Last days on the road

Believe it or not, the smaller plane is a two seater plane constructed about 15 years prior to the Spruce Goose (actually it was made out of birch with no metal in frame or fuselage, not even nails!!).  There are 8 engines on it, and it is impossible to get a good picture of it because you cannot get back far enough to get it all in your camera lense.

After a night at one of California’s very well kept Rest Areas (set up for campers and Truckers to spend the night while of the road), we headed to Ashland Oregon.  Home of a renowned Shakespearean theatre, as well as another large theatre, we thought we would take in a play.  Located on the California/Oregon border on Interstate 5, the town is very picturesque with the adjacent town of Talent cornering much of the destination theatre business in the North West America.  We were a day early for a production, so put it on our “bucket list” for next time and continued north to another Rest Area.

On our final Thursday we had a little town called McMinnville as our last destination.  A very enterprising aeronotical family had decided to create an enormous aero and space museum in the middle of no where in central orgeons grape growing country.  They built 2 huge buildings (each much larger than a football field!!).  One of these buildings now houses the legendary flying boat created by Howard Hughes called the “Spruce Goose” (with the largest wing span of any aircraft every made—110 yards (longer than a football field!!)).  Under its fuselage and expansive wings they have also collected dozens of other planes that tell the story of world aviation.

The second building houses the history of space travel over the last 50 years with actual space ships and replicas in the building.

A third building has also recently been constructed that contains a 7 story IMAX theatre that projects in 3D!  In this amazing theatre we saw a movie on the repair of the Hubble Telescope.  The cosmic photography as well as the description an video of the perilous repair mission left us in a state of complete amazement and feeling a little insignificant when you see the trillions of other bodies in the solar systems of our universe.  The 4 ½ hours we spent there only touched the surface of what there is to see—another place to return to soon!

After a final night in our last Rest Area, it was across the boarder at Sumas, a short visit with Russ and Diane, and the next day HOME!

9 weeks can pass very quickly when you enjoy every minute, so we will have to do it again to fill in some of the gaps soon.  We are always looking for travelling companions, so keep in touch and start looking forward to your adventure.

The next day found us at Fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco.  No one should miss this place, located on the dock in the heart of San Francisco.  Its many restaurants and boat tours could keep you busy for days.  We did the guided city bus tour though the incredibly steep downtown area with its enormous China town and Little Italy.  Streets and so steep and narrow that traffic conditions have forced many residents to look to the European/Asian solution of Scooters and motorcyles.  They even have their own metered parking locations on every street!  On a sunny day, the view of the great bridges, Alcatraz, and Angels Island (the first stop for all immigrants entering the USA from the Pacific) was one to be remembered.  Our exit along the amazing Golden Gate bridge truly capped off a wonderful day in a town that is a must for us to return to.

Winchester Mansion in San Jose

The next day on our road home was to San Jose where we wanted to see theWinchester Mansion.  Just of one hundred years ago, the eccentric widow of the owner of the Winchester gun company moved here from eastern USA to start a new life.  A psychic told her that to be forgiven for all the death that her family has caused by their invention, she must build a house in San Jose for the rest of her life.  In fact by maintaining the building program she might even see eternal life for herself.  For 38 years she built what started off to be a Victoria mansion and continued to grow until her death.  With over 10,000 windows (many of them stained glass from Tiffany’s in New York) and 47 fireplaces covering an area of several acres, you cannot believe what is there to be seen.  For some reason, the spirited requested that she do some rather unusual things in her construction such as make a stairway to no where, a door that opened to nothing but thin air on the second floor, stairways up to a room that consisted of 7 steps up and 11 steps down on the other side of the room, stair treads that range in height from2 inches to 8 inches, and so on.  All construction was done with the highest quality of materials and skillfull craftsmanship.  Adrienne constant comment was “I cannot believe this place”.

We spent so much time on the tour and wandering around the place that it was dark when we thought of leaving.  Fortunately when I asked the manager where we could stay for the night, he indicated his parking lot would be fine (with the spirits of Mrs Winchester!)

Santa Barbara side street.

The next day we headed north to Santa Barbara.  Here we have a 250 year old sea port that has seen occupation by the Spanish, the Mexicans and finally the USA over its life time.  Because of its Spanish history, much of the town is in this theme.  It has a large and colorful mainstreet with many dozens of interesting shops and restaurants.  The steet ends in an enormous pier with walking areas and restaurants and a spectacular view of the sunsets. It is another town that we definitely put on our “bucket list”.  I could spend a number of days just laying back and wandering around the town and beach areas.

That evening we headed a little north to the small town of Buellton and a very nice RV park that we have also marked as a “come-back-spot” because of its central location and the beautiful lawns and pool areas.

Bye Bye Beach

After 13 days in this beach environment, the clock started ticking a little faster and we still had a number of things we wanted to see on the way home—so we packed up and headed to our first stop at Sana Monica.  Located on the waterfront in Los Angels, the Sana Monica beach area is alive with activity.  The pier itself is very large with rides for the kids and a ferris wheel actually located on the pier.  The street leading to the pier has many small and interesting shops with one cross street that is permanently closed to traffic.  Here street vendors and entertainers were making the place and wonderful location on a typically warm day.  After checking out some of the sights we decided that this place is definitely on our list of future stops where we would like to spend more time.  Since we had tickets to visit the Getty Villa at 2:00 we were definitely caught short of time to really enjoy this unique part of L.A.

