twitter posts. The trip to Frankfurt was on a 747, which was the first time I’ve been on at 747. Our seats were on the upper level, and it was the best seat I have ever had. You basically get your own “pod”, with a seat that can recline totally flat. Unfortunately, when my seat was reclined I couldn’t stretch my legs, but it was still way better than any couch seat. Plus, you get to watch any movie any time you want.

The flight to Frankfurt was 10 hours, one of the longest flights I’ve taken. After they served dinner, I attempted to sleep. I may have made a mistake by eating the mocha ice cream desert, as the caffeine may have kept me awake. However, I think I got about four hours of sleep on this flight, with had quite a bit of turbulence over the Atlantic. About 90 minutes before landing they served a breakfast.

After eating we landed in Frankfurt early. I was surprised to see that Germany didn’t require us to fill out any forms. We went through customs and got our passport stamped. Then when I went through security, my belt set off the metal detector and I got a rather through pat-down, but not as intrusive as the ones in the US. After checking in for the next leg we once again hung out in the red carpet club. It was now Sunday afternoon local time, so Saturday was basically a lost day.

The flight to Vienna left on time, and we arrived slightly ahead of schedule. We picked up our bags and proceeded to get a taxi to our hotel. I must say that the Vienna airport is a very nice airport. They make it easy to get a taxi by going to a taxi booth inside the airport and paying in advance. The taxi got us to your hotel in about 30 minutes. Our hotel was centrally located in Vienna, near at least one major tourist site and very close to the subway, or the U-Bahn (Untergrundbahn). After checking in to the hotel, which was around 2:30 in the afternoon, we quickly got ready to explore the local area. Because Vienna is so far north, the sun set before 4PM, so we had limited daylight.

After traveling for so long, getting very little sleep, we were very tired. I think because of this we made a few mistakes, or wrong turns, which actually turned out to be very beneficial and humorous. We asked the man at the front desk where go for a good beer. He gave us a map of the local area and marked where a local bar was. Once outside the hotel, where it was pretty cold, but I was prepared with gloves and a scarf, which I had not worn since I bought it in 1989. In fact, later I notice that the scarf was made in Western Germany! Looking at the map, we wanted to find the location of our bus pickup for the hop-on-hop-off bus tour we had booked for the next day. It was in front of the Schonbrunn Palace. However, we read the map wrong and ended up walking the wrong direction. You might think that this was bad, but it turned out to be quite beneficial. As we walked down the busy street, we passed a beer garden that served food, a café that served pastries and a subway station. Once at the subway station we realized where we where and that we went the wrong direction. But this is how you learn your way around a new city. We ended up eating at the café every morning because it had the best pastries.

As we headed back towards the hotel we once again made a wrong turn but then found the nearest subway station to the hotel. After looking at the map and wandering around some more we finally located the palace we were looking for. By chance we walked down a pedestrian walkway and up ahead we saw a brightly lit Christmas tree. So we headed towards the tree and suddenly found ourselves in a very crowded and festive Christmas market. There were lots of people walking around the many craft booths and a band playing German Christmas music. At this point our vacation officially began, as we knew we were about to have fun. After walking around looking at the interesting and unique items for sale in the market, we saw lots of people drinking out of coffee mugs. Soon we found the source of the mugs and my sister recognized a drink on the menu called Glühwein, a wine served hot with some added spices. So we ordered one each and after drinking half the glass I began to feel its affect. When you are very tired and hungry, alcohol hit you quick. Suddenly the atmosphere of the market became even more festive. So why stop at one? A second Glühwein made the night ever more enjoyable. A bit of advice, drink the wine before it gets cold. It is much better when it is hot.

We realized that we both needed food. So we walked back to the beer garden. When we walked inside, we realized that there was not beer garden because it was closed, probably because it was winter. Disappointed, we continued to walk past an old lady who mumbled something to us and then we walked by a room filled with people having a banquet of some kind. We turned towards the hotel just to discover a restaurant that had the same menu as we saw outside the entrance to the garden. So the beer garden was open, just not the outside part. The restaurant was Wienerwald and here we had our first mean and beer in Austria. The beer was Ottakringer Dunkles, a dark beer, and the food was a very large portion of Cordon Blue with fries. The beer and food were a perfect ending to the evening. We had a nice waitress who apparently understood English but spook very little. In fact, this was the case through out the trip. Everyone spoke English to us, once they realized we were Americans. There was never a problem communicating with anyone in the four countries we visited.

After eating we returned to the hotel. We had already arranged to meet our brother and his wife at 8 AM this next morning. They were not scheduled to get to the hotel until after 11 PM. So back in my room laid down in my bad and quickly fell asleep – at least for a few hours. Vienna is nine hours ahead of Pacific Coast time, so I woke up many times during the night and was lucky to get four or five hours of sleep. But hay, I was on vacation, and as they say, there is plenty of time to sleep once you die.

Navigating using my new HTC EVO.

2010-09-12T19:36:00.000-07:00

I tried the Sprint navigation feature on my new Sprint HTC EVO (full review to come in the near future) for the first time. I set it to get me to a hotel in Pasadena that I had never been to before. To double check the route I printed a map of the hotel. The route the phone selected looked good, but as I got closer to my destination it looked like I should exit the freeway and the hotel would be near by. But the GPS had me take a different exit, make many funny turns and when the voice said "arriving at destination", I was in the middle of a residential neighborhood. So I called my friend's who I was meeting at the hotel for help, and after more driving around I finally got the navigation on the phone to take me to the hotel, which was right of interstate 210. I think what happened is I entered the wrong address in the phone. It took me to 2700 North Fair Oaks Ave. Instead of 180 North Fair Oaks. Lesson learned - trust old-fashioned maps over technology, and learn how to use a device before relying on it for directions.

Awesome is back!

2010-09-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

So I'm at Aaron Brother's on Friday getting a custom mat cut-out for a frame, and it took the employees some time to help me but I wasn't in a hurry. When they finished and I paid I and thanked them for helping me. Then the one woman said "Thanks for being such an awesome customer." That was a great complement, but it had been a long time (the 80s?) since I heard the word awesome used. Then that night while having dinner at Karl Strauss I was telling my sister about my earlier experience and she said that 'awesome' has become a popular word again. Just then the waiter came by and told us to have "an awesome night". I was so shocked at what he said that I asked if he had heard us talking about the word awesome (he hadn't), but it just proved that awesome is back!

Futurama Series 7 and four Battlestar Galactica 2-Packs

2010-07-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

I am now caught up with the Futurama action figures, with all from the new series. This series 7 Hermes and Professor Farnsworth completes my collection - until series 9 is released. I just discovered that I bought series 5 twice. So that means I can open the duplicate boxes of Calculon and Super King Bender.

I greatly expanded my Battlestar Galactica collection with the additions of these eight figures.The boxes are rather big and will take up quite a bit of wall space. I may have to display them in the Star Trek room. I don't think that violates my action figure display rules.

Mt. Whitney Day Hike 2010

2010-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

Four years ago I attempted a two day trip up Mt. Whitney and did not make it due to bad weather. Three years ago I was lucky enough to summit Mt. Whitney during another two day trip due to perfect conditions. This year my friend's and I decided to hike Mt. Whitney in one day. Three out of six of us made it - I was not one of the three that summited. Why? Just a little too much snow and ice at the "cable" section of the 99 switchbacks caused me to turn around.

I had started thinking about hiking Mt. Whitney in one day some time last year. After summiting three years ago I told myself that I didn't need to do it again. But I got the Whitney fever (as apposed to the actual fever I got two days after hiking this year.) There were several reasons I wanted to hike Whitney again. Last time I, and everyone else, had a great time. Training for the hike is a great way to get into physical shape, and I was starting to get overweight, especially in my stomach area. Also, I liked the idea of not having to carry a full backpack up to Trail Camp. However, I knew that trying to hike 22 miles in one day with a 6000 foot elevation gain, with no time to acclimate was going to be extremely challenging.

So my friend Steve requested six permits in the lottery for a day hike on three possible dates in late June or early July. We were selected for July 2nd. So starting around April we began our training, which consisted of day hikes in San Diego. The two main hikes were Iron Mountain in Poway, a six mile round trip hike that can be done in two hours. This is a good after-work hike. The other hike was up Mt. Woodson in Poway. This hike was good to do early Saturday morning. If you hike from the Blue Sky Reserver, it is about 10 miles round trip with a 2350 foot elevation gain. Our only major warm-up hike was San Gorgonio, which is a major hike all by itself. Although we did not summit, it was still a good work-out and let us know what shape we were in for Whitney.

As the date approached, I read the trip reports on the Whitney Portal Message Board daily. This was a heavy snow year, so my main concern was too much snow, mainly on the switchbacks. We were not prepared to hike in the snow, so I was hoping for a fast snow melt. It looked like the only section that might be an issue was at the cable section of the 99 switchbacks. There was still quite a bit of snow, but people were starting to make a path over the snow and most were making it without special equipment.

On July 1st the time had come to drive to lone pine. Of the six original hikers, two had decided not to go for various reasons, but we had no problem finding other's who wanted to join our adventure - kind of. Of the six, four had hiked and summited Whitney at least once. For the other two, it was their first time, and also their first time going on a major hike. We arrived in Lone Pine in the early afternoon and checked in to the Dow Villa, our usual hotel. We had time to drive up to Whitney Portal in an attempt to get some acclimation to high altitude and to talk to hikers about the conditions on the trail. Everyone we talked to said that they had no problem at the cable section, so that was reassuring.

Our plan was to get an early start the next. We had a disagreement as to when we needed to wake up in order to start our hiking early enough. We finally decided on meeting for breakfast at 1:15 AM and start hiking by 2:30. We ate dinner at Seasons at 5 PM, where I had a huge pasta meal. After that we all turned in to try to get some sleep. Now I knew it was not going to be easy going to bed before eight, getting good sleep, and waking up at 12:45 AM. That is just not normal, not something the body and mind are used to. I tried to sleep, but tossed and turned and maybe fell asleep around 10, but woke up every 30 minutes. When the alarm went off it felt like I never got any sleep.

Looking back, it was a mistake to have a good breakfast at the local 24 hour diner. There was only one employee working, so it took more than 30 minutes to order, eat and pay the bill. We should have just eaten in our room and left for the hike. Now we know. So in our cars we went and drove to Whitney Portal. We arrived just after 3 AM and there were quite a few other hikers in the parking lot getting ready too. We put on our headlamps, had a group photo taken, and even weighed our packs. Mine was 17 pounds, much less than the 35 pounds last time. We officially began our hike at 3:20 AM.

The one thing we did not practice was hiking in the dark, so I was a little worried that it would be difficult. However, even after just 30 minutes of hiking, I got used to it. In fact, it was kind of fun! The trail up to Lone Pine Lake is very easy to follow, and this was the 5th time I've hiked this stretch. The only difficult part was the first stream crossing. The water was flowing pretty good over the rocks, so we had to go slow, use our hiking poles, and light up the way for the others. There was a half Moon out, but it did not provide enough light to help see, but did provide a cool night view of the sky.

We made very good time, thanks to Steve leading the way, who was determined to keep on his planned schedule. It took us two hours to get to Outpost Camp. By that time, is was light enough to put our lights away. I was amazed that you could see the sun starting to rise at 4:30 - I guess that was the crack of dawn. We walked through Outpost Camp, past people still sleeping, some just steps off the trail for some reason. From there the trail gets steeper, but we kept going, taking food and rest breaks as needed. Also, we made sure to take time to take photos, especially around sunrise, when the forest and mountains were glowing orange.

At 7:30 we arrived at Trail Camp. I was still surprised how quickly we got there. I had never hike straight to Trail Camp without stopping at Lone Pine Lake. Once there we filtered water, ate more food, and put on sunscreen. By 8:00 we were ready to tackle the switchbacks. Up until now, there were small patches of snow that were not too difficult to cross. On one I did slip and fall and almost hit Paula, but I was able to stop in time. The path to the switchbacks had some snow, but it was still an easy walk. Once on the switchbacks, there was running water, some ice, and as you got higher there was snow that most hikers avoided by cutting up to the next switchback.

At this point the six of us were spread out, with Steve once again leading the way. I was taking my time and drinking plenty of water to keep from getting a headache or altitude sickness. For the first time I took prescription medication to help with altitude sickness. My doctor prescribed Dexamethasone, a medication that shrinks your brain, thus keeping it from expanding in your cranium. Most people seem to use Diamox, but I had to use what my doctor gave me. I had two 4mg pills, one I took the morning before, and one the morning of the hike. I'll never know if it helped, however, I did not get altitude sickness, but then had I summited, who knows.

