Welcome to our new adventure!
After travelling through Australia last year, our family got totally ‘hooked’ on travelling. It is amazing how much you can learn by travelling to different places and meeting new people. If you haven’t followed our trip last year (the Boomerang Trip) and you have some time spare, grab yourself a cuppa and click through to www.jordibellaboomerangtrip.blogspot.com
The plan is to go to as many beautiful places in the USA and Canada as possible. Mummy has been googling images of each state and dropping ‘a pin’ to mark where we’ll be going. Simple plan.
So here we go!
We got up early on the 28th of July 2011 and headed for the airport.
Our excitement was cut short by an announcement that the plane was delayed. Initially we thought that the pilot just forgot his keys to the plane so we waited patiently but then we were told that there was something wrong with the plane and they cannot fix it for 24 hrs! Maybe a wing fell off……..or something.
‘Oh Boy’ we thought ‘you cannot cancel our adventure!’
A nice lady however managed to get us on another plane (United Airlines), not as nice as the one we were going to fly (the newest Virgin Airlines jumbo) but we figured ‘it’ll do’. We even managed to survive 17hr flight with no TV. Our parents were mortified but we just drew and drew and played all sorts of games. We even built cubby houses out of blankets, jamming them into the foldup tables – they were pretty groovy. Needless to say no one really slept.
With all delays we arrived in LA 22hrs later. Woohoo, we are in America!
Our first destination was Anaheim to visit Disneyland but because we got there in the middle of the afternoon, we decided to wait till the next day. (Oh, yes, we had to ‘tick off’ Disney Land). Instead we decided to spend the rest of the day shopping for our new home – a caravan. They call them ‘Travel Trailers’ here and call ‘towing’ – ‘hauling’. Quite funny really. They all speak a little bizarre around here but they are very friendly.
29 June 2011
Woohoo, Disneyland – here we come!
Disneyland comprises of two separate parks: the traditional Disneyland and a newer California Adventure Park. Today we went to Disneyland. Wow, did we have fun! We caught up with Mickey and Minnie and a whole bunch of princesses that Bella adored and I (Jordi) was just polite and said ‘G’day’ to them (I am a Tom Boy after all so I don’t like princesses). The rides were groovy, the parade was spectacular and the fireworks were absolutely mesmerizing! We didn’t get to bed till 2am (not that we were sleepy at all, there is an advantage in being on Australian time, LOL)
One thing which we had learned today is that a man called Walt Disney had this amazing dream that one day he’d build an amazing fantasy park for children. There were so many people who told him he could not do it, but guess what? He did it and today we, and thousands of other kids were able to enjoy it! Mummy told us to always remember that no matter how big the dream, if the desire is big enough – it is achievable.
30 June 2011
Today we went to the other park, the Californian Adventure Park. Here we met the Muppets, Monsters Inc, Bugs from Bugs Life and others. We also went on some amazing rides, even a massive roller coaster. We didn’t get on the biggest one though as it looked WAY too scary. They were going upside down and all…
We watched some amazing 3D movies. Actually they were more like 8D movies as the show included water, wind, smell (bug farted), shaking chairs, walls blowing up and characters walking through the cinema. It was totally ace! Our favorite one was about bugs. We even had spiders falling from the ceiling. Daddy thought it was funny but mummy screamed along with us…. just louder!
The night finished up with the most amazing water show we have ever seen. It went for about half an hour. The water was jumping up to the music but on top of that movies and images were projected onto the jumping water. Wow, it was something!
1st of August 2011
After a leisurely day by the pool, we hired a car this morning and spent most of the day fixing mummy and daddy’s phones so that they work properly here. We even managed to count our lucky stars today as straight from the car rental place Daddy turned the wrong way onto the oncoming traffic. Oh, boy, the bus driver coming the other way was not impressed!
We then went to visit Mike, a friend of a friend of a friend who tracked down a car for us, which we could purchase. And we did! What a magnificent car it is. Mummy calls it a bus because it is so big inside (don’t know how many people we could fit in here - Mum recons 13 J )
Daddy is happy because it has some ‘bells and whistles’ although we don’t really know where they are. The car is called Cadillac Escalade and daddy thinks it would be worth a fortune in Australia.
2nd August 2011
Last night we have arrived at Mitch and Rebecca’s place in Venice, LA. Mummy and Daddy met them over the internet earlier this year. They are so cool! They have a beautiful double story townhouse and they gave us a huge bedroom with ensuite to share. So nice of them!
Venice is to LA as St Kilda is to Melbourne – but on steroids! The beach is magnificent and the atmosphere is exciting.
We spent the whole morning at the famous Venice Beach. Lots of weird and wonderful people there selling lots of weird and wonderful things. Lots of people riding bicycles, tricycles, skateboards and roller blades. The markets were very interesting; we met and chatted to a lot of people. We learned how you can make sculptures out of scrap metal and little bicycles out of wires. We also met a lovely African man who organizes cultural tours through Africa. Who know that might be our next adventure?
