Movies

Movies this week:

Friday I saw Little Miss Sunshine in the theater. I had been very anxious to see this movie. Very good. I’d give it a 8/10. Great story, good acting, some pretty funny parts.

Saturday we went to see Invincible at the theater. Also very good. 7/10. Typical Disney against the odds happy ending story, but still good. And it has Marky Mark so how can you go wrong?

Saw on DVD:

ATL- so-so. Decent story, but pretty typical. Absolutely no big shockers at all. 5/10.

She’s the Man I saw this in the theater when it came out. Entertaining, not at all believable, but entertaining and funny. 6/10.

Ernesto!

Looks like Ernesto is on track to go right over us Wednesday, at least according to the 11:00 update...

Went to the bank at noon, line was out the door! Went to Walmart to get my usual hurricane supplies (case of water, batteries, bread) and it wasn't too bad there yet, but it was getting busy. The canned goods aisle was starting to look a little bare. Not a single person in the frozen foods aisles, I wonder why?

The gas station across the street had lines from about 9:00 this morning and as of now, they just ran out of gas. They'll probably get another shipment tomorrow. They had one this morning.

I did see some businesses starting to board up on my way back to the office as well. School's closed tomorrow in Martin County...

It seems like we just went through this yesterday! I'll keep you all posted as to the goings on.

Minnesota!

Sunday July 2- Wed. July 5

Landed in Orlando, sprinted down to get my bags, back up to recheck them with Northwest, and then through security again. Got to my gate just as they started boarding. Whew! Full but uneventful flight to MN. Aimee picked me up at the airport then drove to Kenyon. Nobody really knew I was coming except Aimee. Got home and waited for Mom to get home. She was out shopping. Finally she came home and was quite surprised. We decided not to tell my sister I was home until I went to Kara’s party on the 4th, but she ended up coming over so they were surprised early.

Monday Aimee and I golfed and I did pretty badly, but it was still fun. Decided at lunch to do the whole 18, so we used her parents cart for the last 9.

Tuesday was the 4th and Kara’s 7th birthday party. Went to the party and the parade. That was about it.

On the 5th I flew back to Orlando on an early flight and got back home late that afternoon.

Day 9

Saturday, July 1

Got up and played with Ethan. Melissa and I took him to the pool for awhile. Then their friends Matt and Natasha came over to watch World Cup Soccer and have Chinese food for lunch and then we just all hung out after that. It was a lot of fun. Eventually I had to pack up my stuff and get going back to the airport to catch my overnight flight back to Orlando.

I got to the airport in plenty of time. I was nervous because there really wasn’t a whole lot of time between my flight landing in Orlando and my flight out to MN, and I’d have to get my bags and then recheck them (I flew United to CA, NWA to MN). While waiting to board, they told us the flight was going to be delayed a bit. Turned out the incoming plane we were to get on, had some unruly passengers who had to be arrested. This was making me nervous because of my connection time! But we made up time in the air and weren’t too late landing. The flight was completely full, and I just couldn’t sleep or get comfortable. I’m sure the guy next to me was just wishing I would sit still!

Day 8

Santa Barbara
Ethan

Friday, June 30

Melissa and the boys and I took a little day trip up to Santa Barbara. We walked on the beach (Ethan liked to hand me sand) and walked on the pier. Had lunch on the pier at a fish and chips place. Of course I had chicken. Drove through the town a bit, and then went back home. Went to Costco and bought pizza for supper and this really good olive spread stuff. The rest of the evening was spent talking and eating olive spread and watching “What not to wear” on TLC.

Day 7

Just waitin....

Thursday, June 29

The next morning I was up early, checked out and off to the Smiths. It was the exact Smiths I had been to years before. And of course they had my cookies. On sale even! I could barely wait to get to the car to eat one! Then it was off to LA on I-15.
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I hadn’t been more than a few hours out of Vegas when traffic on the freeway came to a complete standstill. There were miles of cars ahead of me. Got out the map and realized being in the middle of the desert, there wasn’t really any way around it, I’d just have to sit and wait along with everyone else. Called my mom and she checked out the internet to see what the deal was and of course, it was an accident. Ate cookies, watched kids skateboard down the road, called people and read a bit. Nothing like getting stranded on a desert freeway where the temperature was 100. Finally after 45 minutes we started to move a bit. All in all, it took 2 hours to go about 2 miles. There had been one heck of a wreck. When I got by it, they were removing a tractor trailer that was completely burned out.