The previous day we were lucky enough to get tickets to the villa.  It is a bit of a process because you have to do it in advance on the internet—then they email you the tickets.  The reason for this is they need to control the number of people who visit the place because there is NO CHARGE for a ticket.  It is truly a destination that everyone going to the LA area should not miss.

The Getty Villa is  located just north of Santa Monica, this complex was built by J. Paul Getty (at one time the richest person on earth).  It replicates a Roman villa that was engulfed by the lava of the Pompei eruption, 2,000 years ago.  The original building was thought to be owned by Julius Ceaser’s father in law, so nothing was left to chance in its original construction.  Within this enormous complex, Getty displayed his world famous collection of Greek/Roman art.  There are countless rooms filled with antiquities that range from a real mummy (of a Greek official who spent his life “managing” Egypt) to regular items of daily use in a wealthy roman family, to statues of rock and bronze (some worth over $2,000,000 each.  The amazing thing about this place is that Getty put his enormous wealth in a trust and it completely pays for the enormous staff and security force as well as the maintenance  around the villa.  Admission is free!!!  Even the 2 guided tours of the Villa and Gardens are at no charge.  Just the limo ride from the gates at street level up the Roman simulated pavement drive to the entrance of the Villa with its amazing view of the Pacific ocean is worth your time.

Heading north through Malibu was next.  I only mention this place because this is the enormously large stretch of beach that has miles and miles of homes for the wealthy, and an RV park with a spectacular view of the ocean and easy access to Sana Monica and L.A.

The view from our spot in Huntington Beach

Americans typically get a little carried away at Halloween.  Can you believe this?

We have been pretty much ensconced in the warm beach life at Huntington.  Each day we get our usual parking spot down on the beach and set up our chairs, bikes etc outside Rita.  Then it is a bit of beach time, and often Ade reads while I jump on the scooter and explore the area some more.

I have ridden the scooter and explored from Long Beach to New Port.  It is an incredible stretch of beach with surfers all along the distance of about15 miles.  One thing that struck me was the different temperatures in the stretch.  Long Beach is significantly warmer to the point of being a little too hot, however the beaches are not as clean as the other areas because of the location in a small bay.  Also the surf is nowhere near as good as the other areas, so the hard core surfers always head a few miles south to Huntington to get the waves.

At Huntington (home of the US surf championships) you get the pro surfers doing their thing and it amazing to watch.  For a part of every day we just sit on the beach and watch them do their thing on the waves.  For surfers with lesser ability (or no ability, like me), they either head 5 miles north to Bolsa Chica or 5 miles south to New Port Beach.  My first day of trying, I was at Huntington and of course got beat up pretty good by the higher waves and surf.  My second attempt was at Bolsa Chica, where I had more success but never did stand up.  Finally I realized that my board was designed more for an experienced surfer.  A guy said I should rent a long board and head to New Port Beach where the waves are a consistant 2.5 fit high and the ocean bed is flat and only 4 ft deep for the longest way.  This allows you to walk out the place where the waves break and then get up on your board. 

One morning we headed to New Port Beach, and I rented a long board for $25 for one afternoon  and the next morning.  Finally after a number of years of trying, I actually got standing up on the board!  It is an amazing feeling even though, for me, it was short lived!  However, the second morning I got thrown off the board in shallow water and jammed into the sandy bottom—result was a mildly strained wrist which prevented me from further pushing myself up to a standing position on the board.  Oh well, I was not too concerned, I finally made it up and next time I go out into the surf it will be with someone who wants to learn, but is of my limited ability—it truly is a lot of fun out there but a little safer if you are with someone else.

We stayed at New Port for 2 days, parking Rita right on the end of

29^th avenue

, at the beach.  It was a fantastic spot.  I checked with the local traffic cop and she said we could stay up to 72 hours!

New Port has much more “old time” character than Huntington.  Many very old pubs and restaurants are on the “strip” across the road from the beach.  With a mean summer temperature in the mid seventies and winter temperature in the mid 60’s, it is no wonder that the place is popular year round.  It has a real “homey” feeling but we still liked our spot at Huntington a little better so we headed back after 2 days.

One of the reasons for liking Huntington, in addition to the spot we always had on the beach front was the many activities on the street extending from the pier.  Monday night is football night, and all the pubs have cheap beer, Tuesday night they close the street down for an evening “market” where restaurant, market garden and craft vendors sell their products in a warm and friendly street environment where several hundred people gather to shop and listen to the outdoor entertainers.  Friday afternoon at the entrance to the pier is an enormous street market, similar to Tuesday night’s but much bigger, and finally, Saturday there is always an enormous craft sale at the base of the pier.  On Halloween night, they once again shut down the main street and had treats for the kids and entertainment until midnight!

Our spot at New Port Beach!