We had lunch on the foreshore and got stuck into starting our journals. We’ve been having so much fun so far and we think it’s about time we started recording things in our visual diaries. We figured we would draw an American flag on the front page to symbolize the country, which we are travelling through. It has some stripes on it as well as stars. Do you know how hard it is to fit 50 stars into a corner of a flag? Really hard! They have 50 states in this country, each one represented by a star. We wonder how many stars we will get to see on this trip?
After lunch we went to the famous Gym called Muscle Beach where big, muscly men work out (apparently governor terminator works out there too – but we didn’t see him). We did our own work out and then joined some other kids in a game of basket ball. It was so much fun!
In the afternoon we drove to a huge RV place to buy a caravan. There were so many of them there that we had to take a buggy to get to the one we saw advertised on the Internet. Mummy and Daddy couldn’t believe that people drive such massive caravans here. We ended up choosing one, which is 29ft long much bigger than the one we had in Australia but tiny is comparison to most of other ones in America.
We have picked this one because it has bunk beds (our choice. Rock paper, scissors who gets the top bunk). Our parents liked it because it can sleep extra people just in case someone comes to visit us. So……… you are all invited if you are adventurous enough! Just let us know what airport to pick you up from!
3rd of August 2011
Today Mummy and Daddy treated us to a whole day at the California Science Centre. Very similar to The Science Works we have in Melbourne but bigger. We learned a lot of things today. There was a section on human body, where we learned about blood pressure and heart beats (the bigger the animal the slower the heart beat). We also got to play with a 3D puzzle of a human body where we tried to figure out where all bits and pieces go. Lucky we weren’t doctors…. We don’t think this patient would’ve made it... Lol
There was a section showcasing different inventions where we played soccer via virtual reality and played with thermo imaging technology.
We also learned what it’s like to experience a hurricane. There was an enclosure where we could stand in and it got really windy. It got up to 78 miles per hour (about 120 km per hour) and was called a category 1. Check out what happened to our hair! Lucky it stopped after a few minutes.
We didn’t get to spend much time in the Aerospace building as we run out of time but we did go on a fantastic virtual reality flight simulator where we experienced the most exhilarating rollercoaster ride through the galaxies. Wow, that was totally ace!
We also went to the Imax cinema and watched an amazing 3D film, called ‘Born to be Wild’. It was an incredible documentary about two extraordinary women who spent their lives, rescuing orphans. One lady lives in Africa and rescues baby elephants and the other one rescues baby orang utans in Indonesia. It was such a great movie!
On the way out we learned a little bit about leverage. There was a massive pick up truck (big Ute) which weighed 2.5ton. It was placed on something that looked like a scale with a big leaver and a rope on one side. We both pulled it down as hard as we could and guess what? We picked the truck up! It must be this yummy food they have in America that is making us that strong. Daddy says its leverage but we think it’s the food... Lol
Speaking of yummy food, Rebecca and Mitch joined us for dinner to a wonderful Mexican restaurant. Lucky we watch Dora the Explorer so we could communicate (well……sort of) with the waiters. The meal was delicious! And it was topped off by the greatest dessert ever – a trip to a self serve frozen yogurt place where you can pile up any toppings you wish. And we did... Lol
4th and 5th of August
We spent the next two days driving around and buying all the supplies we’ll need in the caravan. Oh boy! You would think America is cheaper than Australia but not when you need to start from scratch: cutlery, bedding, doonas, pillows, camping tables, chairs, blankets,…oh boy! It certainly adds up! We both tried to stay out of Mummy and Daddy’s way by reading some interesting camping books in a tent we found in the corner or just by chilling on the sun lounges.
Very busy days would finish with some nice Thai take away and a concert at Rebecca and Mitch’s place! Mitch bought these amazing disco laser lights and we danced the night away! And then we monkeyed around with Rebecca and Mitch who joined us for some real kid fun. Rebecca and Mitch are awesome and we are going to miss them very much!
Saturday, 6th of August
The time has finally come to say goodbye to our friends and ‘hit the road’ so to speak. We were very sad to leave.
We were scheduled to pick up our caravan from the place we bought it from and what started as an easy hand over ended up being a bit more than we bargained for…. we ended up spending the night! Yep, you read it right – we had to sleep in our new caravan overnight at the sales yard. The hand over took much longer than we all anticipated and just about when we were ready to leave an external light broke down and so the caravan had to be towed away and we had to wait some more. We also found out that the place we wanted to stay the night at was already booked out so we were in a bit of a pickle. That is until the sales man, Ben, suggested that we stay overnight. He said it wasn’t unusual that sometimes their customers say the night…an interesting concept indeed.
Oh well, we thought – we are all for adventure! And so we ended up spending the night with 400 empty RVs and caravans. Daddy said it was a pity we weren’t allowed to choose another RV to sleep in – he had an eye on this massive caravan with fancy pictures on it.