So after about an hour or more of hiking we reached the cable section of the switchbacks. Once there I decided to see how for I could go. People were crossing the high snow section without any problems. I hiked across the first part which wasn't so bad. But the last part didn't look too safe. The path was just wide enough for one boot, but what worried me was what if my right food slipped. I'd fall 500 feet down and then slide another 500 feet on snow and rocks. I realized early that I need new boots. The traction on my boots was not that good. So even with hiking poles, I decided not to continue. It was beyond my comfort level, and they say you should never go beyond your comport level when hiking. Plus, I was worried about the conditions on the way back if the snow got more icy. I felt bad, because I wasn't tired, didn't have a headache, and my hiking partners all made it. But I had made up my mind, and told them to have fun and I'd be waiting for them back at Trail Camp.

As I hiked back down I encountered many groups still hiking up. They all wanted to know how the trail was, so I told them all why I turned around, wished them good luck and continued on. I found out later that almost all of the hikers I talked to made it past the cable section. It took very little time for me to hike back to Trail Camp, even with the detours to avoid the snowy sections. Once at Trail Camp, I realized I might have a long wait before my friends returned. I began by re-filtering my water. Somehow I ended up with lots of soot in my water and it did not taste good. So I dumped my water out and filtered some new, fresh water. Then, because I was told it felt good, I took off my shoes and socks and put my feet in the water. This is supposed to reduce the swelling of the feet from all the pounding they take while hiking, and I'm sure it did, but the water was so cold my feet went numb and I could only keep them under water for 20 seconds at a time.

Once I dried my feet and got my socks and boot back on I began to kill time. I wanted to make the most of this time, so a walked around for a while, took some more pictures, as it was still perfectly sunny outside. In fact, I had not seen one cloud since arriving at Lone Pine. However, after an hour I found a comfortable rock to sit on that was near the trial and in the shade. I spent the next few hours resting, eating and talking to hikers as they passed by. Some hikers ignored me, thinking I was strange just sitting there on a rock doing nothing. While sitting there, one man came running by on the way up, and within two hours he came running back down. Turns out he made it to the summit in under three hours. That is amazing.

I wasn't sure how long I'd have to wait. I kept looking up the switchbacks for a group of five hiking down, but group after group came hiking by and none of them were my friends. Finally, around 3:30, Lee came walking by. I was expecting the whole group, but he explained that he and Darin didn't summit, but were waiting for the other three that were headed to the summit. Lee decide he had waited long enough and came down. Since he had told Darin that if he found me then he'd hike down to the Portal. I was ready to hike and tired of waiting, so we left Trail Camp and headed down.

Even though you hike faster on the way down, it always seems to take longer. There were many stretches of the trial that I just didn't remember hiking up, partly due to being so tired, perhaps. Along the way we both passed people we had seen earlier in the day, and most had summited. Our goal was to get down before dark, even though we still had our lights. I still took time to stop to take a few photos, as the sun was at a different angle providing for new photo opportunities. We actually did make it back to the trail head by 7:30. Once again I must say it was nice making this hike with a day-pack. Last time, with a full pack, I was walking at a 1/2 mile/hour and my knees were killing me. This time my knees barley hurt and I kept up a good pace.

Luckily I was one of the two drivers, and the other drive, who was still somewhere on the mountain, had a car that could also hold four people. So Lee and I drove back to the hotel. After I took a nice warm, long shower, it was time to wait. I knew if I laid down in bed I'd fall asleep, and I had to stay awake in case I needed to go back up the hill to get my friends. Plus, we had planned for pizza and beer, and after two weeks of no beer I was ready for a tall, cool one.

Well, around 9PM I began to worry. I knew two of the four were experienced hikers, and everyone had food, water and clothing for the cold, but anything can happen on Whitney. Then, after a strange sequence of phone calls, I found out that three had summited at 2PM, and two in the group were at the Portal and the other two were about 45 minutes behind. They turned out to be an hour behind at arrived back to their car at 10:30 and the hotel at 11:00. Everyone was safe, hungry and tired. It was too late for pizza as the Pizza Factory was closed, so we were forced to eat at the High Sierra Cafe again, and once again, the same woman was the only one working. We were working on being awake for 24 hours but needed some food before going to sleep. I'm not sure if I needed a bacon cheeseburger just before bedtime, but it tasted good. The beer would have to wait.

Everyone slept well and we were up by 9 AM. For breakfast we ended up at Mt. Whitney Restaurant, which may or may not have been the source of the possible food poisoning that two of us got (and I still have). After breakfast we drove home and got back to San Diego by the early evening. Once home and unpacked I finally had the well-deserved beer - or two. I had no real plans for the 4th, but even if I did I started feeling sick Sunday morning and ended up in bed with a temperature of 101.5 and feeling like crap. Maybe it is a curse, but this is the third time hiking Whitney and the third time I've gotten very sick afterwards.

No matter, I believe the hike was worth it. I had fun before, during and after the hiking. I joke that they should sell a shirt that says "I almost climbed Whitney in a Day", because I would have bought it. Do I want to try hiking Whitney in a day again? No. Do I want to hike it in an overnight trip again? Yes.

Mt. Whitney Day Hike July 2010 Photos

2010-07-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

These are the best of my photos from my attempted day hike up Mt. Whitney.

Mt. Whitney Day Hike 2010

San Gorgonio Hiking Adventure

2010-06-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

I had been wanting to hike San Gorgonio for many years. I knew it was going to be a difficult hike, but it was still more of a challenge than I had expected. We, meaning my friend's and I, did this hike as a warm-up hike for our one day hike up Mt. Whitney next month on July 2nd.

We drove up in the morning, wanting to get an early start, but due to longer that expected stops along the way and a wrong turn on highway 38 we didn't starting hiking until 9 AM. Also, we were lucky to get a permit. There was only one left at the ranger station. We did not request a permit in advance because we had just decided on a date last week.

Of the six people on this hike, all but Kevin had been going on local San Diego hikes to get ready for Whitney. Kevin was a last-minute addition for what he was told would be a "small hike".

The beginning of the trail is under construction, so there is a detour through the river bed. Yellow flags mark the path. This trail consisted of soft sand and lots of rocks. Along the way, however, we encountered a bighorn sheep! I had never seen one in the wild before, and he/she stood there long enough for me to take several photos before it ran up the steep hillside. This was the highlight of the hike, and we had just begun!

Eventually we reached the regular trail and crossed the creek. From there the trail heads straight up the side of the valley. There are switchbacks, but they are still very steep. We knew in advance about this part of the hike, so we just took it slow. Along the way we were passed by a couple and two dogs. The women told us the trail got easier soon. However, we encountered her later and she gave us time estimates that were way off. More on that latter.

Sure enough, the trail got easier, but already the six of us had broken up into three groups. I was with the "fast" group, which may have been a mistake, because my legs gave out before reaching the summit. Yes, none of us summited.

The trail follows Vivian Creek. The trail was very scenic and luckily not too warm, with a nice cool breeze. I was wearing long hiking pants instead of my shorts, which was good to keep off the many mosquitoes. Every time we stopped, the bugs attached us. I got about 5 bites on my arm. We stopped several times to rest and eat. There weren't many other hikers on the trail. One large group of hikers with full packs and warrior-like face paint came hiking down the trial. They looked more prepared than us and were friendly, despite the face paint.

As we walked along the trail, we encountered many fallen trees which we had to either climb over, under or around. One mistake we made was not having a good map. I had a topographical map that I printed out at home, and when we looked at the map to see where we were, we could not read it. There was a junction at Halfway Camp and we were not sure where to go. Luckily another friendly couple told us to keep going up, following the High Creek trail. They were headed to Halfway Camp to camp for the night. Jim had a good map, but he was way back behind us.

I was still hiking with Steve and Kevin, and we knew Darin and Lee were not too far behind. But Lee was hiking with Jim, who was struggling with the hike and going very slow. So we kept going. Eventually we reached another creek, which turned out to be High Creek. We realized at this point that we were not as far along the trail as we thought, no thanks to my poor map. We should have filled up with water here, since I had my water filter, but we didn't. Later I ran low on water and had to conserve. I was drinking way less than three years ago when I drank one liter per hour of hiking, and was dehydrated and just didn't know it.

Shortly after crossing the stream, we met up with the couple from earlier who were headed back down. The woman told us that they did not summit because her husband, who did not talk at all for some reason, had a medical condition preventing him from going higher that 10,000 feet (and talking?). She told is it was 15 minutes to the next crest, and 45 minutes from there to the summit. She was way off. It took us 50 minutes to get to the crest and had we summited, it would have taken another two hours!

Once we got to the crest, we stopped to eat. After a few minutes we sighted Lee and Darin hiking up. Once they caught up we continued on, sharing stories of what we had seen so far. At this point, Jim was still hiking up, even though he had been told to go back to the car. But he did not and eventually he did make it to the 10,500 foot level.

As we kept hiking, once again Steve, Kevin and I took the lead. By this point my legs were getting very tired. I wasn't sure how much farther I could get. Also, our pace was slowing, except for Kevin, who, for wearing just running shoes and not being prepared, was doing very well. We crossed a long snow field and stopped shortly after to rest. The altitude was getting to us. As we rested, we saw Darin coming up the trail. When he joined us we continued up, looking at the trail high above on the mountain. A man we talked to a few times earlier told us the route up, but we could not picture it in our minds. He has hiked this trail every year as a warm up for hiking Mt. Shasta. This man must have been in his 60s and was carrying a full backpack. He said he was going to summit and was prepared to hike in the dark.

We kept debating when to turn around. I had expected it to take almost six hours to summit, and it was now 3 PM, six hours into the hike. We decided to hike until 4PM. The four of us got up the trail to a point where Steve and Kevin stopped. Darin and I kept going, but when I realized it took us five minutes to hike about 500 feet, I was done. My body was done. My muscles were done. Darin was not. He kept going up and round the corner, hoping to reach the crest of the mountain. I just sat there for about five minutes before walking back down to the others, and then we hike down back across the snow field and waited for Darin. It was already passed 4PM. Eventually we saw him hiking down, and he talked to the old man who told him he was only about a 1/2 mile from the summit, which turned out to be true. But Darin said every time he thought he was near the Divide Trail junction, there was just one more turn.

We were all disappointed, but knew that we still had a long hike back down. It was funny, after hiking down for five minutes we looked up at where we just were and were amazed at how fast we got down as compared to how long it took us to get up to that point. Another 10 minutes of hiking and we were happy to see Lee and Jim waiting for us. Yes, Jim made it pretty far. Slow but steady. We took time to eat more food and prepare for the long journey back. At this point two of us were out of water and some low on food, but other's had extra food and water to share. That's what hiking is all about. Having fun and watching out for your fellow hikers.

So the decent began. Like I said, we made great time hiking down. Even though we were tired, sore and getting headaches, we made it to High Creek in less than an hours. We all stopped to filter water with our two filter pumps. Nothing tastes better than fresh filtered cold mountain water. I filled a one liter bottle with water and added two Nuun tablets and drank half the bottle right there. Then I added another liter of water to my Camelback bladder. Once we all had a refill of water, the hike continued.

Time went by quickly, and we more or less stayed together as a group, with good old Jim leading the way. His mission was to get back before dark. I had to remember to stop and take some photos on the way down, and not just hike without enjoying the scenery. We made it to the top of the steep section at the beginning and just kept going. In reviews of this hike people said you don't realize how steep this part of the trail is until you hike back down. That is somewhat true, but I knew coming up how steep it was. By this time my knees were starting to hurt. Not as bad as I expected, but I didn't let the pain slow me down as I have in the past. I used my hiking poles to cushion my steps on the steep trail, and today I can feel in my arms and back just how much I used my poles.

Even though it was getting very dark along the trail, I could see down in the valley though the trees that the sun had not yet set. I was also amazed how far down the Vivian Creek bed was but knew that with the steep trail we would be there soon. The trail was so steep I had to be very careful not to slip or twist my ankle. Finally, we made it, just as the sun was setting. All six of us got to the river and continued on. Even though we had headlamps, Jim suggested we not use them since our eyes were adjusted to the dark and with the lights we would lose our night vision.

We crossed back across the river and then once again followed the yellow ribbons that marked the detoured path. But as it got darker, and everything turned to black, white and gray, it was difficult to spot the yellow flags. But we kept going, hiking along the soft sand.

We reached the parking lot just as all sunlight was gone. We had two cars and proceeded to take our boots off and put on more comfortable shoes. Everyone was exhausted. Kevin asked, "So what part of this trip did you guys find fun?". I told him that in ten years we would look back upon this adventure and remember only the good times. I know Kevin had some fun, as at one point near the top he got ahead of us and threw snowballs at Steve and I as we crossed the snow field.

We were all ready for dinner. However, since we were not familiar with this part of town, it took us a while to find a place to eat. We ended up and an In-N-Out that was very busy for being 9PM on a Thursday. I had not eaten at In-N-Out in probably over eight years, but a double-double never tasted to good. After eating we all felt much, much better. But Steve, who drove us from San Diego, turned the keys over to Jim to drive us home. We said good by to Darin who does not live in SD.

