the good, the bad and the funny

Suzanne and I could write about our vacation and it would be exactly the same. We went to the same places and pointed our cameras at the same points of interest. If you ever want to stay in the most beautiful bed and breakfast and be treated better than you've ever been treated and fed better than you've ever been fed, read Suzanne's post about the Ferry Point House .

Here is an overall summary of our trip:

Good things about the New England States:
#1 It is gorgeous. #2 So many things for tourists to do, you just cant get to it all. #3 Light rains and wisps of fog were beautiful.

#4 The lakes were breathtaking. This picture was taken just outside our hotel room. I could have just enjoyed the week from right here:

Or maybe just lounged in bed and enjoyed this view from the window:

#5 I learned a lot of our country's history that took place in this area. Fort Ticonderoga , Old Sturgridge Village , and the Canterbury Shaker Village . #6 Interesting local restaurants and markets .

#7 There are a lot of old, quaint church steeples, covered bridges, and barns.

#8 Very clean states, no litter or weeds along the roads or anywhere really.

#9 Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Necco (New England Confection Co), and King Arthur Flour are based in this area.

#10 Fudge is sold at every counter and at every cash register in every store, gift shop and restaurant.

Bad things about the New England States:

#1 Fudge is sold everywhere!

#2 There were no garbage cans. Seriously, New Hampshire is devoid of garbage cans. Where do the people of this very clean state throw away their garbage? All I wanted to do was toss my milk carton and banana peel and it took all day to find a single garbage can. It really is a "Pack it in, Pack it out" state.

#3 Very few chain stores, chain restaurants or fast food stores in the rural towns. It took all day to spot a Walgreen's which you can find on any corner in AZ.

#4 Fog. It blocked our view from the top of Prospect Mountain where on a clear day, you should be able to see 5 states.

#6 The mileage information signs and speed limit signs were few and far between. (yet the mile markers were posted every 2/10ths of a mile. I have no idea why.)

#7 Numbered highways merge and overlap quite often making navigating from a map difficult.

#8 The Appalachian Trail is pretty darned tricky.

Funny things about New England:

#1 There are signs to warn drivers about moose and bears.

#2 Funny names:

#3 There are dead people EVERYWHERE! These old little cemeteries are along every road. #4 Specialized yogurt flavors. #5 Fall visitors are referred to as "Leaf Peepers" #6 Favorite saying on a T-shirt:

What happens in Vermont, stays in Vermont.

(But nothing ever really happens here.)

The worst thing about our vacation, it had to end . . . goodbye Boston. It was a great week.

anaheim

Dave sings in a men's competitive chorus and his international competition was in Anaheim over the 4th of July weekend this year so we took a little road trip. Dave loves to drive and he especially likes to drive his truck. So halfway to Anaheim, which should take appx. 5 1/2 hours, (remember this number, we will do some math at the end of this post) Dave suggests we take a driving detour up and over the hills around Palm Springs. I don't happen to enjoy adding hours onto a road trip just to see some pretty scenery, but this was Dave's trip and I relented and agreed to take the scenic byway. The road takes off out out of the barren desert valley and winds up and up and up. It was a little disappointing that we were adding an hour to our trip just to get a more majestic view of the barren desert. However, after this point, the road twisted right up into the pine trees and high mountain meadows and the cutest little towns you ever saw. Definitely places that would be fun to return for a weekend in the future. The only problem was that instead of taking an extra hour, it was taking an extra 2 hours and Dave had to be in Anaheim for his first chorus rehearsal at 8pm and we were cutting it close. So we wound back down the far side of the mountains on a narrow and motion-sickness inducing road and barely made it to town on time. Dave had the next two days full of rehearsals and so I planned on lounging in the hotel room. That plan got boring after the first half day. I found there is very little to do in Anaheim if you are not planning to do anything Disney related, but I did find a little place called Oak Canyon Nature Center in the Anaheim hills. I felt very brave navigating the freeways (I don't like driving Dave's huge truck much anyway). And I actually made it to and from without incident. I am actually a pretty good navigator, though Dave claims I'm not. We had quite a heated "discussion" on that topic during this trip. But who is he to judge? (just because I'm his one and only navigator when we drive . . . ) Anyway - I am reminded again of the beauty that is not found in our hometown neighborhood. This was a 50 acre nature center with a bubbling brook running through it and miles of hiking trails. One hiking trail was named "Tranquility Loop", but the main flaw with that area was that there was a day camp being held for 2nd graders right in the center of the loop. Now, I love the sights and sounds of 2nd graders, but 'tranquil" it was not.
The next afternoon, Dave got away from rehearsals for a couple of hours so we visited the Muzeo Museum, Monsters and Beasts Exhibit. It was a little bit cool, showing Hollywood special effects and animatronics.