It actually ended up being a very good experience – we had plenty time to set up our new ‘home’ without anyone disturbing us. We even got to decorate our own ‘rooms’ (i.e. bunks) with removable stickers. One ended up being a princess kingdom while the other one has lots of Cars on the walls. 10 points for guessing which room belongs to whom... Lol
Sunday, 7th of August (188miles/302km)
Ok, so we finally ‘hit the road’! We drove north for about three hours and got to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara (for the Melbournians) is a bit like Torquay, just without the ‘surfies’. Being Sunday it was very busy and we found it hard finding car park for our ‘road train’. After half an hour driving around (and praying that we don’t get stuck on a road which we cannot reverse on), we found a nice man who let us park under a sign which said ‘No parking, private property, all vehicles will be towed away’. That was really nice of him, although we are not sure if this was his place or not. But the road train was still there when we got back from the beach. Perhaps they didn’t have a big enough truck to tow it away. Maybe, just in this case, ‘bigger is better’ LOL
Before we got to our 1st campground (or RV Park as they call it), we visited a town called Solveng. It is a gorgeous little town with lots of ‘cuckoo restaurants’ in it. It is built in a Denmark style; it even had horse drawn carriages. We stopped for lunch there and of course… an ice cream.
The RV Park was very nice. Every site had a grassed area next to it, a picnic bench, and a street lamp. Quite civilized really. We spent the rest of the day at the swimming pool where we met Peter, a man who is an Australian but left the country when he was 6. He didn’t sound very Australian… He was there with his family. While we played in the pool and the spa, he was telling our parents what’s worth visiting. He even invited us over to Reno, his hometown. We might take him up on the offer as we will be that way in a week or so.
We ended up staying two nights in this RV Park as we struggled finding anything else available North. We decided to go on day trip without the caravan. There was a beautiful lake we drove past on a way here which we only had a few glimpses of so we decided to backtrack a bit and visit it.
The lake called Cachuma Lake was stunning. It actually had a National Park campground attached to it. We wished we knew about it earlier and stayed there the night. It was rustic and fantastic. The sites were amongst the trees, all had fire pits and picnic tables. It also had some nice wild life like eagles and lots of squirrels. We spent the afternoon tracking the squirrels down using our animal tracking skills acquired from Jordi’s new book called the “Pocket Guide to Animal Tracks”
Tuesday, 9th August.
We drove on a highway 101 which is a beautiful windy road along the Californian Coast. A little more rugged version of the Great Ocean Road. Big, rocky mountains on one side and cliff over the ocean on the another. Just a pity there was a lot of mist and fog coming off the ocean. It looked a bit spooky in some places and daddy got worried might lose our road train off a cliff.
Mitch from LA highly recommended we stop at the Hearst Castle and so we did. We got to see it from a distance as the only way one could see it is by a guided tour which unfortunately wasn’t starting for a couple of hours. If we stayed there we would miss out on seeing the elephant’s seals and would get to our campsite after dark. With the windy road still ahead and the campsite in a forest, we didn’t want to risk it. So we left after thoroughly exploring the gift shop and finding these great vests!
On the way out of the castle we had to stop as we saw something quite bizarre. Those stripy horses really didn’t look like they belonged here. Apparently Mr Hearst had his own private zoo and when he died, they just released the animals onto his 80,000-acre property. We wondered if he also had any tigers and lions…
About 10 minutes north of the castle we stopped to see some elephant seals. They were big and fat and just lazed around in the sun. We spotted a few of them but they all looked like they were recovering from one massive party – totally zonked out!
We were lucky to arrive before the dark at the camp as it was extremely tight and steep and tricky to get into. But what a camp it was!!! Right on a river among the redwoods – it was simply spectacular!
Within minutes we had a bunch of new friends. A really nice man saved mummy from ‘getting a divorce’ by taking the reins in directing daddy to reverse the caravan into our spot. If you think making sense of their freeways, and maneuvering through the cliffs is bad enough…try reversing a 16 meter car and caravan at dusk in between the trees with the steering wheel on the wrong side!
Oh Boy!
But our Daddy did it! He is a champion! It took him quite a few goes (mum recons 13) but he did it!
All the neighbors’ gathered and introduced themselves and it was an absolute blast. These Americans are so friendly! One couple helped us organize next two nights accommodation (this place only had one night), another couple invited us over to cook our dinner over their fire and introduced us to the most incredible dessert EVER called the ‘SMORE’. They call it the Smore because you always want Some MORE. Picture this: Two giant Marshmallows perfectly roasted over the fire, hugging a slice of yummy chocolate and sandwiched between two biscuits.
It was ‘to die for’!!!
The couple (who incidently were Canadians expats), Terri and Sandi were there with their two boys, Justin 10 and Trevor 6. After scoffing all the Smores we could manage, we grabbed flashlights and under the supervision of a grownup went exploring near the river. It was the best adventure ever!