Finally I got though and it was off to LA to Melissa and Eric’s They live in Westlake Village, not far off the 101 freeway so it was very easy to find. When I arrived I got to meet Ethan (15 months) and Eli (3 months). Melissa was making a fabulous supper and I got to hold Eli and play with Ethan. We had supper and then we went for a walk around the neighborhood and pretty much just rested the rest of the night.

Day 6

Paris, Las Vegas

Wednesday, June 28th

Woke up early packed everything up, made the trek back to the car with everything and checked out. I had decided to take the Tioga Pass road through to the eastern entrance to the park. It was a great drive, but would have been much better had it not rained most of the way! There was still snow in the higher parts of the road. I think that part of the park is probably the most pretty, and I’d love to see it again sometime when it’s not raining. At Tioga Pass you are at almost 10,000 feet, which is the highest mountain pass by paved road in the country. It was pretty neat (and fun to drive those roads!) I left the park and stopped for gas at Lee Vining and saw Mono Lake a bit, which was kind of pretty (again, I’m sure much nicer in the sunshine). I had pretty much had it with cold and rainy so I decided to head for the desert. I decided to head towards Las Vegas and see where to go from there.

Finally I drove out of the cold and rainy into the hot and dry. Crossed into Nevada and into the beautiful Great Basin. A lot of people don’t like this area ‘cause it is dry and barren, but there’s something about the desert mountains that I really like. Stopped in Tonopah, NV for a little lunch then kept on towards Vegas. Stopped again just outside of Death Valley for gas. Once in the suburbs of Vegas there was horrible traffic and road construction and so I thought I would just get the heck out of town, maybe head towards Laughlin. Somewhere on the South Side of Vegas I saw a sign for a Taco Time-which in Utah I loved (way better than Taco Bell!) so I thought Id get a snack. (It was in a crappy truckstop and it wasn’t as good as before, but still good). There were some big outlet malls nearby so I decided to stop in there and get some gifts for Ethan and Eli. Found many cute outfits.

While there I decided I was going to find a Smith’s store to get their famous pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which are pretty much my favorite cookie in the world. Nobody does them quite like they do. One time I was in Las Vegas with my friend Holly I knew we had found a Smiths and got some, but couldn’t remember if it was on Tropicana or Flamingo. Drove all the way down Tropicana and didn’t find it. By this time I was tired, hungry and really needed a shower. I was debating between rooms at the Tropicana, Sahara, or the Motel 6 just down from the Tropicana. In the end Motel 6 won out, because with them I’d just park outside my room and wouldn’t have to drag all my stuff through miles of casino to get to my room. If any of you are in Vegas and want a cheap place to stay, I’d recommend it. It’s clean, its just off the strip (easily in walking distance) and safe.

Got to my room, took a shower, checked out the yellow pages and found out the Smiths was on Flamingo, not Tropicana. Decided I’d just stop there on the way out of town the next morning. I was hungry so I decided to walk the strip in search of a good meal. Pretty much walked up the entire length of the strip, finally just settled on Tony Romas. Tony Roma’s is in the Stardust and I had heard the Stardust is the next to get imploded and turned into something else so I felt I had to pay my respects. I always liked the Stardust. Not as flashy as the newer “themed” properties, but nice. And they probably have one of the top 3 or 4 sports/race books on the Strip.

From the Stardust I walked over to the Sahara to catch the new monorail back to the MGM and then back to my room to crash! I ended up having walked the entire length of the strip- which is a really long way!

California Day 5

Bear Locker

Yosemite Falls

Tuesday, June 27

Woke up early and got ready and hiked it out of Curry Village to Yosemite Village for some breakfast and more hiking. As I was walking along, I saw some coyotes just trotting along the road. Apparently this is a common occurrence. I stopped and got some breakfast then hiked over to Yosemite Falls. Took some pictures and continued just walking around the valley. Took the shuttle bus around to a few different spots, checked out the stores and museums. Checked the internet out to see where I should head the next day. I had thought about Tahoe, but weather reports didn’t look promising. Spent the rest of the day just exploring Yosemite Valley. I did go back to Curry Village in the early afternoon to hang out by the pool for a bit and get a shower.
Got back to the tent in time for yet another storm. This was a big one. Even had hail! We lost power for a bit, so no reading! Another early bedtime since there really wasn’t anything else to do. I was kind of bummed that it rained both nights, I had been looking forward to going out at sunset and getting some cool photos

California Day 4

My Tent Cabin
The Tunnel View

A Fissure

Taft Point

Big Tree

Monday, June 26

Got up early and checked out for the trip to Yosemite. The main route into Yosemite, Hwy 140 was closed due to a rock slide earlier in the summer. (I actually had to change my plans because of it.) So I drove from Merced to the South Entrance of Yosemite. On the way I stopped in a small town, Oakhurst that was a nice town, for some last minute groceries. From there it was on to the park.