The drive back seemed to take forever. I was sitting up front in the passenger's seat, and my job was to keep Jim awake. Jim did just fine, except he said without his glasses he could not read the road signs. Hmmm. So I had to tell him what lane to be in. We made it safely back to Steve's house, where we unloaded our hiking stuff and all headed home.

I got home around 11:30, showered, got on the Internet long enough to post an update to Facebook, and went to bed at midnight, after having woken up at 4:15 AM! I was tired, but still had trouble sleeping. I woke up at 8:30, had coffee, breakfast, lunch, long nap and then wrote this blog post.

Everybody said that they never wanted to do this hike again. I do. I have never not summited before unless it was due to weather (snow/rain/lightening). Now that I know what to expect, I think I'd make the summit. Start earlier, hike slower and drink more water.

Next hike - Mt. Whitney!

San Gorgonio Photo Album

2010-06-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

San Gorgonio Hike

These are the best of my photos from my hike up, but not quite to the summit, of San Gorgonio.

Getting ready to hike San Gorgonio.

2010-06-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

For my Blogger friend's, just to keep in touch, I plan on hiking San Gorgonio tomorrow with Steve, Lee, Jim, and Darin. Gorgonio is the tallest mountain in Southern California. We are taking the Vivian Creek Trail which is the shortest but steepest route to the summit. It will take at least 10 hours to hike 16 miles with an elevation gain for 5600 feet - more than one mile up! I will have some very nice photos to post upon my return as the weather looks perfect with sunny skies. This is officially a warm-up hike for Whitney, but if we summit it will by my second most difficult hike and an accomplishment in of itself. Wish us luck.

Mt. Woodson Hike May 22, 2010

2010-05-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

I woke up this Saturday at 6:15 in the morning to get ready for a hike up Mt. Woodson from Lake Poway. I've done this hike many times before, but this time I was meeting up with the crew that will hike Mt. Whitney in one day on July 2nd. We all arrived at Lake Poway around 8 AM. It was actually quite cold and windy, but I was still wearing shorts and no jacket. Mike, Steve, Lee and I had a head start as Jim waited for Darin to get his gear together. Once we made it to the "shady" tree, which was the coldest spot on the mountain today, Steve had to head back to attend a sporting event for one of his children. Darin and Jim had not yet caught up. So we continued up the hill to the summit. It was still cloudy at the top, but not too cold. About five minutes later Darin joined us without Jim, who decided to go back down with Steve for other reasons. It took us about two hours to get to the summit. As we hiked down, the sun finally started to shine through the clouds which was nice because it was more windy. There were quite a few people hiking up at this point. We made it back to the parking lot in 90 minutes. We all agreed that we need much more training hikes before Mt. Whitney. Hopefully we can do San Jacinto in a few weeks. Until then, more local hikes just to get into shape.

Camping at Picacho 2010

2010-05-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

Picacho 2010

We made it back to Picacho for the second time in two years. This was the first time I camped there for two nights. It was nice having a full day, Saturday, to spend there, but I was ready to leave by Sunday morning. The temps were not too hot, high of 100, low of 68. Next camping trip is the Kern River.

Fabulous Fords Forever 2010

2010-04-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Fabulous Fords Forever 2010

I believe this is my fourth year attending this Ford auto show. There seemed to be more cars and people this year than ever. Weather was great. Bright and sunny with a cool breeze. Great for taking photos of the many unique Fords.

Star Trek Warp Collection 6 Inch Figures

2010-04-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

I picked up this shipment of Star Trek Warp Collection six inch figures from the local post office today. I bought all ten figures from Entertainment Earth and they were shipped promptly and packed nicely in perfect condition. They are made by Playmates Toys, which stopped producing Star Trek figures over five years ago. I didn't even know these figures existed until I saw them at a Sam Goody's while at lunch during my jury duty. How does Sam Goody's even stay in business? Everybody buys music online now. Anyways, enjoy the photos.

Futurama Series 5, 6 and 8.

2010-03-29T18:38:00.001-07:00

Now that my home remodeling is almost complete, I can get back to my hobby of collecting action figures. I stopped paying attention to the latest figures available and was pleasantly surprised to find out that Futurama series 5 to 8 were out. I bought all but series 7 from Entertainment Earth - they were sold out of that series. Can you spot the item in the photo that does not belong? It was free with my order complete with a warning label about possibly containing toxic chemicals.

Jury Duty - For the 4th Time

2010-02-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

Wow, it has been over a month since I posted on my poor blog. I've been giving Facebook too much of my time.

Anyways, after postponing my jury duty services twice, I had to show up to the downtown courthouse on Tuesday. The jury room was packed, and after the inspiration speech by that 100 year old judge whose been around forever, I sat and waited for my name to be called. They announce that there was one case that was expected to take three weeks, so I marked the box that indicated I could not be on a case that long. They also wanted a detailed reason why I could not be on that case, so I had to indicate my company only pays for one week of jury duty.

Just before lunch, my name was called, so me and 35 other jurors marched up to courtroom 19. Once there we eventually were given a randomly selected number and assigned to a seat. I was number 19, which was easy remember. With 12 jurors and two alternates, I was five away from being on the jury. The jury selection process began after lunch and ended in the late afternoon. They ended up dismissing five jurors ahead of me, so yes, I was the second alternate.

Even though the case was going to last only a few days, after they explained the charges, it was apparent that trial was going to be very boring. The defendant was accused of petty theft. He had taken money from undercover narcotics officers who were trying to buy drugs from him, and he never returned with the drugs - or money. This happened two days in a row - thus the two chargers. So apparently the San Diego police could not arrest him for selling drugs, so they charged him with steeling money - a total of $100.

All the witnesses were police officers who were on the undercover team those two nights. The defendant, who went by the street name of Cobra, did not testify. The testimony took most of Wednesday and was over by the end of the day. We did not have to return until 2PM the next day.

On Thursday we were given jury instructions and heard the closing arguments from both attorneys. The prosecuting attorney was very professional and did a great job presenting her case. The defendants attorney was not so good. She spoke too fast, seemed disorganized and was probably getting paid less per hour, which really has nothing to do with anything.

Since I was an alternate, the only one since the other alternate juror was released on Wednesday for some unknown reason, I did not join the other jurors as they left for the jury room. I was instructed to wait for a call when the jury had reached a decision. So I went downstairs to the jury lounge and waited until 4:30. When I saw the other jurors come down I knew we would be back on Friday. Bummer.

So Friday morning I went back to the court room and told the bailiff, who was a very nice man who like his job and joked around with us, that I'd be downstairs again. This time I brought a book. I sat there until noon, reading and being very board. I took my lunch at noon and returned at one. After another half hour, I was paged and asked to go to jury services. I was told that the trial was over and I could go home. The lady said the courtroom clerk was supposed to have called me when the jury reached a verdict. She even called the clerk and asked her "are you new?". Turns out the jury left before lunch! Not only did they forget to call me, I could have left two hours ago. I asked to speak to the clerk, only to find out what the verdict was. They found him guilty, which was they way I was leaning, had I been one the twelve angry men/women.

I felt kind of sad that I was not called up for the reading of the verdict. I at least wanted to be there and then say buy to the other jurors, judge, bailiff and prosecuting attorney. After all, she was very tall - and cute, but did have a huge wedding ring on. So, now I'm exempt from jury duty for three more years.

2010 San Diego International Car Show

2009-12-31T14:35:00.000-08:00

2010 San Diego Auto Show

Photos I took at the 2010 San Diego International Car Show. Enjoy.

Buenos Aires: Last Day and Trip Home

2009-12-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

If you managed to read my post yesterday then congratulations. I haven't even re-read it. I hope this blog post is not as long but let us see.

We slept in Thursday morning because we knew we had a long day ahead and not much to do in Buenos Aires and a long flight home. We met at 10 AM in the lobby to go to breakfast. We went back to Galerias Pacifico Shopping Mall (I just found an advertisement for it in the map I'm using to retrace our steps). The choices for pastries and coffee were almost overwhelming. I got a coffee drink with three small pastries at one of the cafes. Since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving there none of realize that it was an American holiday.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel to check out and then have our bags stored by the concierge (that is a hard word to spell, I tells you). We then planned our last day in Buenos Aires.

The night before Karen and Lorie used the Internet to find the exact address of the El Zanjon house that we had read about but could not find two days ago. Rather than walking, we finally used the subway. There was a subway station one block from the hotel. We bought one-way tickets which were only 1.25 Pesos, which is very cheap. The subway stop was still some distance from the house, so after arriving back in the San Telmo district, we still had more walking, and it was very sunny and warm outside. We found the house, but were told to come back in 50 minutes for the English speaking tour.

So with more time to kill, we wandered the street of this colorful neighborhood. This place was part of a "walking tour", and there were signs posted in front of notable houses and buildings. One house was listed as the smallest house in the city. You could walk right by and not even notice the house or even realize it was not part of the buildings on either side if it weren't for tourist map and the house was painted in a different color. The problem we ran into, is because the streets are lined with tall buildings, it was hard to get good photos of the best looking buildings. The best place for a photos would have been on the roof of the building across the street, which of course was not possible.

So after 50 minutes of walking we made it back to our destination of the day. They promptly let us in at 2 PM. There was a small issue with admission because we were running low on Pesos and they didn't know the exact exchange rate on US dollars. But we ended up paying $12 each for the one hour guided tour. There were only eight people on this tour, which was nice. The tour guide spoke good English and had a unique accent. She did a great job of making the tour interesting. She explained how this old, run-down building was bought by a person who had plans to turn it into a shop, but soon realized that there was a maze of underground rooms and old stone walls that were used to block off a branch of a river running through the house. Once we walked downstairs she told us we could not take any more photos because they wanted to preserve the mystique of the house, meaning you have to come visit it to appreciate it, not just look at someone else's photos.

Besides guided tours, this house can also be rented for parties. It is actually set up for Tango dancing where they turn off all the lights and then start the music and turn on the disco balls. That would be interesting to experience. But not on this trip. Once our hour was up we departed and continued our walking tour of the neighborhood.

There were museums in the area, but they all seemed to be closed. So we looked at the map and found the nearest subway station was back at May Square. So for the third time we were back at the site of the protests. None today, luckily. The subway line we took to get back to Florida Street was, I think, the oldest subway in the city, which used original subway cars or something. I did not get a photo of the cars. We somehow lucked-out and got onto an express line, which bypassed all stops but the one we needed to transfer on. The next subway took us to a stop near Florida Street, where we planned to go back to the same mall for lunch. There were so many choices it took me longer to decide where to eat than to actually eat. This turned out to be our Thanksgiving dinner. Not the typical Thanksgiving dinner, but just as good because it was with family.

Once we were done eating we basically sat and did nothing. There was not enough time to make anymore trips within the city, and too much time before going to the airport. Finally we decided just to go back to the hotel and arrange for a ride to the airport. Turns out that this was a good idea because it took over 30 minutes to get a non-taxi/non-shuttle to show up. The car was rather small, but fit all our luggage plus us. I sat in the passenger seat. Our driver began by taking the surface streets, and just like the taxi drivers, cut in and out of the lanes and did his best to get in front of slow cars and busses. Once we got on the expressway, traffic was moving slow. So he exited the expressway and did his best to explain why. Turns out he is from Russia and does not speak much, if any English, but we understood what he was telling us about how there were two ways to get to the airport.

Taking the surface streets, or the long way, gave us an opportunity to see parts of the town we had not seen. We went though the poorer sections of town, where we saw playgrounds on rooftops (with no fences to stop children from falling off) and soccer fields in grassy areas between the road, which were cluttered by burned-out cars. Once we got near the exit for the airport, for some reason the driver did not want to follow the signs. He tried to make a left turn against traffic but was stopped by police. He then tried to take a short-cut though a neighborhood but found the street blocked and had to back up the wrong way to find another path. I did not realize that somewhere during this excursion he scraped a parked car. I did notice the speedometer didn't work, which was just as well. We finally got onto the road to the airport and he dropped us of in front the our airline departure area. The ride took about one hour, only 15 minutes more than the ride from the airport to the hotel.

Once in the terminal, we found that there was a line for our specific flight. First they had to find our itinerary which was pre-printed out. Since we all and American Airline priority access, we got to bypass the long line and were taken to the business-class checkin, except for Karen who was already upgraded to business class. That didn't take much time, but we all found out that we had to pay an airport exit fee which was put in place after we bought our tickets last February. This made for one more stop, one of many required to fly internationally into the US. We all got though security without any problems and now waited for our flight departure.

We boarded the plane and almost left on time. One of the two runways were closed so there was about a 15 minute delay. The flight back went through Dallas and took more time than the flight from New York. It was a 10 hour and 30 minute flight. After be fed dinner, I did my best to get relaxed hoping I could sleep. Unfortunately, there was some rough turbulence for the next two hours and I could not relax. I must have fallen asleep after the bumpy ride because then I woke up when the flight attendants came by to serve breakfast. So I must have gotten at least five hours of sleep because we were only 90 minutes for Dallas.