After that Daddy took out his didgeridoo and we introduced our new friends to the magic sound of the Outback. They loved it! Maybe even as much as we liked the Smor.
The next morning we got up early so that we could still spend some more time with our friends before our check out at 11am. We all gathered up (with some more friends and their parents) and went on another adventure through the redwoods. We even found a massive tree hide out which was just…. enormous.
We were so sad to leave, especially that our friends were getting ready to go on water rapids after lunch (it was a cold morning so they were waiting for the water to get a little warmer). They were especially designed for little tackers like us, so would’ve been fun. But unfortunately we had to go – so many places to discover, so little time!
Wednesday, 10th of August 2011
We spent the next two nights in a ‘poshy’ part of California, called Carmel. It’s a town by the sea where people like Clint Eastwood (not that we know who he is but mummy said grandmas will know J) have their Ranches and Holiday Homes hanging off the cliffs. A lot of these places don’t have numbers but have names instead. This place is also known for people’s love of dogs. You can buy all sorts of dog-related accessories as well as cowboy boots made out of crocodile, ostrich or an elephant. Beats us why one would want to kill an elephant just to make some boots.
Today we also went for a drive to Monterey (another nice town) to play in an awesome playground.
We also visited a private zoo called ‘The Wild Things’, where they train animals for the movies. We even got to feed an elephant called Butch. This is so much fun…one day feeding squirrels, next day elephants.
They had a lot of interesting animals there including a lot of ‘cats’. We loved the tigers and the jaguar. We also learned that apparently hyenas can run almost as fast backwards as they do forward. That is truly amazing! We must find out more about it on youtube!
The animal zoo recommended a place around the corner for lunch and so we went to this Italian restaurant where we met the owner lady who when she discovered that we were from the wine region is Australia and wanted to find some good wine here – preceded to open whole bunch of new bottles for our parents to try. She said our parents cannot leave the area without trying the wines and since most of the wineries are only open for tastings on weekends she decided to give them a private tastings. And so out came the bottles! Sine daddy was driving he only had a sip but mummy insisted one cannot let good wine go to waste. They were all so lovely…apparently. We don’t know how many they had tested (dad recons 13) but mummy certainly was in a good humor for the rest of the day. We even persuaded her to let us buy some more soft toys (which are kind of banned – since we have so many).
After lunch we went to Monterey, a groovy, surfy town. It used to be the fishing capital of the world in 1930s until…. the sardines run out. This is where Bubba Gump made his name. Daddy said Forrest Gump helped him out. They even made a bench with Forrest’s box of chocolates on it.
Lots of souvenir shops kept us occupied for the rest of the afternoon. We even went to a wax museum to learn about the history of Monterey. It was very interesting story.
But the most fun thing we did today was going to the mirror maze. You walk in and you literally get lost walking around banging your head on the mirrors. It was so much fun!
They also had a laser challenge where you had to get from one side of the room to the other by walking over and bending under laser beams. The way robbers would…
Friday, the 12 August 2011
This morning, as most of the days, we did some schooling. Mummy is a bit of a tough teacher and each day we do our journals drawing pictures about our previous day. Then we do some maths and either writing or reading. Each subject has a 5-10 minute break where we do laps (running) around the caravan park. Each daily class goes only for about an hour but its pretty intense. Mum is a force not to be reckoned with and as she is the teacher, the principal, the librarian, the nurse and the police officer – there are no negotiations to be entered into. Work needs to be done! Phew, lucky it only lasts an hour and then she turns back to a cool mummy again….
Today we were a bit slow with taking off from Carmel (town we stayed in) because we had to organize last minute things like some caravan accessories, etc. It was a real pity we left so late because with 4.5 hr drive ahead of us we didn’t think we’ll have anything interesting to stop at. How wrong were we! As we travelled on the highway mummy noticed a sign for a fruit shop called Casa de Fruita. The sign had a picture of big juicy cherries on it and she just LOVES cherries. Daddy had to turn the rig around to get back to the shop and lucky he did! It was not an ordinary fruit shop – it was a ‘city’! A huge truck rest area with a petrol station (casa de disel), a roadhouse restaurant (casa de restauranta), a massive playground with a kids train (casa de choo choo) and a Merry-Go-Around, a café (casa de sweets), a winery (casa de wine), a man-made lake and last but not least a fruit shop (casa de fruita) with not just fruits but nuts, massive range condiments, lollies and chocolate by the pound. And of course lots and lots of souvenirs. It was a paradise!
We couldn’t stay too long but we managed to persuade our parents to let us choose some chocolate (believe us it was hard work). Mummy said we can mix and match them but can only fill the bag to the size of our fists. Bella’s size got out of whack a bit - it was more the size of her head not her fist. Needless to say her chocolates got confiscated to be rationed carefully.