I drove into the park and proceeded to the Mariposa Grove. Mariposa Grove is an area of the park with a ton of giant Sequoia trees. I took a trail up about a mile to a group of them. Of course, it was a mile uphill! (not a big hill, though) The trees were pretty cool. There was one you could walk through. There were quite a few people on the trail. After hanging out at the trees a bit, I was anxious to get to the other parts of the park so I hiked back down to my car.

I drove out of Mariposa Grove to Glacier Point Road. Glacier Point Road is a long, windy mountain road up to Glacier Point (imagine that) which has fabulous views of the whole park. This is where the Subaru Outback really started to come in handy. It had a 5 speed shift on the fly, which was great for the mountain roads. It made it pretty easy to get up and down without being on the brakes too much. It was fun to drive, too! (Although in the mountains, I don’t think I ever got out of 3rd gear). I stopped along the road at a nice meadow with wildflowers and took some pictures and to check the map to make sure I hadn’t passed the parking lot yet for the trails I wanted to hike.

I continued driving up the road to the Sentinel Dome parking lot. There were two short hikes from here I wanted to do. The first took you to Taft Point and the Fissures. From the parking lot, it was a little over a mile to Taft Point. Of course, this being the mountains, much was uphill. Just before Taft Point, you get to the Fissures which are just really deep cracks in the rock. They were pretty neat. Taft Point was just ahead, which was a point that reached out with a great view of Yosemite Valley. There is a guard rail so you don’t fall off! After resting a bit and taking some pictures I headed back to the parking area. From there I rested a bit and refilled my water bottle and had a snack. Now, I need to mention it was pretty hot. You’re up at around 9000 feet and it’s still 85 degrees!

After my rest I took the other trail to Sentinel Dome. This hike was quite a climb, and at the end you climb up a big, steep trail of rock. I was pretty excited to do this, but as I kept on, I got to the base and by that time I was just too hot and exhausted, so I didn’t make it to the top, but I was ok with that. I took pictures, rested and headed back to the car.

From the parking lot, I continued to drive up the road to Glacier Point. At Glacier Point they have facilities, a cafeteria, gift shop, etc. I got a little ice cream, rested, and took pictures of Yosemite Valley below. After resting (gee, you think I was tired?) I drove back down Glacier Point Road to Yosemite Valley to check into my accommodations.

Along the way, there is a spot called “Tunnel View” that you can pull off the road and take in the amazing view. (it’s called tunnel view because it’s what you see when you come out of a tunnel, as if you couldn’t figure that out on your own). I asked a guy to take my picture for me there since it’s pretty much the shots you see on all the postcards.

From there it was on to Curry Village to check in to my tent cabin for the next few nights. Curry Village has hundreds of tent cabins and cabins along with other services such as pizza parlor, groceries, cafeteria, gift shops, bike rentals…I had reserved a tent cabin, which I had heard mixed comments about. For those of you in the know, they’re an awful lot like the tents at Singing Hills Girl Scout camp but with a bed and an overhead light. There’s a centralized bathroom and another building with showers. At check-in it started to rain a bit. I had also been told that it never rains in the summer at Yosemite, and if it does it’s a brief shower. Well, it ended up raining both nights. It wasn’t brief either.

Because of the bear population at Yosemite, you can’t keep anything in your tent or car that even remotely smells or looks like food. Everything must be stored in bear proof lockers. Each tent has a locker by the baths for your toiletries, and there are larger storage lockers for food, etc. So even though I didn’t need everything out of my car, I took everything in ‘cause I didn’t want a bear breaking in to my rental car! (And they will, for so much as a candy wrapper left in there!) Also, it’s a pretty long walk from the parking to the tent so my exhausted self had to drag all my stuff to the tent in the rain. And then haul the smelly stuff to the locker.

After settling in I walked down and got some pizza. I went back to my tent because it started to rain again and went to bed early because there isn’t much to do there in the rain.