As we approached Dallas, it was still dark at 6:30 AM. We landed on time and exited the plane to go through customs. My sister had a special Global Entry pass which allowed her to use an automated kiosk to clear passport/customs. The line for us regular folks was moving slow. Somewhere along the way I realized that I had a different flight home than my brother and his wife. I was going to arrive in San Diego two hours later than them, and they were my ride home. So I rushed off to their departing terminal to see if I could get on their flight to LA and there was plenty of room. I even got an emergency exit seat. They put me on standby for the flight from LAX to SAN, but there was no guarantee that my luggage would arrive early even if I did. It was on the flight to LAX that I realized I lost my iPod. I was not happy about that. It was due to my carelessness. I never lose anything, except for my mind.

Once at LAX, I watched the standby list with my name listed as number three. The flight was full but I was still hopeful. When the plane boarded, Brad and Lorie got on and I waited. There was room for two more people, so I missed it by one. The next flight left in one hour and I was listed as number one on the standby list. As this fight boarded there was along delay before they started calling standby passengers. I was not happy when three people were given tickets even though MY name was at the top of the list. Just as I stood up to complain, they called my name. All is good.

The quick 25 minute flight to San Diego was, well, quick. I was really hoping that my luggage was there, but it was not. So I had to wait for the next flight, my original flight. Luckily, my brother was waiting for me back at the food court in terminal one. I took the "red bus" there and went to Starbucks and bought one of their special Christmas-time mochas. It was only 1:30 in the afternoon, even though it seemed later. Usually on our overseas trips we leave very early on a Friday or Saturday and get back home very late the same day. At 2 PM we walked to our car in the long-term parking and drove back to the commuter terminal. We timed it perfectly. I walked in, saw my bag had just arrive and walked back out where my brother was waiting for me.

I got home by 2:30 and proceeded to do laundry, go shopping and read my e-mail. By 8PM I was ready for bed. Even though I slept in, I woke up every hour starting at 2 AM. At 6:30 AM I was out of bed and ready for the weekend. I had nothing planned other than relax, and relax I did.

Overall I'd say this was a fun trip. I'd rank Buenos Aires better than Lima, Peru and not as interesting than any historic city in Europe. We have officially decided that next year we are going to Vienna, Austria, with a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. Can't wait.

Buenos Aires: Colonia, Uruguay Day Trip

2009-12-08T17:14:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed by now, those of you who have read my blogged "vacation reports" before, that I am not including photos. Since I have already posted all my photos I figured it wasn't necessary. Also, it saves time. I might also add that I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my blog posts. Even though it takes me an hour or two to write them, I enjoy the opportunity to share my fun life experiences with the whole world in a format where I'm able to write in my own style. Not what they taught me in college which was "Say what you are going to say, say it, and then say what you said." I prefer the freedom to write in my own, unique, narrative style.

Now that I'm done with that unexpected paragraph, let's get on with the day. My alarm went off promptly at 6 AM and I was down in the lobby by 7 to meet up with my brother, his wife and my sister. We had planned to get breakfast somewhere near by, but nothing looked good, so we just walked down to the pier. Once there, we found the line to check in for our boat. There were automated kiosks which made the process simpler since we had no bags to check. Then we made a stop at the cafeteria and grabbed some pastries and coffee.

From there we headed upstairs where we basically exited Argentina and entered Uruguay. We had our passports stamped out of Argentina and stamped into Uruguay. Very efficient. We then waited for the boarding of our ship. We had coach tickets that had seat numbers, but once we boarded the ship we realized we could sit anywhere in the couch class. We found four seats in the middle section, which turned out to be good for anyone who gets sea sick as this section had the least motion. I do not get sea sick.

The trip across the river took about one hour. We then docked at Colonia Del Sacramento. Once off the boat we exited so quickly we passed by the place where we turn in our passes and are told what bus to board. We eventually found this booth and boarded bus 126 - the English speaking tour. The bus was only about 10% full. I'd say less than 20 people.

As soon as we departed the terminal the guide started her speech. The bus tour lasted about 45 minutes or less. We got a tour of the area outside of the historic district of Colonia, making only one stop where we got out to take photos. I tried take photos while the bus was moving, but they either turned out blurry or just didn't capture the scenery. It was kind of funny that most of the sites were of buildings that were built in the early 1900s and then abandoned a decade later, such as the bull fighting ring. During the tour the guide also gave us a history lesson of the city, told us about the people, lifestyle and average temperatures during the summer and winter. She made it clear that Colonia was a very laid-back city with very little crime and the water along the beaches were clean, unlike the polluted waters of Buenos Aires.

Once we arrived at the center of town, our guide, who's name I can't remember, led our group down the main street, showing us where the restaurant was that we would be eating at. There were maps of the city along the street, and she stopped to show us where we were on the map and where the various sites to see were. We than had over four hours to explore the city before meeting up again for a guided walking tour of the historic area.

Our first stop was the beach. It made for some great photos of the city and of us. From there we wandered towards a lighthouse. It was just 15 Argentina pesos to climb to the top. In Colonia they accepted Argentina pesos, Uruguay pesos and US dollars. I think the exchange rate on the US dollar was the best deal, but mostly we used our Argentina money. The stairs to the top circled up a tight path, but I think it only took a few minutes to reach the top, unlike some of the towers and domes we walked up in Italy last year. From the top there was a great view of the city, and since the sun was out it made for great photos. Once we had our fill of the view, we walked back down, being careful of people walking up as there was only one stair case.

After exploring the city some more, we decided to have our lunch before the restaurant got too busy. The lunch included the salad bar, which had a large variety of cold foods other than salad, a choice of beef, chicken or pasta, and a desert. I chose the mushroom filled raviolis for my main dish. Overall the food was quite good. The lunch did not include drinks, but I just got a Coke. I could have tried a local beer, but their beer didn't look too exotic, plus that would have just made me want to take a nap. So after just over an hour there dining, we paid our bill, tipping the waiter nicely, and continued our explorations of the town.

During the next hour or two, we did lots of walking. We went into many shops to look for souvenirs. I ended up buying a magnet in the shape of the lighthouse we climbed. The lighthouse was completed in 1857 according to the map I'm looking at. As the day went on, the temperature warmed up and we did our best to stay in the shade. We walked up and down the quite streets. It was interesting that most of the intersections had no stop signs. Drivers just politely yielded to the the car that was already in the intersection. We explored a farmers market but bought nothing. Then we walked to the Basilica of the Holy Sacrament, one of the few religious sites we visited.

By this time we were very tired and hot. We saw other tourists who were even hotter, as their shirts were soaking with sweat. Finally, as it got near 4 PM, we walked to our meeting place where we met back up with our guide and the rest of the people on the bus. She then took us to the places in town that we did not tour because we knew we would be there for the guided tour. We learned more about the culture, the influence of the French and Spanish, and much more about the differences in how the French and Spanish build roads than we ever wanted to know. Water drainage, sidewalks and types of stone. We, as with the rest of the group, were ready to board the air-conditioned buses by this point.

So just after five we boarded the bus and made the short trip back to the port. Once again we went through passport control and got two more stamps in our passports. On the boat we sat in the center but closer to the front. The one hour ride was eventless except for the hard rain we encountered as we approach Buenos Aires. Luckily the rain stopped by the time we docked, making our walk back to the hotel rain free.

You are in luck. Since I'm getting tired of typing I decided to take a photo of the magnet I bought in Colonia so you can see what the lighthouse looked like that we climbed to the top of. Enjoy :-)

Once back at the hotel, we took another hour break before going to dinner. A shower and change of clothes felt great. Even though I put on sunscreen, my face still got sunburned. I tried my best to reduce the redness in the photos of my using Photoshop. Also, I had a few misquote bites, but not as many as my sister had. We were worried because there were signs posted everywhere, which I never saw, that warned us about getting the Dengue fever from misquotes. As of now, over two week later, none of us got sick.

We had planned to eat a an Irish Pub we passed several times, but once inside we opted not to eat there due to smoking allowed downstairs and the music was too loud (yes, we are old). So we walked a few blocks away and found another Irish Pub. While my brother and I waited near the door, my sister and his wife walked up towards the bar. At the bar there were several businessmen in suits who were more than happy to see two American girls in their local bar. They proudly spoke their best English to impress the women. Then Brad and I finally walked up and we were seated in a table near the bar but in a less crowded and quieter place. The waitress did not speak much English, but we managed to order our drinks, my sister and I got a Guinness while Brad and Lorie got their usual Coke and Coke light. We ended up all ordering the same meal, their salmon dish. It was not near as good as our meal the night before, and in fact was very fishy tasting.

We eventually paid our bill and left. It was now dark outside and the latest we had stayed out. Before I forget, I really wanted to see some Southern hemisphere stars and constellations, such as the Southern Cross. But due to clouds and light pollution I saw but one star and the Moon. Guess I'll have to make that trip to Australia some day. Once again we found ourselves on Florida Street. However, by this time at night, pushing 9 PM, the vendors had left and there were actually a few prostitutes hanging out on the street corners. They were obviously hookers, just standing there wearing very short, easy access, skirts. This was not a "Pretty Woman" scenario. I was not going to bring one of them back to my nice hotel in a fast car.

A few more stops along the way and we were ready to turn in for the night. Since Thursday was our last day in town and our travel home day, we all agreed to sleep in and meet at 10 AM for breakfast before checking out by noon. Back in my room in packed my bags for the trip home, watched some TV, thought briefly about the hookers and went to bed.

Buenos Aires: First Full Day

2009-12-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

I have forgotten to mention that since Argentina is in the Southern hemisphere, it was late Spring there, so the temperatures, even when cloudy, were 75 degrees during the day. The humidity was also high, making for an uncomfortable walking environment. We could have worn shorts, but almost no body wears shorts there. I saw only a few tourist wearing short and they stood out, something we did not want to do. Although it was obvious to every local that we talked to that we were American, and luckily they still like Americans.

We met in the hotel lobby around 7 AM I think and went out for a light breakfast and coffee. After that we walked down to the docks to buy our tickets to Uruguay for the next day. We knew the walk was short, but once at the docks we somehow missed the building with the big sign that read "Buquebos", the name of the company the hotel suggested. So we walked too far into the docks and finally a man stopped us at the entrance to an empty building and directed us back to the correct building.

Once there, we found the room where you buy tickets. It was set up very nice. They took our name and then when a representative was ready our name was posted on a monitor, which we did not notice right away. The saleswoman was very helpful and got us signed up for the deluxe tour, which included the price of the fast boat, a guided bus tour of Colonia, lunch at a nice restaurant and then a walking tour of the city. I think this cost about $100 dollars per person, which is relatively cheap.

Now that we had our tickets we went back to the hotel to drop them off and then made the plans for the day. Now for some reason, exactly what we did this day and in what order are a little fuzzy. I suspect my memory was not so good due to jet-lag and the extra long two days it took to travel there and all the walking the day before.

I believe our first plan was to use the so called hop-on-hop-off bus to take us to a few sites around the city. The bus had a stop across from the hotel. We boarded the bus and after sitting for some five minutes someone finally came to sell us tickets. Turns out they wanted over $100 US dollars! That is way to much. These tour buses usually cost more like $15, and we were only going to go to a few of its stops. Plus they seemed very disorganized - and slow. So we ran off the bus and opted to walk to our first destination - the Recoleta district to see the Recoleta Cemetery.

Many famous people are buried there, including past Argentinean presidents and Eva Peron. This cemetery is huge, with rows and rows of mausoleum (or crypts?). Each one decorated in some unique, ornate way. After walking round in the sun and snapping some photos, I was ready to leave. We found the site were Eva Peron was buried, but not her husband. We could have paid for a map from one of the many people outside selling maps to this free site, but they were too annoying so we just ignored them.

By this time we were ready for lunch. From the day before when we were here looking for the Hard Rock Cafe, we knew there were many places to eat. We ended up in the Buenos Aires Design center, an upscale mall with all sorts of interesting stores with expensive looking furniture. I was fascinated by a booth that was selling door locks that open with your finger print. We sat down at a small cafe and I opted for what looked like a callzone. It wasn't too bad, but was over-cooked and needed more fillings inside. I was really hungry.

We then left and hailed a cab to take us back to the San Telmo district. There was a house with underground rooms that we wanted to check out. The conseair at the hotel had marked on a map where the house was located, but we walked up and down the street and could not find it. However, we walked into a museum to ask about it and they didn't know what we were talking about, but encouraged us to check out their "door" museum, which was free. It was a very small place, with items recovered from buildings that used to line the street back when the area was kind of a Little Italy, I believe. After a few photos and signing a guest book, where the people who signed it before were from San Diego also, we left.