We did succumbed to the pressure of a Disney event. The convention center where Dave's events were is literally right across the street from Disneyland so we ate a couple of meals in the restaurants of Downtown Disney. Goofy was everywhere. The last day of the the competition, Dave had already performed and it was the finals for the quartets. They are fun to watch, but Dave talked me into 'ditching' and taking yet another road trip detour. Have I mentioned that I really am not a fan of driving extra hours for the sake of driving extra hours? He had been wanting to go up to Sequoia National Park which is up north of Bakersfield (which is 3 1/2 hours north of where we were . . . . THREE AND A HALF HOURS! . . . ONE WAY!)

We hadn't planned on this side trip ahead of time, so we had no hotel reserved for Friday night. We called and got a list of little hotels that are in the little tiny town of Three Rivers which is at the entrance of the park. It was 4th of July weekend and there were no vacancies anywhere. But one woman said "I have a friend that has a bed and breakfast and probably will have an opening". So we called. "Yes, we can accommodate you, but we are way off the road, and there is no phone service once you get into town, so call before you get to town and I'll have my husband meet you down at the restaurant/lounge and he'll drive you up here. We are way up the canyon, beautiful view, etc, etc, you'll love it". We were about 45 minutes later than we thought we'd be, it was 10:30 pm and while waiting for us, the husband had been drinking quite a bit. The drive up the this alleged Bed and Breakfast was on a dirt road behind 3 locking gates way up into the canyon. We then realized: 1.We told no one we were taking this side trip. 2. We have no phone service 3. We are being let into the unknown hills 4. We don't know the name of this Bed and Breakfast 5. We don't know this man, don't even know his last name 5. If we die, no one will have a clue where to look for our remains. (Actually, only I was thinking these thoughts. And I was trying to keep them to myself because I was kind of freaking out.)

This place was what I would call communal living. It was a cabin in the woods that had random bedrooms for rent. There were guests cooking in the kitchen, others hanging out in the living room and now we were thrown into the mix. It was the most awkward situation I could even imagine. The bedroom we were given had no air circulation so we had to sleep with the window and the door open to keep from sweating to death all night. And did I mention there were random people sharing this house? It was like a public motel without a front door. I was sleeping (trying to) with people walking up and down the hall right past our bedroom. Seriously awkward. And the breakfast part of the "Bed and Breakfast" was bring your own groceries and feel free to use our kitchen. We had no groceries so we had no breakfast and we were heading up into the park, not back down the hill into town, so we started out the day hungry and went forward with our day in the park.

Sequoia National Park is amazing. We got a little education in forestry while we were there. Sequoias are shorter than the Redwoods, but have the more massive trunks.
This picture was hard to get with only us in it because this is the biggest tree in the world, therefore the biggest attraction in the park. Being that it was 4th of July weekend, it was crowded and the area looked like this:
Then we drove up to the higher areas and hiked up to an overlook site. I made sure this picture was taken against the snow capped mountains in the background so it would appear we really hiked a great distance, but it was only about a 20 minute hike to the top from where we parked.

The drive through the park is absolutely gorgeous. When you drive to the bottom of the hill, the trees end very abruptly, then it's on to crossing the hot barren desert again.
We left at 3:30 pm, and we hadn't eaten a thing in almost 24 hours. There's not a snack bar or even a vending machine anywhere in that park so we were glad to be back in civilization. I said I'd be willing to take this little road trip detour as long as we left California at a reasonable time. We had to be back home for Sunday morning, and I told Dave I really didn't want to be driving until 3 in the morning. We left the park late afternoon and so true to his word, he got us home at 2:45 a.m.
We drove by a big nasty fire in or near Parker AZ at 11:30 pm, but couldn't find anything in the news about it the next morning. And I thought we'd miss all the fireworks, but surprisingly also in Parker, they do their fireworks display in the middle of the night in that little town. The town's fireworks program ended at 11:40 pm. Either they started very late, or they had a grand 3 hour show!