Saturday,
We arrived at our new campground near the Sequoia National Park. It was called Three Rivers and from the moment we entered the camp we knew it’s going to be a blast. People in the pool, people in the river, people playing volleyball, music pumping…yeah…this was our type of camp. After spending two nights in toffee Carmel this was a breath of fresh air. Literally.
While our parents were setting up camp (which takes about 5 minutes now days), we went to the grassy area nearby and met a dozen new friends. Life is so easy when you are a kid. All you have to do is say “can I play with you?” and you are instantly in.
Mummy came to check up on us after 5 minutes just to discover both Bella and I on the ground fighting boys. She came running to the rescue (of the boys of course) just to discover that we were laughing our heads off. “It’s OK mummy” Bella explained “ we are playing tackle football”. Confused she watched us from a distance and when she realized that no one was getting hurt, she left us to play. We guess she figured that it was time to toughen us up…
We all got to meet them the next day. Turns out we were playing with their kids when we arrived. I think our parents are realizing that life does not need to be so complicated. Sometimes all one has to do is ask if they can join “to play”…
I think their new friends really loved daddy’s didgeridoo. They listen to his music totally mesmerized and they all had a go at playing it till the wee hours of the morning. No wonder there were so many giggles coming from their camp!
Next day we went for a drive to the Sequoia National Park where we had a look at the Crystal Caves. They were great although after experiencing our Lava Tubes up North in Atherton (Australia) it is pretty hard to top it.
We have also graduated to become Junior Park Ranges. In the morning the ranger gave us a book to fill out which asked lots of different questions about what we saw and experienced while at the park. We had to carry the book all day and answer their questions. As part of the project we also had to collect rubbish (amazing that people still leave bottles and cans in National Parks). After collecting and answering everything, we had to hand in our answers (and trash) to the ranger lady and spent 20 minutes telling her about what we had learned. Then we had to make an oath that we will always do the right thing by the National Parks and tell our friends about them as well. After the ceremony we signed our Certificates and got awarded a “Junior Ranger” badge. We felt so proud of ourselves and special!
During our visit to the park we saw the tallest tree in the world. It was 22 stories high and over 11 meters in diameter (new word we learned today). It was gigantic! The tree was called The General Sherman Tree named after General Sherman.
Also, did we mention they were bears in this park? Well, we didn’t really see any, but daddy certainly gave us an hour of lecture to frighten us.
We stayed close to our parents and marched like soldiers J. We also emptied the whole car of anything that might have any food – related scent and placed it into a steel locker to make sure the bear doesn’t try to get into our car. Apparently they can be cheeky little buggers like that! Well, not that little (much bigger than Koalas!).
In the morning we had to farewell our new friends goodbye. We exchanged addresses and took a photo to remember what they looked like. Funny, this was the first time we saw them in the daylight - by the fire everyone looks mellow J. Luckily they had hearts of gold – great lesson how not to ‘judge a book by its cover’
16th of August 2011 – Yosemite
Ok so we have arrived at the quite RV Park at the Yosemite National Park. Its amazing how you get a ‘feel’ for the campground the minute one arrives. This one is full of retirees (translation: asleep by 8pm) or French/Germans (since they don’t speak much English – they go to bed early too J).
Daddy however managed to find some American friends. Off he went to have a shower and he disappeared for ‘half the night’. Luckily he did, as he met some really nice people (from the army) who not only invited us for pancakes in the morning but also invited us over to their place on the way out of San Francisco. We might take them up on their offer…
Yosemite (pronounces Yo-se-ma-tee) is just spectacular. Mummy was only a bit upset that they had fires nearby so the air was quite smoggy (not so good for photos). Also, the famous Mirror Lake apparently does not exist in summer as the water evaporates. Other than that, the giant granite cliffs certainly made an impression on us! (can you spot the busses?)
We went to check out their water reservoir where we met a nice lady Ranger.
We also went to the ‘left over’ mirror lake where we got to swim in beautiful ‘billabongs’ without having to worry about crocks!
On the way back we saw a wild deer. He was just on the side of the road having supper and minding his own business. There are quite a few wild deer around but this one is the closest one we got up to…
After a quick visit to the supermarket we found all the necessary ingredients of the SMORE and so we went back to the camp and cooked them up. Terri and Sandi would’ve been proud of us for remembering how to cook them! We only wish our friends Daniel and Jessica could be here to share them with us! Yummo!
Tuesday, 16h of August 2011
Our last day in Yosemite National Park was really good. We went to the beach by a river and splashed around in the freezing water (even in the summer as it comes from the defrosted snow from the top of the mountains).
In the afternoon we joined a guided tour, which allowed us to earn another Junior Ranger badge but this time from Yosemite National Park. The talk was very interesting. We got to walk around learning about all different plants and animals.
We also got to touch a skin of deer, coyote, squirrel and a bobcat. They were all so soft, ahhh…
They didn't have any bear's skin; we guessed they didn’t catch any bears recently, although as you can see below – they are certainly trying…
After we answered many questions (to which we all knew answers to), we got sworn in as Junior Rangers of Yosemite!