After some more walking around we found ourselves at May Square again, near the government buildings. This time something was abrewing. There were more police and they were in riot gear. I took a photo of them without being obvious because they were stopping others from taking photos. Not wanting to get involved in any kind of riot, we walked back to good-old Florida Street. As we headed up we heard some noise. It was the protesters marching up a street banging on drums and holding signs. We think it was a protest by indigenous laborers, but we never found out. They were protesting peacefully and even had their protest permit displayed on the front banner.

So more walking got us back to our hotel. I was also hoping that my lost luggage was found, and once in my room I saw I had a voice mail message. I eventually got ahold of someone who told me my bag was delivered by the airline. I was very happy to hear this. Clean clothes awaited me.

We took about a hour break before going back out for dinner. There were restaurants everywhere. We heard someone talking about a place near the hotel, but we got there too early and all they had were pizzas, not their full menu. So we checked out a few menus of nearby places and found a nice restaurant called Dada's. Turned out this this was our best dinner and dinning experience of the trip. The waitress was very nice, spoke great English and the food was unbelievably great tasting. I can't remember exactly what I had, but it was beef of some sort topped with all sorts of flavorful sauces and sides. We finished off the meal with a decadent desert. We left feeling satisfied and again, ready to turn in early, since we planned to meet at 7 AM in the lobby so we could get to the boat dock by 8 AM.

This may have been the night that Brad, Lorie and I went back out for another walk up Florida Street as Karen went to her room. We discovered that later at night, when the leather shops are closed and nobody is trying to get us into their stores that the street was much nicer. It was also well lit with bright lights. We discovered a three story mall with a beautiful, tall Christmas tree, above which was a Sistine Chapel-like painted ceiling.

Since the planned wake up time for me was 6 AM (or 1 AM San Diego time), it was time to go back to our rooms. It was kind of depressing to watch all the people leaving the hotel, dressed up for long night of dinning and possibly Tango dancing as we headed up to our rooms for sleep. We did no Tango dancing while in Argentina, which was fine by me.

Buenos Aires: First Day

2009-12-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

After checking into our rooms, we were ready to head out into the city. We had no plan at this point other than find sunglasses for my sister. We needed to find a bank first to get some money. They use Pesos in Argentina, and the current exchange rate was about 3.5 Pesos for one US dollar. Overall, prices for food, taxis and merchandise was cheap. However, there was a 21% tax included in all prices.

Our hotel was at the end of Florida street, which was a pedestrian street lined with all kinds of shops, but mostly leather since Argentina is known for its meats and leather. I know this street goes by a different name, but I can't seem to find what it was called on the maps I'm looking at. During our stay, we made the walk up and down Florida Street so many time, the vendors who stood outside their shops trying to get people into their stores began to recognize us. Some of the vendors were so aggressive, it was annoying after a while and we found ways to avoid the worst blocks by taking short cuts through a mall and using side streets.

Anyways, you would think there were many stores selling sunglasses, but it took about 20 minutes before we found one. So my sister bought a pair of not only cheap sunglasses, but ones that distorted her vision due to poor lenses, but at least they blocked out the brightness of the sun. We kept walking up the street, taking in the sights. After about an hour we stopped to decide what to do. Up ahead I saw some interesting buildings so we kept going. It was interesting that the people hanging out on the street went from shop owners to hippies and other assorted Bohemians. We must have walked to a different district.

The buildings we were headed for ended up being the Government House located next to May Square. May Square was a nice park, but it was divided in the middle by a big, ugly fence. We soon realized that this fence was there to keep protesters away from the Government House. There were a few police guarding the access to the other side of the fence which you could get to from the sidewalk. There was no protesting going on at this time, but there was evidence of protests of some sort by the graffiti painted on monuments and buildings. It was sunny at this time so we took some photos of the area and then moved on.

By this time we were getting hungry and feeling the effects of lack of sleep. We knew there was a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere in Buenos Aires. Once we reached the Centro district, near the Obelistk, we found a tourist information booth. I asked the bored looking man inside where the cafe was and he marked-up a map of its location. Looking at where we had just walked from, and where the cafe was, we agreed to just walk there. Unfortunately, maps can be deceiving if they are not to scale, and buildings on the map do not look like they do in real life.

So the walk was much further than expected and even when we found the right building, we were still unable to locate the restaurant. Even after asking a person where it was, the entrance was so hidden we wondered how anybody could find the place. Because it was still early, like 4PM, only the upstairs was open. We had a nice waiter who spoke some English, but was trying very hard to learn more words, so he discouraged us from speaking any Spanish. So we ordered our food and beer, which tasted like food and beer from any other Hard Rock Cafe around the world. Once finished, we all agreed on taking a taxi back to the hotel. No more walking.

Like in any other country than the US, the lines on the road are only "suggestions". People drive swerving in and out of lanes, or they drive in two lanes at once. They at least stop at stop lights, but their stop lights not only turn yellow before turning red, they turn yellow before turning green. So as soon as the light is yellow, all cars race to get ahead of the slower buses, which there were TONS of.

Back at the hotel, even though it was not even 7 PM, we were done for the day and decided to go to our rooms for much needed sleep. Our plan was to meet in the morning, get some breakfast and then go buy our tickets for the trip to Colonia, Uruguay. The concierge recommended getting the tickets the day before make the trip. Since there was a chance of rain on Tuesday (it was still Monday if you lost track), we would decide what to do the rest of Tuesday depending on the weather and how we felt.

I watched TV for a little while and really had no problem falling asleep. I think I dreams about flying in planes and walking round city streets.

Buenos Aires: Travel to Day

2009-12-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

This year for our family Thanksgiving overseas vacation we decided on Buenos Aires, Argentina. We (or I) made this choice for a few reasons. First, it was a part of the world that we had never been to before - the east coast region of South America. Second, it was time to take a break from trips to Europe, where there is a 9 or 10 hour time difference. Argentina is just 5 hours ahead of the Pacific time zone. Third, I saw a show on some channel about how nice Buenos Aires is. They said it was very European and metropolitan. We also decided before going, that we would make a day trip to Colonia, Uruguay, which is a designated world heritage site.

Since we knew that there wasn't anything really famous to see in Buenos Aires, we planned a shorter trip - just three nights. However, since we were arriving in the early afternoon the first day, and leaving in the very late evening the last day, we really had almost four days to site see.

We, meaning my sister, brother, his wife and I, all flew out on the same flights. We left San Diego early Sunday morning and flew to JFK in New York. Once there, we had about a five hour layover. All but one of us used frequent flier miles to fly for free, so we were limited on our choice of flights and times. At JFK we killed time by eating, sitting, walking around and more sitting. I was happy to find a TV to watch the Charger game on and was even happier that they won. Finally, our flight was ready to leave. From JFK to the airport near Buenos Aires, EZE, was a ten hour flight. I was in an non-emergency exit, isle seat with very limited leg room. Luckily the lady sitting next to me was short and spent the whole flight sleeping and never left her seat.

Even then, this was the longest flight I had ever been on. I think I was able to get three or four hours of sleep. Everybody woke up about 2 hours before landing when they served breakfast. Then the pilot announced that there would be some heavy turbulence and even asked the flight attendants to buckle up. So for about an hour the plane shook pretty hard, making some passengers nervous and sick. I was too tired to be scared so I just tried to relax and get more sleep.

We landed on time, around 11 AM local time. It didn't take much time to get through customs and passport control. But soon I had my first disappointment - my checked bag never showed up. So I went to the lost baggage window and put in a claim for my lost luggage. They said most likely it would arrive on the same flight the following day. Luckily I packed extra clothing in my carry-on backpack.

We had pre-arraigned for a ride to the hotel, so as we exited the secure area we met up with the man holding a sign for use. The hour of us piled into a large van and then sat and observed our first view of Argentina during the 45 minute ride to the hotel. Since it was still early afternoon, there was not much traffic.

Our hotel was a Marriott, located near the center of Buenos Aires. We checked in with no problems, but over the next two days we had issues with our rooms, due to the hotel getting confused about our reservations. We had three rooms for three nights booked by my sister and I using our Marriott rewards points. Somehow the hotel got mixed up and lost the reservation for one of the rooms for two nights. It took a long phone call by my sister to Marriott (while we were in Uruguay) to get this mix-up straightened out.

When we checked in, only two of our room were ready due to our early check-in. Mine was ready, but I think I got a smoking room, as it smelled like cigarette smoke. Since it was just for three nights, I wasn't going to bother asking for a different room. So, after about an hour we were ready to start our adventure in Argentina.

2009-11-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

A short movie I took at the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Buenos Aires Vacation Photos

2009-11-28T16:58:00.001-08:00

Argentina and Uruguay - Best Of

These are the best of my photos taken in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Colonia, Uruguay during my Thanksgiving family vacation.

Site-seeing photos in Philadelphia

2009-11-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Site-seeing In Philadelphia

This weekend I flew to Philadelphia to attend a friend's wedding. I arrived on Thursday evening and the wedding was Saturday evening. So I had a chance to do some site-seeing. On Friday I went to the historic part of Philadelphia and saw the Liberty Bell and other sites. Then on Sunday we made a quick trip through Valley Forge.

I didn't take any photos during the wedding events, but I hope to have copies of photos that other people too.

Clouds

2009-11-13T07:05:00.001-08:00

Classic Star Trek Christmas Ornament

2009-11-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

I just happened to be in a Hallmark store today and remembered to look at the new Star Trek Ornaments. I did not like the Klingon Cruiser. I just lit up and had no sound. But this "The Menagerie" one was much better - and $4 less! I regret not buying last year's "The Trouble with Tribbles" ornament. It had a internal mechanism that dropped Tribbles on Caption Kirk.

Bike RIde to Waterfall in Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve

2009-10-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

I was extra ambitious this morning. I woke up just before 8 A.M. I took my time drinking coffee and eating breakfast because I saw it was 48 degrees out side. At 9:30 I went outside and was glad I was ready for a bike ride because it felt like 80 degrees. My plan was to ride to a waterfall in the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve. I heard about this waterfall from a friend and knew about where it was. Thanks to my bike ride two week ago, I realized I could bike there from my house. So a three mile ride to the beginning of the dirt path that took me under highway 15. Then five miles along a smooth but dusty trail that was crowded with walkers, runners, bikers and horse riders. Once at the waterfall, I stopped and took a few cell-phone camera photos. There were about 20 people at this spot, and yes, there was water in the 'river', even though it has not rained really since April!

I then headed back home. The ride there was mostly downhill, since it is towards the coast, so the ride back up uphill. I pushed myself near the end, as in I rode my bike up hills without shifting into easy gears. The whole trip took less than two hours and totaled 17 miles. The temperature and weather was perfect. I like these rides that are both relaxing and provide a good cardio work-out.

My U2 Weekend

2009-10-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

The Invite:

On Thursday night I received an unexpected phone call from my friend Steve, one of many friends name Steve. He asked me if I was interested in going to the U2 concert Sunday evening at the Rose Bowl. I had never been to a U2 concert and I wanted to go, but I had to think about it due to the busy, but fun schedule leading up to the concert. I ended up saying "sure" and the following weekend turned out to be quite fun - and tiring.

The night before - Halloween Party:

Almost every year I go to my friend's Halloween party thats held the last Saturday before Halloween. This year's theme was Survivor, as in the TV show, but as many of the party goers don't watch the show, they wore costumes based on other survivors, such as of the Titanic. I just dressed as a generic Survivor with ragged clothing. We, meaning the couple I was going to the concert with, stayed until about midnight and then made the short trip a few blocks away to their house where I was spending the night. Asleep shortly after midnight.

The morning of the concert:

At five in the morning I got the wake-up call, a knock on the door. It was time to get ready for the concert. At five AM you ask? Yes. We had general admission tickets, and our goal was to get to the Rose bowl may 8 AM when they started allowing people to get in line for GA. The rummer was that the first 2000 people in were able to get into the 'inner circle', the closet to the stage.

At 6 AM we met up with another couple who was going to spend the day with us. So we drove up to Pasadena, where Steve and his wife had a hotel room. I might mention that at this point I had no place to stay, but I wasn't worried. From the hotel, the five of us got into the hotel shuttle. However, the shuttle could only take us to within about 1.5 miles of the Rose Bowl. There were restrictions on shuttle and taxies not being about to get anywhere near the stadium. So we grabbed our stuff, which included six chairs, two coolers and a beach umbrella and proceeded to walk the rest of the way.

Arrival at the Rose Bowl:

We got in the general admission line around 9 AM. We expected tons more people there, but we were about the only ones walking in at that time. It looked liked there were less than 1000 people in front of us. We set up our chairs and umbrella and proceeded to sit and talk for a few hours, eating some food and taking occasional bathroom breaks. Around 1 PM someone came by, writing a number on everybody's hand. They started at the front of the line, which we heard people lined up there at 5 AM. My number was 1122, so we know that we should get into the inner circle, but just because you had a number did not guaranty that.

