Vacations
Home Blog Kayak Stories Vacations Other Stories Training Journal War Thoughts Cats & Dogs Links Remodel Diary On this page: San Jose, April 2005 Las Vegas, April 2005 Reno, March 2005 Mexico, October 2004 US Flag Canada Flag Mexico Flag Panama Flag Oregon Flag (back) California Flag	San Jose, April 2005 Part of this story is sad, part is okay. Went down to visit Donna for the weekend. Although this isn’t technically a vacation, you can decide to be in a “vacation state of mind” if you want, even if it’s just for the weekend. We had planned to hike on Saturday, but at the last minute decided to go to the Berryessa flea market. It is still as fabulous as ever, as international, as over the top, and as unique as ever. I had the delicious chile verde burrito and it brought back so many memories. The stands are now run by an outside vendor. Donna says the snack bars used to be run by the family because the father wanted all of his kids to work. I guess they’ve now decided to just sit back and count the money as it’s trucked into the bank. We shopped a lot and I bought several items to sell on eBAY. I still haven’t snapped the pictures and gotten them posted yet. Next weekend, I promise! Sunday we planned to go hiking at Big Basin State Park. We drove up Highway 9. Near the top where it meets Highway 35 we saw a very bad motorcycle accident. The motorcyclist was coming down the hill and going too fast around the hairpin turn. He drifted into our lane and hit a sedan and scraped along its front driver’s side. At some point he left the bike and hit the minivan behind with his head. He ended up on his back on the center line unconscious and bleeding badly from his nose. His cycle flew down the road and ended up against the bank. Donna and I were in the 3^rd car. It reminded me of my brother of course. We stopped, everyone stopped. The sedan driver (a nice kid in his 20’s out with his wife and baby) was talking to 911. The minivan driver went to slow cars coming downhill. Donna went to organize the people below us. I went and stood over the guy and shouted at him that help was on the way and we were all here to help and he was surrounded by friends and similar nonsense. He was unconscious, but breathing. There were some lucky parts to the story. He was wearing a helmet and a leather jacket. Nothing was bent at an unnatural angle or bent where he wasn’t born with bendy parts. He was breathing. Just as he started to come to, some guys pulled up who were medics in their work lives. Good thing because I had exceeded my knowledge with “don’t move him” and saying encouraging things. The medics actually did the same things, although they also took his sunglasses off (ooh, not a good looking right eye) and kept his head still when he started to thrash around in pain. Within minutes the fire trucks, ambulance, and police were there. I went off to cry on Donna’s shoulder for a minute (my brother) and clean my hands off. A woman in the car behind us gave me some handi-wipes…thanks! We stuck around until the motorcyclist had left the scene and the police had interviewed the two drivers. We mainly wanted to stay so we could say that the two weren’t at fault, which the cops seemed to agree about. I think the guy will make it, and will probably not lose his eye or any brain functions…he came to so quickly, that’s got to be a good sign. Donna and I also helped to calm the young kids down. We talked about it and talked to them that we should probably continue with our days as planned. It was a beautiful day, we were alive, we should celebrate that we were alive. We drove on (gasping and nervous every time we passed motorcycles, or they passed us) and took a lovely hike to Sempivirens Falls. There is nothing more magical than a sequoia forest with a waterfall. I won’t even attempt to describe it because I can’t do it, I’m not that good. You’ll just have to go see for yourself. If you’ve been, then you already know what I’m talking about. We headed back to the city (more calm now in traffic), ate dinner, and then I drove back to Sacramento. Good luck Bennie (the motorcyclist), I hope you’re well on your way to recovery and that you drive more safely from now on!