This is our Ranger teacher with us. She is holding a Coyote skin - I (Jordi) am holding a squirrel (a somehow flattened one) and Bella is wearing Bobcat on her head. Cheers to the new Rangers!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
We left very early this morning as the GPS told us it might take about 4 hrs to get to Lake Tahoe. From our experience, with breaks it usually takes longer. The GPS lady however forgot to mention that she’ll take us through the Sierra Nevada Mountain Ranges where the road shrinks to 1 ½ lane, climbs to 8000 ft, winds like a captured snake and once it gets to a point of no return, advises not to take vehicles longer than 24 ft. Since there was no way of making a safe u turn (without falling off the cliff) we decided that ‘she’ll be right, mate’ and proceeded to drive this stunning, rocky, hair raising road enjoying the view of snow capped mountains.
Our excitement was accelerated when we had to dodge some madman French people driving like maniacs in the opposite direction in massive motorhomes (dad thinks they were about 10meters long, but mum recons 13). Luckily enough they were on the cliff side not us J
But wait…there is more. On our spine tingling descent daddy realized that our breaks were.....well..... gone! Oh no! Where are the ejector seats? Where are the parachutes?????
Luckily our caravan had a manual break system which allowed us to slow down this flying downhill bullet and we somehow managed to bring the rig to halt at a clearance which they obviously had built for such extreme situations. Phew, we made it alive!
We were keeping our fingers crossed that it wasn’t anything serious as we didn’t even had phone reception to call for help. We let the car rest for half an hour and it miraculously fixed itself! The breaks must’ve just been overheated.
Friday 19th of August, 2011
After spending a fantastic day at Lake Tahoe, it is time to hit the road again. What a pity, we could’ve easily stayed here for a week.
We arrived at the camp at Tahoe in the late afternoon. We were hoping to get here earlier but with the windy road and the break hiccups the trip stretched from predicted 4 hours to 9. So we only arrived early enough to grab some dinner and park the road train in the camp area, which by the way was very nice.
Located among massive pine trees, it felt like you were in the middle of a forest, far enough from your neighbor to feel the space. The camp site had its own picnic table, a camp fire and a BBQ. And to send a chill down your spine - a bear food locker for people camping in tents.
We spent the whole day on the lake on a man-made beach. Mummy and Daddy bought us these inflatable boats, which kept us occupied for hours and hours. Would you believe that they only paid $10 each for these boats? Mummy said that’s the best $10 she’d ever spent. Daddy recons you ‘couldn’t even buy material for that’ in Australia.
Mummy got up at 4am in the morning to take some shots of the sunrise over Lake Tahoe. We weren’t crazy enough to get up so early so we let her go by herself. It was only when the sun came up that she realised she was sitting in the darkness waiting for the sun to come up in bear country. There were bear storage lockers everywhere. Oh boy! Luckily enough she didn’t bump into any that day…
We left Lake Tahoe in the morning and since we were headed for San Francisco We decided to drop in and visit our new friends that we met at Yosemite National Pak. They were a real friendly bunch and so we thought we would drop in to say ‘G’day’.
Saturday 20th of August 2011
We just spent the most wonderful afternoon, night and morning with our new friends. We arrived at Fred and Reagan’s place initially and soon Ulises and his wife Ines and their kids joined us for afternoon drinks, an awesome Mexican fiesta (both Ulises and Ines families’ come from Mexico). Ines aka “Cooking Mamma” has made such a feast that it’ll be very hard to go to a Mexican restaurant again and not compare….
While Mummy sipped her margaritas and Daddy was treated to supersized Fosters(so that he feels at home), we jumped on a trampoline with their daughter Xochiti till real late. And then to top it we got some yummy Smores. Did we mention we really like Smores?
Oh and guess what we discovered? The Americans don’t have Tim Tams J. It was our turn to explain how to drink a warm drink through a Tim Tam. They were quite bemused. We agreed that when we get back we will send them some Tim Tams and they will send us some more S’mor ingredients J.
Mummy said that’s called import/export but daddy thinks that’s a Fair Trade.
All of our new friends (adults) work for the US army so we listened to some wonderful stories of different places they have worked in, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Japan and Germany. We even saw some amazing pictures form Fred’s assignment in Afghanistan.
As we stayed up pretty late we decided to stay overnight in our caravan on the street. It was a nice neighborhood and Fred said we won’t be in anyone’s way. And so we did.
In the morning we had a quick breakfast and knocked on the door to say goodbye before we leave. Within minutes we discovered that we were invited to Ulises and Ines’ home for breakfast. Apparently our Cooking Mamma was up really early preparing some delicious Mexican dishes for breakfast and yummy pancakes for us of course. So we jumped into Regan’s 1961 Chevrolet Impala, a beautifully restored vintage car and went for another feast. What a treat!