More waiting:

They were going to open the gates at 5 PM, so Steve and I wandered around and found some people to challenge in a game of cornhole. They had a Texas Tech themed board, complete with LED lights on the inside of the hole. We ended up not winning but had fun anyways.

We walked back to our spot in line and noticed that the line was thinning out. So, since it was about 4:15, we stated to gather up our belongings.

The mad rush:

Then, almost instantly, everybody in front of us began running towards the gate. So we grabbed our cooler, since it still had beer in it, and ran too. We abandoned everything else as planned. There were so many people running that it looked like a stampede, complete with a dust cloud. We also saw many people rushing in from the outside, people who obviously had not been waiting in the line. And yes, there was no security to be found. Next thing I know we are standing in a big mob in front of the gate. People are complaining that they have numbers below 500 and ours are over 1000, but we point out that there are far more people around us without numbers, or wristband which we also were given earlier.

Entrance into the Stadium:

Once security finally arrived, they looked confused and were also outnumbered. Shortly after five, they finally started letting people in - slowly. They attempted to let people in by groups, but some yellow ribbon was not going to stop people from running to the gate.

When we got to the gate, we were given a very brief search. Once inside I lost track of my friends. So I just headed down to the field and eventually found my way into the inner circle, but could not find my friends. So a exited, getting a re-entry stamp and checked my voice mail. Seems they were on the left side and I had been on the right side. So after much effort, I rejoined my friends. Now we waited for two more hours before the concert started - standing in our "spot" about 10 feet from the stage. Also, there were many people without numbers on their hands, so these people had not waited in the long line all day, but showed up whenever and got in. So much for following the rules. I'd blame the poor security and planning by the security than the people who "cheated".

The Concert start with the Black Eyed Peas:

The was actually the second time I'd seen the BEP. They opened up for Gwen Stefani during her first solo turn. I do like many of the BEP songs, and I must say, they put on a great show. They really did "get the party started" and "pumped-up" the crowd with lots of "boom boom pow!". OK, enough with the quotes. If you have already seen my posted photos, you know that Fergie is my favorite. Anything she sings is top-notch. The surprise for the night was the guest performance by Slash, the guitarist from Guns and Roses. I didn't realized what happened before they played Sweet Child of Mine until later, but I guess will.i.am was supposed to sing, but he pointed at Fergie just as the song began, so Fergie sang the song. I guess she messed up on the second verse, however, her performance was unbelievable. If you watch the YouTube video of they song, it does not due her justice. Her singing was 10 times better than that Axel Rose guy.

The main act - U2:

I need to mention that this U2 concert was being recorded for a DVD release. There were cameras everywhere. Look for me in the crowd when watching the DVD. I'm standing about 20 feet away from Adam Clayton.

I have like U2 since the early 1980s, but this was my first U2 concert. I knew all their songs except most of the ones from their new album.

The stage itself was rather simple, with some equipment and the drums. Above the stage was some kind of rocket structure with all sorts of lights. Around that was a 360 degree video screen.

As their performance began, I was totally amazed and impressed by the moving catwalks. I saw them before the concert, but did not realize that they moved. These platforms allowed the musicians to walk from the stage to an outer platform. The catwalks moved right over us, and at one point, Bono was singing one foot above my head. Really cool!

During the concert I was taking lots of photos, and some videos. Many of the pictures did not turn out well, due to the lighting. Spotlights can ruin the exposure for a simple point-and-shoot camera, even one with 10X optical zoom.

I had expected the show to end by 11 PM due to noise restrictions, but U2 had either one encore that lasted five songs or two encores. I'm not sure. They played until about 11:20.

The concert, like a friend of mine said, was almost spiritual. Even now, three days later, I'm still walking around singing U2 songs.

The Trip back to the Hotel:

We were able to exit the floor by walking out the main ramp to the parking lot. As we headed back to the hotel in "Old Pasadena", there was a sign that indicated it was three miles away. I almost forgot to mention Rick. He took the other ticket on Thursday, but had to work and did not get to the Rose Bowl until 7:30. ALso, while waiting in line. Steve got a call from the Holiday Inn Express where he was on the waiting list for a room. That room was for me and Rick, so by this time I had a room in a hotel that I had not checked into yet, nor knew where it was.

Once we got to the place where we were dropped of my the shuttle that morning, we realized that we did not know were the hotel was. By asking people and using someone's cell phone with a map, we walked for another 30 minutes before calling the hotel to get directions. Overall, I think we walked five miles to get to the hotel.

Somewhere along this walk, Rick called me, and he ended up meeting us at the hotel. From there, I got in his truck and we proceeded to find our hotel, which was about three miles down the road. Both of us were hungry, but every fast-food place that was open had a long drive-though line. We finally found a Del-Taco with a short line and bought a few burritos.

We then got to our hotel, checked in an ate a late night dinner at 2 AM. I'd say I fell asleep at 3 AM. So yes, I was awake for 22 hours! Having fun if very tiring.

I regret not bringing ear plugs. Not for the concert, which had great acoustics and was not too loud, but because of my roommate's snoring! He was in the bed next to me, and even with the AC on, I'd say I got about four hours of solid sleep.

The next (or later that) morning:

I set my watch alarm for 8:30, but was away since 7:30. When I got out of bed I showered, called in sick to work. Then I got a text from Anne inviting me to join them for breakfast at a quaint but popular restaurant with yet another couple who was at the concert.

So they picked me up at my hotel, where Rick stayed behind because he had work to do later that morning. We split the cost of the hotel room, which they jacked-up the price due to the concert. $210 is a LOT for a small room with two beds, so having a friend to split that cost with was nice.

The breakfast was really fun. I was still on an emotional high form the concert, despite my physical and mental exhaustion. During the meal, I actually laughed harding that I have in a long time. Laughter IS the best medicine.

The Rest of the Day:

We hit the road around 11:30. Late enough that the road were clear from the morning rush hour. I was home by 1:30. After spending a few minutes on the computer, checking my e-mail and posting a few photos on facebook, I took a two hour nap. That felt so good. Once I woke up, I felt more relaxed than I have felt in a long time.

Even with the nap, I was asleep by 10 PM and woke up at 5:45 for my work day. I made it though most of the day without feeling too tired, and yes, I was still on an emotional high, singing BEP and U2 songs aloud and in my head.

Will I go to another U2 concert? Yes. But by Bono's comments near the end of the show, it sounded like they might be done. We assumed that he was referring to the poor sales of their new album. Well, just put out another album with better songs and you can have another sold-out world-wide stadium tour.

Done.

U2 360 From Pasadena - Best of Photos

2009-10-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

U2 360 Best of My Photos

First time ever I've been to a U2 concert, and they didn't let me down. Who knew back in the early 1980s that U2 would be one of the last 'supergroups', playing to 100,000 people in 2009? I can't wait to buy the DVD that they recorded at the Rose Bowl. Look for me standing not too far from Adam Clayton.

Black Eyed Peas Photos - Best Of

2009-10-27T18:14:00.000-07:00

Black Eyes Peas my Best of Photos

Made an unexpected and fun trip to the Rose Bowl this weekend to see U2 with the Black Eyed Peas opening up. These are the best of the photos I took. I was standing about 20 feet from the stage, and as you can see, I really like Fergie.

Bike Ride and Sam Knott Oak Park

2009-10-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

I started my bike ride with no real plans as to where I would ride. After yesterday, spending so much time in the sun and drinking a few beers, I thought I'd see how I felt after a few miles.

Well, after riding up a not very steep hill, I decided no more hills. So I ended up riding around the Saber Springs neighborhood when I rode over a bridge and saw a dirt trail below. This trail looked interesting, so I rode around until I found the path leading to the trail.

Once on the trail, I rode slow since my bike is not a mountain bike. I encountered a few people hiking and walking their dogs. As I rode further west, I realized this trail might take me to the bike path along interstate 15.

Once I got near the freeway, I wasn't sure which path take, and ended up on two dead-end trails at the bottom of a steep, narrow path. The paths had tire marks on them, so I must not have been the only one to make this mistake. But since I had no destination or time limit, these diversions were just an adventure.

Eventually I found the trail that took me to some kind of water treatment plant, located below I15 and Poway Road. As you can see, the walls are decorated with colorful art work. Then I noticed an area with trees planted. As I walked closer to it, I saw lots of memorials next to each tree.

There was a bench that identified that this was a park dedicated to people that died as crime victims. After looking it up on the Internet, Sam Knott was Cara Knott's father, and Cara was the woman who was kill by a CHP officer in this area in 1986. Sam Knott died while tending to the park in 2000. How sad.

There was a stone path that led to a covered patio area. Many of the stones were carved like grave stones. There were names of people who died in the early 1900s all the way to the present.

I was really surprised to find this park here, because I didn't think that there was vehicle access - only walking and biking. There was a truck parked there, but I did not see any one else except some other bikers passing. There is a paved road from Scripps Poway Parkway, but it looks like there are gates that might get closed at night.

After sending about fifteen minutes at the park, I continued on my bike ride, heading back home. Overall I was gone for two hours and rode about 15 miles, three of which were on dirt trails. My speedometer broke some time along the way, so I had to use the 'ruler' tool on Google Earth to retrace my ride and get the distance.

2009-10-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

Anza Borrego Trip

I went on a day trip to a few sites in the Anza-Borrego desert this weekend. The weather was perfect, 84 degrees and very sunny. Great for hiking and photographing. We first explored possible camp site for later this month or next year. Then were drove to the trailhead of a 1 mile walk to some old Indian pictographs. I would have walked right by had my friends not known where they were. They are on a big rock right of the right-side of the trail. Interesting site to visit that is so close to home.

From there we continued on the trail for another 15 minutes where you reach the end, as in if you keep hiking you fall off a 50 foot cliff. The rocks in the area make for good photos, plus there is a nice view to the west of Laguna Mountain.

The hike back to the car seemed longer, as it always does. Then a short drive on more dirt roads led to the second trailhead. From here you hike one mile up a mountain. At the top is the ruins of a house that a man and his wife lived in in the early 1900s. This house is so isolated you wondered how they survived. Not much left of the actual walls of the house, but we spent about 20 minutes exploring the hill.

The walk back down the mountain was very quick, and as the sun was setting, we decided to head back to my house and celebrate my birthday with beer, food and a movie.

2009 Mustang Show at Seaport Village

2009-10-04T17:15:00.001-07:00

2009 Mustang Show at Seaport Village

The best of my photos taken at Seaport Village Mustang show.

Bachelor Party for Chris

2009-09-27T19:40:00.001-07:00

Chris Party Best Photos

A fun time was had by all.

Season Premiere of Bones.

2009-09-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Bones. I finally saw the season opener. I liked the episode, however, I did not like how they 'glossed-over' the coma-dream that Booth had. I had assumed that, after watching the cliff-hanger last season, than Booth had total amnesia, not just confused about who Bones was - his wife or co-worker/partner, but who he was. The part where he said "I love you, in a .... way", was kind of a cop-out, in my opinion. How long can they drag-out this love sub-plot between the two main characters?

Band Playing at SD Festival of Beers

2009-09-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

I went to the 1st one 15 years ago with Mark G. and several in-between. Good to get there early because the lines are much shorter. 10 4 oz. samples were enough.

Prescription vs. store-bought reading glasses.

2009-09-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

About a year ago I went to the optometrist for my annual eye exam, and admitted to myself for the first time that I needed reading glasses. Now I had been told by many friends not to get prescription glasses because they were too expensive and the glasses you buy at a generic store work just as well. I ended up getting my glasses from the optometrist because he convinced me that off-the-shelf glasses would not work because they would be too strong. Yes, the glasses/frames/exam/anti-reflective coating were expensive, but the glasses worked great.

Last week I was in Costco and they have this set-up where you look through four different lenses to see which reading glasses work the best. The "125", whatever that number means, was the weakest, but I could tell that I could read the letters better. So I bought a three-pack of that type. When I got home the first thing I did was test them out while working on the computer. Immediately I noticed that the glasses did not make the text on the computer screen easier to read, but actually more blurry than my prescription glasses. The Costco glasses seem to only work for actual reading, where the book is about 12 inches from my face. The computer screen is about two feet away, and the glasses I've been using work great for both computer use and reading books.

So if anyone needs "125" glasses, I have three pair - with cases! - you can have, except I might keep one just for the fun of it.

SDSU at UCLA 2009

2009-09-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

We had a crew of 11 go to the Rose Bowl to see SDSU play UCLA. The game was almost postponed due to the fires and smoke, but by Saturday the smoke had cleared and other that being hot it was a nice day.

Short movie of us playing cornhole in the golf course parking lot before the UCLA game.

UCLAgame1_09

The best of the photos I took.

