October 15, 2009 We all agreed to leave early today so that we could arrive in Vegas early and sit by the pool. We had spent not a little bit of time yesterday, looking for potential places to stay. Hotels.com was quoting rooms for $20.00 a night…I’m not kidding and they were at big resorts…OK not Bellagio but others. We had settled on the Las Vegas Hilton and that’s where we were headed. But first we drove through Death Valley and that turned out to be one of the absolute surprise highlights of the trip…it was… magnificent…right up there with the Rockies and the northern Pacific. It’s difficult to describe it in any meaningful way and I know the pictures won’t do it justice…it’s stark, moonlike, mountainous, flat, gray, colorful, hot, still, dry, and I think ... read more

October 16, 2009 Before leaving Las Vegas this morning we drove down “The Strip”. What a ride! I had been to Vegas 30 years ago and at that time it was one narrow road…maybe a mile long. Today…I don’t know what to say. Predictably Donna LOVED the hotels with their incredible entrances and adornments. For me, well, when they finally come from outer space…I want it to be clear…I think it’s NUTS! Moving along, we arrived at the Hoover Dam. Lake Mead is beautiful and the dam, amazing. We didn’t go on the tour…just looked from one of the turn outs. They’re building a bypass road that goes right over the dam and that partially completed structure was just unbelievable. The temperature at the dam was 94 degrees and the sun was HOT. That talk about ... read more

October 12, 2009 What a day! We went into San Francisco to go to Alcatraz and what a treat! First we had lunch in a restaurant on the pier, Butterfly. The meal was wonderful…the best we’ve had in a long time. Then we got on the boat to go out to Alcatraz. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge from the boat. This tour is so well done! It turned out to be one of the best experiences yet! There is an audio tour that is narrated by 4 ex-guards and 4 ex-inmates. The tape has background noises…cell doors slamming, inmates talking in the background. The prison has a lot of intact areas: cells, the dining halls, “the hole”. The history was fascinating! The actual island is only a short boat ride into the harbor. The ... read more

October 9, 2009 “To many, a redwood grove is a natural cathedral; there’s a sense of peace and reverence as one passes between the lofty pillars of trees and along the aisles of ferns, moss, sorrel and trillium, while high above sunlight filters through the canopy as if through stained glass”. This is a description of the Redwood Forest taken from a brochure about it…I don’t know who wrote this but I could never describe the experience as beautifully or as accurately! Today we left Eureka quite early. We were driving all the way to Sunnyvale which was going to take quite some time, but we had reservations there. After driving for a short while we turned onto the Avenue of the Giants and that was simply magnificent. We did feel as if we were ... read more

October 8, 2009 When our oldest son Billy was about 5 years old he was given a new soccer ball which he loved. One afternoon we drove to Castle Island to walk around and get an ice cream. When we got there we warned him not to play with the ball near the water. Of course he kicked the ball and it went right off the path into the deep end, impossible to retrieve! He was bereft. Even today if you ask him about the incident, he still gets that sick feeling inside...so that's how I felt( and still feel) on Monday evening when I started to write the blog and my computer crashed. I was appalled! I kept pushing buttons, turning it on and off, unable to comprehend what was wrong. When I finally spoke ... read more