The breakfast was even more delicious than the dinner. Yum, we love Mexican food!
We left mid morning after taking a group photo of everybody!
From Marysville (just north of Sacramento), where our new friends live, we headed straight to our RV Park, which was located an hour south of San Francisco city.
We had another party to go to. Our new friend Trevor from the “Smore Family” was turning 6 and we wanted to help him celebrate it.
After unhooking our car and freshening up we went to top up our groceries and buy Trevor a Birthday Present. And from there we went straight to the party. A cool – Pool Birthday Party that ended up being an absolute blast!
Our ‘S’more Family’ live in a beautiful neighborhood, in a beautiful home with gorgeous garden and an unreal tree house which Terry built for his boys.
We spent the whole night swimming with Trevor, his brother Justin and their friends in the pool while our parents got treated to Sandi and Terry’s wonderful hospitality.
Sandi - the Super Host
And Terry, the 'Super Cool S'more Dad'
Sandi - the Super Host
And Terry, the 'Super Cool S'more Dad'
We hope we stay in touch with our ‘S’more family - they are so nice -and they would easily fit like flowers into our fun bunch of friends.
San Francisco
We’ve just spent the most beautiful few days in San Francisco. What a wonderful town it is with its beautiful Victorian Architecture, Hilly Roads and the stunning Golden Gate Bridge (well, it’s really orange not golden actually).
We got to see the whole city from the back of an open air 1955 Big, Red Shiny Mack, Fire Engine. We got to dress up in real fire fighters jackets and helmets and we zoomed around the town singing songs ‘Wiggles Style’. It was awesome!
We even got to drive over the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge twice and looked across to a small island in distance which had castle- looking building on it. Mummy and Daddy said that it is Alcatraz, a massive, scary jail for the naughty people with lots of naughty corners and big, big bars.
Oh, boy, we better be good or this man will lock us straight up!
We found this cool machine (which by the way is all over the country) that squashes coins and turns them into souvenirs with all sorts of different pictures on it to remind you where you have been. Daddy bought us a special ‘squashed coin’ diary and we are allowed to squash a ‘quarter’ in each town we’ll go to. It’s even more fun than stamps as we get to squash them ourselves. By the time we’re finished travelling through the whole country we’ll have super muscles developed from all this squashing!
When we were walking down the street, we met this lovely lady who was sitting in a corner drawing people who walked pass. Of course she fell in love with our two faces (she’s only human) so we let her draw us. One of us was sitting having smile plastered on for half an hour while the other one stood next to the lady learning how to draw. Wow, she was great!
She showed us how to shade the inside of the eye to make it look so life-like. We both ended up with lovely pictures to take home.
We also went to the Zeum which is a super creative space for kids where kids get to do and experience creativity combined with technology. There were all sorts of green rooms where you could creative video clips. In this one below we are laying down on this ramp and recording us swimming in the ocean.
This one below, we danced and created all sorts of wicked dance clips.
We got to sing the karaoke. Bella sang ‘5 Speckled frogs’ and I did ‘Old McDonald had a farm’. We got to dress up and got recorded on a DVD.
But an activity that really captured our imagination was creating characters out of modeling clay and then recording a short animation. It was a pity we had to rush it (because they were closing in half an hour) and the colors of the clay were already all muddled-up. We made a man and a dog and a couple of snakes and then we set the scene and proceeded to shoot a movie frame by frame. Check it out. Had we had some more time and a chance to do it again we would’ve done a better job (without photographing a few hands accidentally). As we only had one shot at it (only about 5 min for the actual recording) we think we have done a marvelous job! What do you think?
On the way out we went to check out an ice hokey game played by the local boys. It was a blast!
Sometimes in life, we have learned, from bad things good things come. A few weeks back in LA we have had our passports go missing and we had to replace them. This is why we had to stay in San Francisco for almost a week. Had that not happened we would’ve been in and out in a day or two.
Now, don’t get us wrong, loosing Passports is a serious matter and we certainly didn’t enjoy our parents having a permanent phone attached to their ear (day and night). We also didn’t like being stuck in a lot of places where kids are not allowed to speak. However what we did like is meeting all these wonderful people we would have NOT met had we not lost our passports.
First there is ‘Aunt Cookie’ – Laurie who we met at Trevor’s birthday party when we arrived. Well, back then she was only known as Laurie but little did we know what a fantastic cookie making talent did she have.
First of all she told our parents at the party that she will get her neighbor Bob to get in touch with us via email as he and his wife have travel States extensively and can give us lots of great tips. Very quickly Bob become our favorite email ‘pen-pal’ and even though we have never met him he and his wife Mary-Ann become our ‘inside information gurus’.
As we were ready to check out the next morning (we still had one more passport related meeting in the city at 4pm) Bob asked us to come past his place to pick up a computer program with ALL RV parks across North America. We put aside a couple of hours to meet Bob and Mary-Ann and as the luck would have it…..we got lost!