Three Day Weekend

2009-09-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

This year my off-Friday was not this Friday, so I only get a three day weekend. Works for me. Just got back from short four-day trip to Key West for work and now I'm getting ready for the UCLA at SDSU game up at the Rose Bowl. They decided yesterday not to postpone the game because the air quality from the fires was not all that bad. I don't know. When I flew over the area yesterday landing at LAX, all I saw was smoke. It was so think I could not see the ground. Either way, I'll have fun with my friend's BBQing, drinking beer and playing the every popular cornhole!

White People Can't Dance

2009-08-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

I'm glad I'm doing the filming because I can't dance either. Steve, who is trying to eat, is not amused even though it is his birthday. Oh yeah, this video was shot in 2006. We stopped going to Mexico due to the drug wars, violence and it just wasn't fun anymore as all the clubs were empty of partiers.

No Doubt Concert Second Time Around

2009-08-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw No Doubt in concert for the second time this year. Just like in May, the venue was the amphitheatre in Chula Vista. But this time I was chosen to get a pit ticket, so I was standing just yards from the stage. Concerts seem much better when you are closer to the stage, standing with others that are just as glad to be there as you are.

The opening band (actually the second band) was Panic! At the Disco. I'm not very familiar with their songs, but they at least sounded good, but I'd prefer to see Paramore again like in May.

The No Doubt show was basically just like the one in May. Same songs, same stage and same awesome videos and lighting effects. However, this time Gwen did not go running through the crowd.

Once again, I broke down and bought a $12 beer or two. Why is beer so much? How gets this money? Well, at least parking is free.

On the way home, our designated driver did a great job of avoiding an accident that happened just in front of us. Some car hit something on I15 north and there was car parts scattered all over, a man and a woman jumped out of their car on the freeway and ran to the car that crashed. We kept going because cars were breaking hard and swerving to avoided the cars stopped in the middle lanes. On the dive back home I passed the scene again and there were ambulances and fire trucks everywhere. There must have been secondary accidents after we drove by. Other that this incident, it was a great evening.

Futurama Action Figures Series 6

2009-07-31T11:58:00.001-07:00

So much for my theory of the boxes being in better shape when action figures a shipped directly from the retailer. My Amy Futurama figure was damaged during transport. Luckily, the Clobberella is is good condition. I might just have to buy a second Cloberella so I can take it out of the box and play with it :-)

Futurama Action Figures Series 5

2009-07-29T18:33:00.001-07:00

I didn't even know that Futurama action figures series 5 from Toynami had been released until I saw them at Comic-Con. I also saw series 6 is out, which should be arriving soon. I thought about buying all four at the convention, but I found them online for a good price, plus when you buy online, the boxes are more likely to be in better condition. I saw some of the figures hanging and the boxes were staring to rip and bend. Now I can add Calculon and Super King Bender to my collection.

Comic-COn 2009 - My best Photos

2009-07-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

Best of Comic-Con 2009 PHotos

The best of the photos I took at Comic-Con. All the pictures from the panels are photos of the large projection screen, since I was always sitting in the back of the room. Enjoy.

Comic-Con 2009: Day 4

2009-07-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

I slept in this morning because I didn't have anything I wanted to see at the Comic-Con until 1:00 - The Ghost Whisperer panel. This year Jennifer Love Hewitt was in attendance, as well as three other main cast members. They had no previews to show, only a summary of the season. The one major change this year - spoilers alert - is that after Melinda gives birth, they jump ahead five years so her child is five years old. This way the child can talk and be part of the show.

Some time during the panel, my sister showed up and text-ed me "Where are you in room 20?". I replied "Isle rt ctr" and that was enough for her to find me. There was nothing else either of wanted to see until 4, so we went downstairs and wandered the exhibit hall for a while.

I had walked past this Star Trek captains chair before, but this time I had someone to take a photo of me, which turned out very nice, thank you. Around 3:30 we headed to ballroom 20 to get a seat for the Buffy musical "Once More with Feeling", shown for the second year in a row.

There seemed to be more people this year, and once again it seemed that even though the audience was encouraged to sing and dance they mostly just watched the episode, cheering Buffy and Spike and booing Dawn. I enjoyed the showing, and got another monster finger puppet to take with me next time to New Orleans!

So a 5 PM we left the convention center was walked to Hennesses for another Irish meal and beer. A great way to end the long weekend.

Comic-Con 2009: Day 3

2009-07-25T19:49:00.001-07:00

Despite getting to the convention center later than I had planned due to lack of sleep caused by a planned power outage in my neighborhood from 11PM to 6AM. It seems that all the activity was outside my home and I kept waking up to strange noises and no electricity. Anyways, I was once again standing in line to get into room 20 and just when I though I wasn't going to make it in time to see the Family Guy panel, the line started moving. I got into the room just as they were introducing the cast and crew. Of the four panels I saw today, this was the funniest. They showed a preview of the Family Guy Empire Strikes Back episode, and for those of you who have seen their take of Star Wars, this one looks just as good. The panel members also were having fun on stage, as you can see by this photo of Seth Green and others after a romp under the table.

Immediately following Family Guy was The Cleavland Show panel. This show is a spin-off of The Family Guy, a show about Cleavland and his new family. I didn't know most of the actors, the one I did know, Jammie Kennedy, I was surprised to see since he just joined the cast of The Ghost Whisperer last year. The previews they showed for this show didn't really make me want to set my DVR to record all new episodes, but you never know how good a show is until six of seven episodes in.

I'd have to say that the most disappointing event of the day was the Futurama panel. It has always been one of the funniest, but, as announced by Hypnotoad, none of the cast were there. It seems there is some "disagreement" between the studio and the producers, or something. So all we had to hear from were the writers and directors, plus Matt Groening. Plus, since there isn't any new episodes in production yet, they had nothing to show. So they answered questions from the audience and Matt gave away something free to each person who did, which was nice. One person, dressed as Nibbler, got a special boxed-set of all the Futurams DVDs.

By now I had been sitting in the same seat for over two hours, so I was ready for the final panel - The Simpsons. Once again, none of the actors were present, so it was just Matt and the directors. They did show some unfinished scenes from this year's Halloween episode, which will be shown before Halloween for once. After they finished the Q&A session, they had a surprise for Matt Groining. He was presented with a Guinness World Records plaque for the longest running sit-com, I think it was. This was a surprise for him and he thanked everyone that had ever worked on the show.

Once outside the room, I met my sister and two of her friends. Then we hooked up with two more friends and headed to Dublin Square for a late lunch, or early dinner. Afterwards, everyone else but me headed home. I wanted to see one more show, but there were still long lines to get into any room, even at 6 PM. So I left, got on the trolley and came home. After all, I still have one more day of geeky adventures.

Comic-Con 2009: Day 2

2009-07-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

I somehow arrived at the Convention Center right at 10 and walked right in. My goal was to be in room 20 by 11:45 for the Caprica/Battlestar Galactica: The Plan panel. I was able to walk right into this room too, but even though there was no wait they were still making people walk what seemed like 10 miles just to get in. All the events I wanted to see today were in room 20, but I knew that I would have to leave for lunch at one point.

Since I was seated before 10:30, I ended up seeing the Stargate Universe panel. I must have been one of the seven people in the room (they made fun of us) that was not a regular Stargate watcher. It's not like I don't like the show, it's just that that I can't watch every TV show out there that might interest me.

Next was the BSG: The Plan/Caprica panel. I kept getting confused as to which show they were discussing, and which was being released on DVD only and which was going to be aired on SyFy next year. This panel wasn't very interesting because Edward James Olmos was the only actor there I knew (until Grace Park made a late appearance), and producers are not only boring, they tend to talk way to much.

After it was over, I made my way out. As I did I looked at the line to get back in and it was loooooong!

So I ate a quick lunch, outside in the nice sun, and walked back to get in line once again. It was 1:30 and I figured I'd never get in by 3. This year they had the line outside and provided tents for shade along the way which was nice. The line outside kept moving, but not the line inside. But finally the people near the beginning of the line were moving, and eventually the ripple effect made it to me and within 10 minutes I was back in room 20. The wait in line was one hour total, which is really boring when you are by yourself.

I caught the end of the 24 panel. The only actors I knew were Kiefer Sutherland and Katee Sackhoff, who I did not know was now in the cast of 24. She moved on from BSG pretty quick.

After 24 was the Bones panel. They introduced Emily Deschanel, who walked onto the stage with loud applause, but then announced that David Boreanaz could not make it because his wife was about to give berth. They played a taped message from him where he rambled-on for a few minutes. There was a director there too, but he was boring. So it was up to Emily to entertain the crowd and she did.

Finally, the big event for the day for me was the Dollhouse and Joss Whedon panel, which included Eliza Dushku, the star of the show. It was funny, on all the other panels there was a moderator, but not for this one. Joss just walked-out on stage with no introduction and everyone clapped loudly for him. They he introduced Eliza and she too get a warm welcome. They immediately played the unaired episode of Dollhouse, Epitaph One. This was a really good episode, but I almost see why Fox did not show it. The episode completely changes the direction of the show, taking place in the year 2019. It consisted of many back-flashes, but most of it took place in the future where only one of the actors was in any of the scenes. However, they said that during season 2 of Dollhouse they would address some of what we saw in this episode.

After sitting in poorly designed seats all day, my back was ready to stand up and leave. I made a quick run through the main floor and proceeded to a local Irish pub for a beer and food. Tomorrow will be the busiest day, and I'll be lucky if I see one of my planned events, but at least my sister will be there so I won't have to do everything alone.

Comic-Con 2009: Day 1

2009-07-23T18:53:00.001-07:00

So on Thursday at Comic-Con my plans were to see the action figure panel, Richard Hatch, Robot Chicken and Terry Gilliam. I saw none of these! Got there too late for the action figure discussion and as for the rest, the rooms were full and the waiting lines were long and not moving. The line for Hall H must of had 3000 people in it. The atendees were queued up like a ride at Disneyland. Thursday used to be the day where you could get into any room and walk the main floor with no problem. Now Thursday's are more crowded than Saturday's were 10 years ago.

However, you always need a backup plan. Sometimes the panels you know nothing about turn out to be the best. I was able to get a good seat for the Time Jumper panel which included Stan Lee, since it was his project. Time Jumper is a series of short, digital animated comic episodes that you can download from iTunes. Stan Lee is very feisty for an 86 year old man. He made everyone laugh with everything he said. They also showed the first episode, which seemed to be less than five minutes. The digital animation was cool and I enjoyed the story. Doubt I'll buy it, though. BTY, Stan Lee created (or co-created) Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man and the Hulk.

I spent time walking around the exhibit hall, taking various photos of whatever I found interesting. I don't normally photograph the people who dress up, since everyone else seems to do that, but there were a lot of good costumes being worn by true fans.

The second optional panel I attended was a BluRay discussion, which was sort of boring, but killed 30 minutes.

I also bought my first action figure, a Futurama 2-pack limited edition Fry and Leela from an alternate universe. It is 1 of 2000, but I'm not sure of the exact number, as in 305/2000. It might be labeled on the bottom of the figures feet, which means I'd have to open the box to see. I'll need to think about that.

By 4:30 I was already getting tired of walking, so I decided I'd see enough for one day and headed home. After all, I have three more days left. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to see more of the panels on my list.

Comic-Con 2009: Preview Night

2009-07-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

I just attended my first Comic-Con preview night. They open the exhibit hall from 6 to 9 for people with four-day passes, and you could get your badge after 4PM. I left work around 5PM, and after waiting for a trolley to get out of a trolley-traffic jam, I got downtown by 6PM, and decided to go to the convention center and wait in line rather than eating dinner first and going when the line was shorter. Luckily, the line moved very quick and I had my badge and was in the hall by 6:30! Good deal.

Like I was warned, it was very busy because all the attendees had no where else to go since there were no events going on in any of the rooms. The floor was very crowded, but I managed to walk from one end to the other. The end where most of the action figures are sold was a lot less crowded, so I scoped (scopped?) out some figures I might want to buy. I did not buy anything yet as Sunday is the best day because the companies don't want to ship back all their inventory so they have sales on what's left. Tomorrow I work in the morning and will leave by 10 or 12. The action figure panel is at 11, but I don't know if it is worth rushing down there just to see the same people I saw last year and the year before talk about action figures. However, they usually have enough figures to give away that everyone in the room gets one. We'll see.

Summer Vacation 2009: Las Vegas

2009-07-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

It seemed like such a short stay in Salt Lake City, but I had to leave and drive south to Las Vegas. After a hearty breakfast and packing my car back up, I hit the road. This was going to be my second longest day of driving, but at least the scenery in Utah is better than Nevada (sorry, Nevada). The only noteworthy event was when I saw a sign saying "Speed Limit Test Ahead". I didn't know what that meant until I saw my first ever "80 MPH" sign. Like wow! That's fast. I guess they figured since everybody was doing 80 anyways, they might as well see how many people die in car accidents on this 14 mile stretch of freeway. Even the big-rigs were allowed to go this speed.