Our original driving plan: 11 total hours of driving for a round trip drive to Anaheim. Our actual driving total: TWENTY TWO HOURS of driving in a truck. I'm getting a written guaranteed travel plan from Dave next time we leave town.

oahu

Dave's brother and his wife went to Hawaii with us. Or rather, we went with them. They came up with the great idea, and we just tagged along. It was fun traveling with Brent and Vee. We don't get to see them very often, but we all enjoy each others company very much.Here's a re-cap of a few other things we did while vacationing. Brent is a certified scuba diver. I don't exactly know how that hobby started for him in land-locked Utah. Brent and Vee got to Hawaii almost a week before us and he got a chance to do several dives that week. He took Roxanne and Brady out on a beginner's dive off the coast of Honolulu one day. I thought Brady would take right to it and Roxanne would have some genuine fears. As it ended up, Brady did just fine, but it was just an OK activity for him. It was Roxanne that jumped right into it and would be glad to get a chance to go again. Thanks for taking them, Brent.
While they spent the day underwater, Vee and Roxanne and Rachel and I spent the day at the famous Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. You could not even imagine how much junk we accumulated in a very short period of time. . . . t-shirts, jewelry, sunglasses, macadamia nuts, ukuleles, and a dashboard grass-skirted bobble head figurine for a girl who won't even own a car for several more years, but wanted to be prepared when she does.

We made a stop at Pearl Harbor and visited the USS Arizona Memorial. The only problem with it is that there are no photo opportunities. This is Brady in the memorial, but you can't tell that is where he is. You can only get a good photo it as you are approaching it on the shuttle boat. Nevertheless, it is an incredible place. I'm kind of amazed and impressed that it remains such a reverent site for being a crowded public attraction. I found a bit of information that was quite startling to me though. How can a 14 year old child who has attended a reputable public school system for 10 years not be familiar with Pearl Harbor? And when I say "not familiar", I'm not talking about research paper type details. I'm talking about "How come I've never heard of Pearl Harbor before? It sounds like it was a big deal in our history." (Well, dear uneducated daughter of mine, it was. Now let me review some other historical facts with you . . . have you ever heard of World War II ??)We also toured the USS Missouri Battleship and the USS Bowfin Submarine which are also parked in Pearl Harbor. I think given the recently realized lack of education, we would have used this as a educational learning opportunity. But, no. It was just a photo shoot to reenact the sinking of the Titanic.Actually, after the sailor hat fashion show, and the reenactments and many other nonsensical photos, we actually did get some headsets and made them go through the audio tours. It was all kind of fascinating.We had to make a stop at the famous Dole Plantation and experience everything pineapple, especially the pineapple ice cream. They claim to have the world's largest maze. You take a card with you and you have to find several stations in the maze to get your card stamped. I thought it might just be fun for little kids, but I didn't see our offspring for about 45 minutes. I think in the end, Brady and Melanie climbed through the bushes on the border and hiked back around.

Most of the week we spent at the rental house. It sat right on the beach. Just open the gate and out onto the sand. LOVED IT!The nice part of the house is that it rented out in sections. So we rented the upstairs for the 4 adults and rented the downstairs for the 4 kids. They had their own space, their own little kitchen, and their own car and came and went as they pleased. The beach wasn't a private beach, but this was the view from the balcony every morning and evening. We had it to ourselves.Possibly it wasn't crowded because it may not have been the best beach for family swimming. We all had bloody scrapes on our knees and elbows from the rocks. The rough and jagged rocks on the shore were equally abundant under the water line. But do you think a few rocks would keep a boy out of the water? Of course not. The first evening we were there, a photographer brought a cute little family out to the rocks nearby to do a sunset photo shoot. They were all adorably dressed in gauzy white sun dresses and khaki shorts. It was so pretty, Dave and I made everyone gather for our own photo shoot later in the week. Although it didn't have that same dream quality as a beautiful family posing in front of professional equipment, I think we got some good shots. It was mostly luck that we got some smiles though, because there were many young people (approximately four, to be exact) who were grumbling at us for making them pose for us and with us. Thanks, Vee for being our photographer.We were sad for the sun to go down on our last day on the island. We cleaned up, packed up, and enjoyed one last sunset.