Unfortunately our GPS lady (who lately seems to get more and more confused – daddy thinks she’s a bit dyslexic) decided to take us to a different address up, and up in the mountains. Mummy rang Bob and told him we might be running a bit late just as the satellite navigation as well as phone reception disappeared. Oh boy, we were lost in the mountains with not a soul to ask for directions!
Finally we got onto a bigger road that got us into a little town and a convenience store. Mummy went into the shop and within minutes she had five men trying to work out how to put ‘lost Aussies’ back on track. They have worked out that we were about 30 minutes away from Bob’s place!
A nice Cowboy man came up to mummy and told her that he’ll be heading that way and to follow his truck- he will take us back to Bob. He even spoke to Bob on the land-line phone to get directions.
We followed him for a while and before we said thank you and good bye we found out that Derek the cowboy is a Rodeo Rider and he gave us his card to call him. Which of course we did (lets pause here for a while and get back to BOB)
By the time we got to Bob’s place, we only had 15 minutes before our parents had to drag us out to go back to a boring city meeting. This is when ‘Untie Laurie’ stepped in and said: why don’t the girls stay with me and Bob’s granddaughter, Skylie and make some Chocolate- Chip cookies? Oh, wow! We were sold before mummy could even catch a breath! LOL
Some of our friends we played with at Laurie's
And so we stayed and made the yummiest cookies ever! By the time mummy and daddy arrived back we had a full on party going as Laurie aka Auntie Cookie - invited Bob and Mary-Ann, our Smore Family and their lovely friends who have just arrived from Canada! We had yummy pizzas and stuffed our little faces with the best cookies ever!
If life is not a party, we don’t know what is!
And when we were ready to say goodbye (and head off the next day) we were invited to our Smore family for dinner the next night. As it was Daddy’s birthday the next day, we were very pleased we’d have some nice company…so we stayed.
As we were almost ready to check out of our RV resort which incidentally happens to have the most amazing collection of motorhomes we have ever seen (you know, ‘the bigger the better’ $1.8mil super-buses?), we met Billy the manager who rides a cool Harley and is originally from Tennessee (who knows we might see him there one day). Mummy says he was a redneck (his helmet said so) but it looked pretty white to us...
Here is one of our $1.8mil neighbours
Nice, huh?
Here is one of our $1.8mil neighbours
Nice, huh?
We spent the afternoon stocking up the fridge and getting ready for our next adventure tomorrow (will be heading up north). It looks like we need to come back to San Francisco in about a week as mummy and daddy are waiting for some documents. To ‘fill in some time’ while we wait we decided to do a 850 mile loop to The Redwood National Park and then across (East) into the Mountains (Mt Shasta), then back down through Shasta Lake and back to San Francisco.
The dinner at our Smore family was fabulous. We caught up with their boys and their friends from Canada (Andrea, Kirra and their lovely mum Kathy) and our parents chatted away with the grown ups and drank some fantastic wine ‘Untie Cookie’ brought over.
We then had some chocolate cake (what else?) for Daddy’s birthday. We decorated it with some fancy cocktail umbrellas but by the time the cake got in front of daddy most of the umbrellas caught on fire! Ooops!
We stayed overnight outside of our friends’ driveway. They had a building site next door to them which was sort of out of the way… I guess not everyone can say that they slept ‘on the streets’ of Silicone Valley, LOL
In the morning Terri (our Cool Smore Dad) had treated us to a sensational breakfast of waffles, maple syrup and cream and daddy got himself a freshly brewed coffee. We are getting seriously spoiled!
We had so much fun and it was so hard to leave, especially that Trevor was so nice to share his ATV (little quad bike) with us and so we were zooming around like crazy.
We left San Francisco at about 10am and instead of listening to Bob’s diligent instructions we followed the GPS lady (who yesterday got upgraded to a new one, less dyslexic we hope). And so we ended up going right through the heart of San Francisco town in the peak hour traffic! Oh, boy! A massive caravan, on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, jumping over those hilly roads (have you seen those cop movies when they fly over those hills? They were filmed right here!). Well, at least we got to admire some more of the beautiful San Francisco architecture. Please don’t mind all these pictures on an angle – mum is teaching us to look at things from different perspective occasionally, LOL
Anyway, somehow we made it to the Golden Gate Bridge which was totally hidden in a cloud (apparently quite common). On the way there we were all pointing out saying ‘look, look, Golden Gate Bridge’ when Bella looked up from her DS and said ‘Nah, that’s the Oakland Bridge – the Golden Gate Bridge doesn’t have the diamonds - just straight lines!’ and back she went to playing her game. We were all dismissing her guess but she continued arguing (without even lifting her head from the game) and so puzzled mummy got onto Google and….sure enough – the little monkey was right! How on earth did she remember that, we don’t know but at least now WE can tell the difference between the two giant bridges!
To continue, click to the next section called 'November 2011'. The button is located right at the top....
Way Cool!
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