Most of the trip I had my windows rolled down because it was so nice outside, but as I got closer to St. George it started getting hotter. By the time I got to Vegas it was over 100 degrees. Once in Vegas I made the mistake of following my GPS. I knew the shortest distance to my friend's house was on the new 215, but that road was not on my GPS maps. So at one point my GPS had me make a left turn into a park-and-ride. But don't worry, I made it to Mark's by 3 PM, where in less then one minute he offered me a beer.

We had no plans for this 4th of July weekend, and ended up hanging around the house. Unfortunately Mark had to work the 9 PM to 1 AM shift that first night. I had trouble sleeping, but when I got up to use the bathroom at 2 AM Mark was home and said "Ready for a shot of Jack Daniels?" So we did a shot of JD and that helped me sleep better.

The next day (or later in the morning), we had a really good breakfast at a local restaurant I forgot the name of. We decided to celebrate the 4th of July by setting off legal fireworks, having a BBQ and playing in the pool. Mark and Jayne invited their neighbors over, who brought their dog Sasha. Sasha was very happy to see me as it had been a whole year since I saw her last. Once the sun set, you could see and hear fireworks all over the neighborhood, some illegal ones shooting up into the air. We could barely see the ones being set off at the Red Rock Casino, but since we were there last year that was OK.

Too much excitement for one day. I went to bed by midnight so I could wake up early the next day to try to beat the south-bound flow of cars leaving Las Vegas.

The next day I once again packed my car and said goodbye to Mark and Jayne and thanked them too for their hospitality. Once on the freeway, I quickly caught up to traffic and saw a sign that said "Heavy traffic - long delays." Not good. Luckily, traffic cleared up a few miles past the state line and I got home before 5 PM, with a stop in Barstow for a lunch at the Carl's Jr. I always eat at.

It was a fun-filled summer vacation, but all too short. Had I an extra week I would have driven further north, like into Canada. Maybe next year.

Summer Vacation 2009: Salt Lake City

2009-07-12T12:57:00.001-07:00

My longest drive of the trip was from Minden to Salt Lake City. That trip on I80 is soooooo boring, and they are always doing road work. The distance is about 550 miles. I stopped at the city of Battle Mountain, for the fourth time, and ate a a McDonalds there for the 4th time. Nothing special about the town or that restaurant, it is just that the town is at the midway point on the trip. As I got closer to Utah, a storm started to brew, and next thing you know it is raining and lightening is striking nearby. Plus the wind is blowing. Since the freeway goes through the salt flats, the dust mixed with the rain creating a dirty, salty mess on my car. I made it to my aunt and uncle's place by 6:30 PM and they had a fresh pot of stew waiting for me for dinner. After dinner and an evening conversation, I turned in for the night.

The next day we had nothing planned, so we went to Park City. I had been there many times before in the summer and winter, so there was nothing particular I wanted to see. We stopped at a farmers market with was more of an arts and craft fair. Then we drove to a out-of-the-way restaurant for an early dinner. We were the only customers so service was good as were the onion rings. Then as we started to walk, the afternoon rain hit. Back into the car we went and after a quick trip up Main Street, where I took a picture of this very pink house, we headed back home.

The next day I woke up and got ready for my bike ride. Last time I had my bike I rode from the house to the top of Immigration Canyon and then back to the house. This time, once at the top, I coasted all the way back down to the bottom of the canyon near the zoo and This is The Place park. After a short break, I rode back up to the house. The total distance I rode was 17 miles with an elevation gain of 1400 feet. I'd saw over 100 people make this ride every day as I saw a constant stream of bikers all day long.

Later in the afternoon, I went with my aunt and uncle to pick up other aunts and uncles to have dinner at the Cracker Barrel. This place serves simple, American style food like meatloaf and turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes. I didn't make it to a Chuck-a-Rama this time - maybe next year.

After two full days in Salt Lake City, it was time to leave for my last stop, Las Vegas. I thank my Aunt Mary and Uncle Robert for their hospitality. I finally felt totally relaxes at this point, so it took a week to wind-down from my job-related stress.

Summer Vacation 2009: Day 4 - Yosemite

2009-07-10T18:25:00.000-07:00

I guess all the driving and hiking was catching up to me because I slept an hour more than planned. This was another rushed day, because I had to see all of Yosemite I could and still make it over the Tioga Pass and up to Carson City, NV. Unfortunately I decided to eat at the same restaurant next door because they had a 20% discount for Best Western customers. I arrived at the wrong time and even after getting seat it took 10 minutes before a waitress even asked me if I wanted coffee. Yes, coffee please! Almost an hour later, as I watched streams of cars driving headed towards the park, I paid my bill and left.

Once I got my car packed, again, I finally joined the stream of cars going into Yosemite. I was surprised that there was no wait at the entrance. I paid my $20 and entered the park. Since I had been here twice before I was not as concerned about seen everything in one day. My plan was to drive to Yosemite Vally, park my car and so some hiking and finally ride my bike. The roads in the valley were very busy, even for a Monday. They had people directing traffic and I found a parking spot in a dirt lot. I gathered my boots, backpack food and of course lots of water and walked to the visitors center.
From there I made the easy walk to lower Yosemite Falls, a place I had been to before. It was quite warm and the mist from the falls felt nice. The falls also make for good photos, and I had a man take a photo of me with the waterfall in the background. With no time to waste, I went to the visitors center, bought a tee-shirt and went back to my car where I removed my bike from it's rack. The ranger told me I could ride my bike all the way to Mirror Lake. Bikes were allowed on all paved roads but not dirt paths. When I was in Yosemite in 1989 with my friends we hiked to Mirror Lake. Riding a bike was the way to go. The 2.5 miles went by quick. Once at the lake I locked up my bike, took some photos, ate a snack and then got on my bike and rode back to the visitors center.

I rode around for another 30 minutes, but soon got tired of all the traffic. There were cars, shuttles and people everywhere. So after a trip to the store to buy ice and water, I put my bike back on the rack and headed out of the park via the Tioga Pass. I had never taken this route and was looking forwards to the drive. This road is closed during the winter and usually opens up in May or June, depending on the snow pack.
I knew that it might take up to two hours to drive this route, but I was in no hurry, so I stopped any place that was picture worthy. Something I forgot to mention was that the valley was filled with smoke from a controlled fire, which not only irritated my eyes and throat, but made many of my photos hazy. The Tioga Pass goes up above 9000 feet, and once out of the valley the air cleared up and also the hills were much greener. All along the road there were beautiful meadows and clear, blue lakes. I stopped at Tenaya Lake which sat right next to the road, walked to the shore and felt the cold, snow-melted water.

There was a very small visitors center near the east end. I felt obligated to stop, but there was nothing much to see. As I drove back down the steep and windy road, I made several more quick stops to take photos. Once I got to highway 395, I realized I never saw the sign that indicate where the actual pass was at its highest point. The road meets 395 at Lee Vining and Mono Lake, a place I'm very familiar with because I have driven though this town every time I drive to Lake Tahoe.

My plan was to make it to Carson City, but I only made it as far as Minden, which is only 10 miles south of Carson City. I saw a new looking Holiday Inn Express and decided to say there. It was only one month old and the room was very large and clean. For dinner I ate at an Italian place down the road. The lasagna was so big I could not finish it. Me not eating all the food on my plate?!?

Tomorrow was going to be a travel day, as I had to get all the way to Salt Lake City, a trip I told myself I'd never do again. Oh well - it was worth it.

Summer Vacation 2009: Day 3 - Kings Canyon

2009-07-09T17:44:00.000-07:00

I slept well that night. The hotel had no A/C and didn't need it. The window was open and letting in fresh mountain air all night. For breakfast I had the full buffet at the lodge and then lugged my stuff from the room to the car. It took two trips to carry my two duffel bags, a cooler, my laptop computer and various bags of stuff.

My goal for the day was to see a few more trees in Sequoia, drive through Kings Canyon and then get to my hotel just outside Yosemite. My first stop was the Kings Canyon visitor center, which looks to be in Sequoia National Park at the West entrance. From there I drove to General Grant Grove where the General Grant tree is located. Somehow I got lost trying to find that tree and ended up on a horse trail. Once I found the tree I snapped a few photos and then headed back to my car. I also walked trough a fallen tree as you can see in the photos.

There is only one road into Kings Canyon and it took over one hour to drive to "Roads End". I was surprised that the road was all downhill into the canyon. Along the way I stopped and took some photos. The river you see in the canyon was actually very loud even from afar. This road was less crowded and I encountered no cars as I drove into the park. There was a small visitors center deep in the park where a park ranger suggested a few places to stop and take a short hike to see some waterfalls. Earlier in the day I asked a ranger how long it took to drive from Kings Canyon to Yosemite and was told four hours. So because I was worried about time, I rushed myself through the park. It turned out that the drive was only two hours.

I had time to stop and view two waterfalls, come back to the visitors center for lunch, and leisurely drive back out the canyon. I would agree that there is lots more to see in Sequoia, but it was worth the time to drive to Kings Canyon. Plus, I was able to buy yet another national park tee-shirt.

As I drove up out of the canyon, the landscape quickly turned from green to dry brush. Then it turned into farm country. I had to laugh because as I looked at the farms I thought of the Farm Town game on facebook. Then I had to drive through actual farm towns before I made it to the road to Yosemite. I had a reservation at a Best Western in Oakhurst, a town I had never heard of. Turns out it was a busy little town, with lots of hotels, gas stations and store. I was lucky to get a ground-level room and park outside my door, which made it easy to move my stuff into the room.

For dinner, I ate at the restaurant next door. I opted to eat at the bar, and since I was the only one at the bar I had great service. The food was nothing special, but then again I just got fish and chips - I think. Somewhere along the way I realized that when I left the park I did not pass by anyplace to show that I had paid for admission to Sequoia National Park. I felt bad, because I want to support our national park system. However, I did buy two shirts and some of that money goes towards the parks. So I once again turned in early to get ready for my day in Yosemite.

Summer Vacation 2009: Day 2 - Sequoia

2009-07-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I woke up a 6 AM so that I could maximize my only full day in Sequoia National Park. I was on the road by seven, expecting it to take me two hours to drive into the park. But after 20 minutes I was at the entrance to the park, and the ranger was not ready to collect money yet. She told me to pay on the way out. So I drove in and parked at the ranger station to buy my tickets for a tour of Crystal Caves. Yes, I was there to see the giant sequoias, but I never miss out on a chance to see another cave. Again, I was early and the station did not open until eight. Once it opened, I bought my ticket for the first tour a 10. They said it would take one hour to drive to the cave which was located at the end of a narrow, windy road. I arrived at the cave around 9:15 and soon they let our group make the 10 minute walk to the entrance. What made this tour more interesting is that last year a fire burned the power lines, so the cave had no lights. We were all given a flashlight, but I used my LED head lamp, which was not a bright as the flashlights, but good enough.

The cave tour lasted about 45 minutes, and there were only a few places I really had to duck to not hit my head. I tried to make my way to the front of the group so that I was not stuck behind any slow people. I did take many photos, but less than half turned out worth keeping. You know its funny how they tell you not to touch anything in the cave, and the man in front of me kept touching the cave formations. Great example for his kids. Anyways, the tour was worth the time.

My next stop was the Giant Forest Museum. From this location you could walk to or take a shuttle to many of the famous sequoias. Because it was bear country, they had signs saying to put all your food in bear lockers, which I did. It looked as if most people did not. From the museum I decided to hike to General Sherman, the largest tree in the world. The map I had was not meant to be used for hiking, which I soon found out. The trail started out pretty clear, but I soon lost my way. I was never really lost, since I could see the road at all times. Finally I came across a woman laying on a bench smoking a cigarette, which is always nice. She said her family left her behind because she couldn't hike any more. I wonder why? She pointed the direction for the General Sherman tree and I was soon there. Lots of people standing around looking at a big tree. There were some other famous named trees in the area which I saw and took photos of.

I decided to take the shuttle back, but somehow got on the wrong one. So I got off two stops later and waited for the south-bound shuttle, which ended up being the same shuttle! Once I got back to my car I drove around some more, walked around a nice meadow surrounded by trees, bought a tee-shirt and some beer and ice and then headed toward my lodge, the Wuksachi Lodge.

The lodge consisted of a main building and the rooms were located in three detached buildings within walking or driving distance. My room was really nice and had a great view. I ate at the lodge restaurant for dinner and treated myself to a nice dinner complete with a ice-cream Sunday.

The main lodge had wireless Internet access, so I brought my laptop there to upload my photos for the day. There were four to six deer outside the window grazing in the forest. I saw many deer on this trip, but no bears or other wildlife other than squirrels and birds.

I turned in early so I had plenty of sleep for the next day's adventure: finish Sequoia, see Kings Canyon and drive to Yosemite.