	Las Vegas, April 2005 At last, it’s Cesar Chavez day and thanks to being a lazy state worker I have the day off. I get ready very leisurely and even take a trip with Jodi to drive by her new job digs near Mather Field. It’s so great that she has this opportunity and no one could deserve it more. I leave Sacramento around noon and head up highway 50. The weather is perfect, sunny, cool, and clear. I stop for a short snow shoe hike at the Echo Lake sno-park and then continue. The views from the summit are breathtaking. I cross over into Nevada from Highway 88 and eventually make my way to 395 and then 95 southbound. I’m sure there are more isolated drives, but I pass very little that isn’t rabbit and sage brush covered high desert. As it gets dark I reach Tonopah. There are many hotels and not much else except mining museums, mines, and mining dumps. Maybe next trip I’ll pick the garish Clown motel, this time, I pick the Jim Butler (and his mule!) motel that’s triple AAA rated. Jim Butler apparently founded Tonopah when he found gold and silver ore there and became a rich bastard after being a poor bastard all his life. Legend swears that he made his discovery because he picked up a rock to throw at his balky mule and it turned out to be “the one.” Next morning I was up bright and early and on my way again south. I went off 95 towards Death Valley at the Scotty’s Castle turnoff. By now, a few Joshua Trees were part of the desert landscape. Scotty’s Castle is in a beautiful oasis and well worth a stop. I walked around a little but didn’t do a tour. I headed into the park and took the first left to Umehebe Crater. It’s a deep volcanic crater surrounded by volcanic gravel. I hiked along the top of the crater to little Hebe Crater. There were some steep climbs, but just for a change it’s at a low elevation so when I stopped I could actually catch my breath. Death Valley is impressive. I am just not a desert person. The landscape goes on and on and on endlessly. Even the surrounding Panamint and Amargosa ranges seem dwarfed by the salty stretches. I stop a few times to look at the wildflowers, touch rocks, and just generally breathe the air. Once we get below sea level it seems eerie to me. I had the sense that a really big earthquake could send the waters rushing over 100 feet over my head. I stopped for a brief lunch at Furnace Creek and then headed east to Pahrump and Las Vegas. Finding the Emerald Suites Cameron was a bit of a challenge but driving past the other two E.S. was helpful later in picking Petra up who had been dropped off by her cab driver at the wrong one! On our first night, after gorging on lobster tails at the buffet at the Rio, we stayed up till 1 talking and laughing and trying on our tiaras (thanks Petra!), our new Elvis handbags (thanks Carla!), and our licorice whips from the Cubs/Sox game (thanks Lisa!). Hmmm, I better get something too. We went to sleep only after making a pact that we wouldn’t wake anyone else until at least 8 am. Saturday morning we were up early, well Petra and I were. We drank coffee, watched the Pope news, and finally went down to sit by the pool. We ended up sitting by the parking lot because the hotel had decided that Saturday morning on a holiday weekend was a good time to give it a thorough cleaning. Finally Carla and Lisa joined us and we went to Paris for a nice breakfast. We had a crowded itinerary, so according to Carla’s pedometer we’d managed to walk 10 miles by the end of the day. We left Paris and went to the Bellagio to see the butterflies. The garden is also fantastic so we also graced the slot machines with some of our hard earned cash. Next we went to Caesar’s Palace so Lisa could stop at the Elton John store. I just wanted to make it clear that only Lisa was interested in E.J. I can highly recommend the moving walkways, escalators, and revolving doors. As a free ride they are E class. We crossed back over Las Vegas Blvd to the Hawaiian market. I stopped there for a nice sit in the shade as well as some water and peach flavored Italian ice. The rest continued on to the M&M store. They returned loaded down with branded loot just after the bird show by a show from the “Bird Man of Las Vegas.” His various birds dropped things into cups, rode scooters, talked, and flew around. The last clever bird did a funny trick. He took a dollar from a volunteer from the audience and gave it to the B.M.O.L.V. When directed to return the dollar bill to the volunteer, he instead veered off and put the bill in the collection box. The B.M.O.L.V. then pulled out another dollar and the volunteer was made whole. Great showmanship and very funny. Our next destination was the Hilton and the Star Trek exhibit. Carla and I spent several hours there while Lisa and Petra donated some more money to the slot machines. We did have weird drinks at Quark’s so Lisa could see the last few minutes of the Illinois/Louisiana game. The Cubs lost and Illinois won. Petra just pointed out that she actually won money at the Hilton. However, it’s my story and I can tell it any way I want. I’m also leaving out our attempted trip to the Liberace museum. It was 45 minutes till closing and they didn’t think we could possibly tour the exhibits in that short of a time. Okay, enough digression, back to the story. We then headed to the Monte Carlo for the Shark Express (great!) and dinner. We toured through just before closing and I can recommend that because there’s almost no waiting in line and it’s much less crowded! By now, we are all very exhausted so we have a quick dinner and then donate some money to the slot machines before heading back to bed around midnight. For middle-aged folk, we’re doing pretty well at tearing up the Strip. Sunday in Sin City Petra and I are the snorers and the early risers so we actually managed to pair up well in the rooms. We were down hanging out in the parking lot and trying to rearrange the crap in my car trunk so we could get everyone’s luggage into it. We succeeded, and still had time to hang out with the tiny brown birds. We had breakfast in the Venetian with a slightly too chatty waitress and excellent French toast. I also managed to suck down my first mocha of the weekend. It was a lifesaver! We toured the canal and St. Mark’s square and also left our usual donations in the slot machines. Then we headed to the Liberace Museum and gift shop. Well, just the gift shop, really. We bought several items and relaxed. I am not a Liberace fan however the artwork displayed in the café area was good. His foundation sponsors college scholarships and the art was from some of the recipients. We tried driving out to Red Rock Canyon but ran out of time before Petra and Carla had to head for the airport. We dropped them off and then headed to drop Lisa off at the car rental place. She was going to spend a few days at Death Valley. The rent a car place was jam packed, long, long line, grumpy, grumpy people. One woman went ballistic over some problem with her car rental and eventually the guy got the manager who just rented her the car. Now, why didn’t the other guy think of that? I headed up 95 to Beatty (cute town!) and then across 190 to Lone Pine through Stovepipe Wells. That’s a fun drive. I stopped briefly on a summit after dark and looked up at the stars. Wow! I miss the stars living in the city. Lone Pine had lots of open hotel rooms so I’m staying at the Mt. Whitney motel. Sunday, The Long Drive Home Woke up and had a nice breakfast at one of the many cute cafes. I had planned to try and snow shoe on Mt. Whitney, but the road was closed too far down for snow. I took a scenic dirt road back to 395. Up near Mammoth I turned off and did some snow shoeing at around 7200 feet. It was nice, but the snow was spring melt slushy so if I wasn’t on a snow mobile trail I was up to my knees. One thing to note, no asthma after several days in Nevada. Maybe I’m going to have to find another job and move.
