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Saturday, September 6, 2008
I had spent the night at my brother Don’s. We awoke at 4:05, got ready, packed up, closed the windows, locked the doors and were out the door by 4:30.
We parked the car at Smart Park, which was 15 minutes from Don’s and 5 minutes to the airport. It was less expensive than the airport parking. They guided us as to where to park. The van was right there, took our luggage and ushered us to the airport. They then took our luggage to the check in and instructed us on how to contact them on our return.
It was extremely humid due to Tropical Storm Hannah, which was in the Carolinas. Everything was wet. It could not have been more humid if it was raining. It just hung heavy in the air.
There wasn’t any line at the security check in so we breezed right through. We got coffee and a breakfast sandwich at the Burger King in the terminal. We were seated in the gate area when a young man walked up to us and said, ”Do I know you? You look familiar. My name is Brian Small.” I said, “Oh, Yes, you’re our cousin.” We had recently seen Brian and his new wife at the “Small” Family Reunion in Cape May in July. Brian’s grandfather and my mother were first cousins. My grandmother’s maiden name was Small.
The plane was to leave at 7:10. It left the gate at 7:00am and took off at 7:10. I hope no one was late.
There was a lot of cloud cover so we didn’t see much over PA. Don asked if I could see the golden triangle of Pittsburgh. (The pilots usually point the out. I said, I think we are over OHIO. He didn’t thing we had gone that far but PA is hill and mountainous. Ohio is flat with square patches of farms which was what I was looking down on. I saw a river that we were following and I believed it to be the Ohio River. I was looking down at Ohio and Kentucky. The river turned south at Indiana. I should have brought an atlas. I could only guess at what I was looking at. We came to another river that I perceived to be the Mississippi another river joined it from the west. It must have been the Missouri. The square patches of farms stretched from Ohio to Nebraska. There was more cloud cover until I spotted the Rockies stabbing up on the horizon. Don thought it was clouds but it turned out to be the mountains.
We changed planes in Denver and had only a half hour. We sat on the right side of the plane facing north hoping to get a good look at the Rockies. There were only a couple of mountains. I saw what looked like the canyon lands of Utah. (I don’t know what happened to the Rockies.) There were red rocky walls with canyons between them. The plane was not full so I told Don to sit at the window seat behind me so we both shot photos out the windows.
From western Colorado to California were dry arid lands. Utah had what looked like dried out lakes of salt flats across the entire area and dry ruts in what I thought must be Nevada. We spotted Half Dome of Yosemite. It still looked like dry arid land even flying into San Jose. The irrigation farms were the only green I saw. The rest was wilderness from Denver to San Jose.
We made good time and landed 20 minutes early. We got our luggage and took the rental car shuttle to get our car. They didn’t have a compact ready so they gave us a Toyota Rave 4 with 4-wheel drive. We told them we were going to Yosemite. They gave us the same price as the compact. We figured out how to get out of there and after making a couple wrong turns, we were on our way. About 30 minutes later, we were in Menlo Park, our destination. I had called my brother-in-law twice but got his voice mail. I was planning a shower and getting ready for the groom’s family dinner at 4PM. Tom called as we were entering our room. It turns out the dinner was at 2pm and they were ready to leave. It was in Oakland, an hour away. Mary gave me Kathy and Ned’s cell phone and I got a mailbox message. I called Mary and said we would pass on the dinner. We just arrived and hadn’t even brought in our bags yet. Ned called and said he heard we were trying to contact him and they were in route to Oakland. He was going to give me directions but I wasn’t able to comprehend directions so I told them we were going to pass on the dinner and I’d contact them later.
Don and I got settled in our room and went for a walk to stretch our legs. It was very hot. We went around the block and decided to drive to see the Pacific. It didn’t look that far away. We headed out route 84. It was a switchback mountain road up through the Redwood Forest. It seemed like a long time to reach the sea. There were rocky cliffs along the shore with areas of State Park beaches.
We got out at one area to walk down through a path in the rocks. I went down to the water’s edge to take a picture of the stony shore. A big wave came crashing in and I was backpedaling to avoid the advancing tide. I came to the heavy, soft sand, fell on my derriere, and got my left foot wet.
We continued to Pigeon Point Light House. We looked around there at the point and found the lighthouse to be in a state of disrepair. It was not open to the public. I saw a seal swimming in Whaler’s Cove and some Cormorants were sitting on a huge rock in the water.
We drove north on Rt. 1, the coastal highway until we came to Half Moon Bay. It was hard to find a place to eat other than fast food joints and Mexican Restaurants. We managed to find a small family restaurant on a busy highway. It was a nice place with only a few other customers. All the California people were heading out of town after a day at the beach. The food was good and the waitress was friendly. She told us the traffic was only backed up a couple blocks and then it cleared out. When we finished eating, we headed east on Rt. 92and then I 280 to Menlo Park. We had a problem with the windshield wipers. They got turned on by accident and we couldn’t figure out how to turn them off. I had to get out the manual for the car and it told me how to turn them on but not how to turn them off. We drove all the way back with them on. We squirted some washer on every once in a while to keep from scratching the windshield.
Kathy and Ned wanted to get together when we got back. They met us at our motel. The dinner was only hor d'ourves and they were hungry. We went to a place called the Creamery at the Mall. Don and I got ice cream and ice tea. Kathy got a salad and Ned got a burger.
We walked around the mall which was open air and had no roof. It was not a strip mall, it was a regular mall. They didn’t need a roof. It rarely rained and never snowed. The mall was rolling up the sidewalks at 7:30 and every store was closed by 8:00. We got back to our room and called it a day. It was 9:30pm Pacific Time and 12:30 EST.