Geo: 37.0044, -121.572Its the last day of our vacations, and then its back to working hard... So we can play hard some more. :D We only had about a four hour drive north up 101 today.First stop was breakfast at Paula's Pancake House, though. I had to try Danish pancakes, which ended up being like a cross between American pancakes and French crepes. I didn't get mine with fruit, though. I meant to get a picture but I think Arya grabbed at something, and I dove for her instead. Oh well. They are definitely good and I recommend them!After that, we drove a few minutes down the highway to Ostrichland USA. If you have kids, like animals or both, this is a neat stop. Adults are $6, kids are $3, and you get a bowl of ... read more

Geo: 32.7157, -117.162Well. I contracted the plague. Probably from my petri dish toddler (both she and grandma were sick this past week), plus I'd been having too fun adventuring so it was bound to catch up with me. I woke up very weak, and feeling like a truck hit me. I barely made it down to the restaurant to put some food in my mouth before dragging myself back into my bed loaded up on meds. Chris took Arya to the San Diego Zoo- something he and I were both very excited to do together. There was no way I would have had any energy, though. Now we have an excuse to come back. ;DSo while I sweated out a few fevers and dozed in and out of sleep for four hours, Chris and Arya enjoyed ... read more

Geo: 35.1568, -120.668We got up early, finished packing, got coffee and started our drive south down 101. The plan is to spend two days driving south, one day in San Diego and then two days driving north again. This will be Arya's longest roadtrip yet so we're hoping she tolerates it well. Especially since we are planning to break up the driving with frequent stops.Our first stop was in Morgan Hill. Really it was just a drive by but Chris wanted to see how the progress on our new home was going (its being built). It finally has a roof we discovered!Next stop was Carmel-by-the-Sea. Its a favorite place for Chris and I. Usually we stay overnight but today we just walked around downtown for an hour. We visited our favorite store, the Cheese Shop. They ... read more

Geo: 35.01, 135.75We were up again at 730am so we could check out of the house by 8am. I'm impressed at how fast our group has been able to pick up and move this trip, how in sync we are for the most part. We occasionally get slowed down going into stores or stopping to pee but not the way any other non-guided group would.Back at Kyoto Station, we loaded our luggage into storage lockers for the day. Since it was early, all the large lockers were still free. Billy and I had built in time buffers and we were getting around faster than we expected. Our Tea Ceremony wasn't until 10am, and we'd arrived at 9am. So wandered around looking for breakfast. Nearly everything was still closed, I'm guessing because it's Kyoto's nightlife district. We ... read more

Geo: 36.7425, 138.417We woke up the next morning barely in time for breakfast. It was more kaseki madness, and it came with delicious legit oyakodon (one our favorite Japanese dishes back home) and sashimi! Plus a billion other things.More importantly, we woke up to MAGIC. What's funny is a week ago I was checking the weather, and thought I saw snow on a live webcam of the Shibu area (yup, that's how intently I plan). Then I second guessed myself and thought it was okay, no snow. We misunderstood, through a language barrier, that there was only only one shuttle headed up to the monkey park. Apparently it was 9:10am that it was to leave, and it was already 8:50am. So by the time we threw on the warmest clothes we could find, downed a cup ... read more