	Reno, March 2005 Some of us decided to work on our careers and take a class with our own time and money. We also decided to have a mini-vacation and take the class in Reno…”Managing Emotions Under Pressure.” We all have emotions and we all work under pressure at work. The emphasis was to be on fun though, not work. I arrived last on Thursday night and was several drinks shy of the giddiness displayed by the others. We eventually settled on some great penny machines in the corner. Scott had already won big bucks and we kept rubbing him for luck…I won’t say where we rubbed him either! Joyce watched while sitting on the stairs nearby and trying to control the room spinning. We got extra drinks from the server too, woohoo! Later, we gorged on Dungeness crab at the buffet and laughed loudly, loudly, loudly. I discovered that it was harder to guide hammered Shirley and felt more sympathy for Don. Don is her usual handler on these vacations. We were all at class the next day in the Sammy Theatre, some with hangovers, some without. Scott, the weekend’s big winner, slapped down a rather large bill and bought breakfast for all of us. I’m sure yesterday’s lucky rubbing had nothing to do with it. The class was reasonably good, although, from my perspective, the instructor spent a lot of time trying to sell books and tapes in the back of the room. A few quotes from the class, “It’s all Cindy’s fault!” and “It’s just an event.” My name had been used early in the class as part of a story. After class, we gambled some more (guess who won again) and had another crab gorging session at the buffet. We were all a lot less drunk than the night before and the conversation lagged until we got creative with telling funny stories. We drove home early the next morning. “What happens in Reno stays in Reno, except on cgbikes.com”
	Mexico, October 2004 FUN vacation (aren't they all)! My friend Donna and I drove from San Jose and Sacramento and met at my Dad's in Fresno. Parked my car there and headed off to Las Vegas early last Friday morning. Had breakfast in Bakersfield. Skinny dipped in the Kern river that morning! Yes, it's true, it was very quiet on the road and the river was well below the road and there were many screening rocks and it was fabulous! Donna scrambled downstream on the rocks and thought I had rocks in my head! Had fun in Vegas and I generously promised to share with everyone when I won my 100 million dollars. On Sunday we drove to Hoover Dam then to the Valley of Fire. We hiked on the Mouse Trail which had plenty of petroglyphs. We also scrambled up some rocks to oversee the water that made the canyon famous. We saw bighorn sheep at the security checkpoint at Hoover Dam. Exciting! By late afternoon we were back over the Hoover Dam (not a logical progression but Donna really wanted to see it) and into Arizona. We stopped in Kingman for the night. We had breakfast in Williams at a very “Malene” place and shopped a little in the town. Bought some earrings at Thunder Eagle gift store there. On the way to Sedona we stopped at a Garland’s Indian Jewelry and bought apples and looked at jewelry. The shop was beautiful with a metal deer sculpture, a metal eagle sculpture on the roof, and other attractive features. Drove through Sedona which is pretty but a little too touristy for my taste. We stopped at a city park (Red Rock Canyon) and spent some time in the information center because of a great storm. Spent the night in Tucson, AZ at the Traveller’s Inn. It was the cheapest place and was clean. The owners were friendly. Had breakfast at the Willow Café on North Campbell in Tucson. I was particularly thrilled with that because I found it on the internet from my cell phone. Too cool, also the food was fabulous! Got an outstanding mocha at the coffee place just at the corner of the Miracle Mile and North Campbell. Crossed into Mexico at Nogales and weren't stopped at all. About 15 kilometres south, we stopped to get a tourist card, a car permit, and some pesos. We did run into a minor glitch here because we inadvertently ran a stop sign. The policia pulled us over and took Donna's passport and made us follow him back. He gave her back the passport and made us drive through again, this time stopping at the alto sign. Hey, there were about 10 lanes, only one had the sign. We were using the Lonely Planet guidebook and their instructions to stop and get the necessary permits here were accurate. Do not attempt to get these in Nogales! We pulled over to a road side stand and had tacos and some delicious grilled onions for lunch. They are big green onions (the kind with the long stalks) and really, really tasty. We drove south to Hermosillo and found our first hotel (Hotel Suites Kino) and got our rooms. I can highly recommend this hotel. South again to Guaymas which is on the coast of the Sea of Cortez (or Gulf of Mexico). We basked on Miramar beach under the palapas. I swam. We watched pelicans fishing and even saw some dolphins in the water. I also walked along the beach and watched the sunset. I wasn't a big fan of the hotel we stayed at here, but it was nice enough. We also made reservations and bought tickets for the ferry across the sea to Santa Rosalia. Diego was very helpful with the tickets and we had our own personal tour of the ferry. This really made it more relaxing for us as we had no idea what to expect. We drove to nearby town, San Carlos, also with a beach. We climbed up a steep rocky hill and overlooked the sea. It was rocky and dangerous but fun! I think that was the last exercise we had. We then spent the day at a beach near a big fancy hotel. I swam again. We got directions to the hotel as well as access to parking from the proprietor of JC’s café. He was called Larry, but his actual name was Ralph St. Onge. We also met a Seri Indian named Juan and his wife. Why did I take one, two, three pictures of dinner in Guaymas? Ahhh, the El Palmar was a steak place on the main road as you enter the town. If was very good and lots of atmosphere. There were metal cowboy statues and, scenic brick, and other cowboy and horse décor. The ferry left at 8 pm and we were there about 2 hours early due to some confusion about which time zone we were in. Watching the crowd was entertaining and we exchanged many smiles with people. There were two American guys in their late 50’s or early 60’s on fancy touring Harleys. They had Latina girlfriends who could easily have been their daughters. One couple was fighting and there were lots of scenes of him walking over to her nonchalantly, some intense whispering, and then him strolling away disconsolately. There was also a guy who drove up and started fishing. Clearly a fanatic! He drew an enthusiastic crowd of people as no one had anything better to do while we were waiting. We had bought the cheapest tickets and spent the 10 hour trip in a big room with like airplane seats. First, everyone got snacks at the snack bar. Then everyone sprawled all over the seats to sleep. The guy in front of me was a real snorer! There was another guy who had one foot up on the seat back in front of him and one (presumably) his wife. Donna and I had our own seats and managed to (sort of) sleep. We arrived at dawn in Santa Rosalia and had breakfast overlooking the harbor. People were exercising along the water and we smiled at one woman who jogged past 3 times. Oh yeah, there were bomb sniffing dogs before getting on the ferry, and drug sniffing dogs getting off the ferry. The military policeman was fascinated with the auto unlock feature on Donna's car and asked how much the car cost (Toyota Matrix, 20,000). Everyone was so friendly to us and we always had a little conversation given our extremely limited Espanol. Now we were in Baja California. We had a tiring drive to our next town, Guerrero Negro which looked like it was on the Pacific Ocean but really wasn't. We decided to keep driving, even though we were exhausted and ended up in a town called Catavina with a fancy hotel in the mountains, called the La Pinta. It was expensive, but this area is deserted and we were really, really exhausted. If we'd had unlimited time and money we would have spent another night here. I had mole (spicy, not sweet chocolate sauce) here for the first time (over eggs and corn tortillas) and it was soooo delicious. I am going to have to eat more of this! The huge boulder fields here are not to be believed. On the way to Ensenada the next day we passed by miles and miles of Los Pinos tomato fields. This farm is so large that they had at least 20 school busses to move the employees around to the different fields. We drove through to Ensenada which was pretty touristy, at least where we went. It was a lot like Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The hotel we stayed at was okay although a bit pricey for the amenities. The people were nice though, and more laid back I thought. It's difficult to really understand subtle things about people when you're from a different culture and don't speak the language but it seemed as if most of the people at the hotels we met were formal, friendly but formal. At the two military checkpoints we passed, they were astonished that Donna and I weren't related but were just friends. I'm sure we "all look alike" to them and both Donna and I are short with dark curly hair so we look more alike than others. I felt sorry for them having to search our car, especially because after so many days the contents of my suitcase were no longer very fresh. We walked all over Ensenada and drove around too. We crossed over back into the US at Tijuana and drove all the way back to our homes. I really love this kind of traveling and it was great!