California, Day 3

Sunday, June 24th

Up early and checked out of the hotel. It’s Race Day! Drove over one bridge or another to get to the Sonoma area. It was pretty, but cold and foggy! Ended up just driving right to the track (Infineon Speedway) instead of taking the little bus that I had planned. Traffic into the speedway was light. Parked my car in a lot, thought I paid very close attention to where I had parked. Of course, this is the wine country and it’s very hilly, so I had to walk up and down quite a few hills to get to my seat. Found my seat and wandered down (meaning I’d have to walk back up) to the main area where they have all the fan stuff. Found the Mark Martin AAA booth and got my picture taken with his car. Wandered back up to my seat and waited, and waited, and waited for the race to begin. Finally after all the pre-race crap and a cool air show, the race was on!

Well, I’m glad I got to see a road course race in person, but I certainly don’t need to do it again. While I could see ¾ of the track from where I was, I couldn’t see some of the best places where they were passing all the time. It was hot, and people kept getting up and wandering up and down the stairs, so that ended up blocking my view half the time. I had brought my own water, but eventually ran out and the places selling stuff had run out as well by ¾ through the race. I decided to beat the traffic and leave a little early. I had my radio headset so I could listen to the rest of the race. By this time I was also quite sunburned, despite having put sunscreen on and reapplying throughout the afternoon.

So back up the hills to the parking lot. At the top of the hill looking down, I picked out what I thought was my car. I kept it in my site as I walked down the hill to the lot. I got to the car, and it was a gold Subaru, just not my gold Subaru! So I wandered the lot for about 30 minutes trying to find my car. I was hot, tired, and very thirsty and seriously about to lose my mind when I finally found it. Thankfully, there were a few cautions at the end of the race making it longer, otherwise I would have had to sit in traffic that I had left early to avoid!

I left the track and made it back to the Bay Area with very little delay. Don’t know how much traffic there would have been if I had stayed through the whole race, but I was glad to get going. Drove back through the East Bay, and back up and out. Eventually I stopped for drinks, snacks, gas, and a bathroom. That is when I realized how sunburned I was! Kept driving through the afternoon all the way to Merced, CA where I had a reservation at a Super 8 (what else?).
Got to Merced in the late afternoon/early evening. Checked into the hotel. One of the nicest Super 8’s I’ve stayed in. They had just remodeled. Wandered around town to find the Wal Mart. Found Wal Mart and stocked up on food and other essentials for my Yosemite trip. Stopped by a Carl’s Jr. and got a Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich for supper. Went back to the hotel and crashed

California, Day 2

Saturday, June 24

Got up somewhat early, got ready and drove over to the BART station. (I could have walked, but wasn’t sure what time of day I’d be getting back, and I didn’t really know what the area would have been like at night). Since it was a weekend, there was plenty of free parking. Hopped the train into San Francisco. I don’t recall how long it took, but was probably a 30-45 minute train ride through Berkely and Oakland. Got off at the Embarcadero Station in downtown SF and walked down to the Ferry Building.

From the Ferry Building I just walked along the piers up to Pier 39 taking different pictures along the way. It was pretty cold and foggy at this point. Stopped at Pier 39 a bit, watched the sea lions, and then kept on walking up to Fisherman’s Wharf and then eventually to the Cable Car turn around. Bought my Muni day pass there and rested and watched them turn around a car. Got some Starbucks (chai tea frappachino) and continued to wander. Found a Barnes and Noble and checked out their maps (I needed a good Yosemite hiking map). They didn’t have much, so I hopped the Cable Car from there and got off at Union Square and went to the Borders there and found exactly what I wanted.

From Union Square I decided to walk to Chinatown. Now, if I had taken a minute to look at the map in my guide book, I would have noticed that if I walked one way a few blocks and then towards Chinatown, I would have avoided a big hill and saved my self a little energy. Instead, I just went the way I knew for sure would get me there, which entailed walking up and over a very large hill. Finally I got to Chinatown. I just walked around and took a few pictures. I have been to San Francisco before, so I didn’t feel like I needed to do too much, I just really walked around a lot.

After Chinatown I just continued wandering through downtown and eventually found myself back on the Embarcadero and then to Pier 39 again where I had lunch at the Hard Rock Café. I had my favorite chicken fajitas. Didn’t buy a pin, though. Mostly I just wanted to sit down and rest awhile I was pretty tired. By this time of day, here at the Pier it was sunny and warm.

After lunch it was more walking! You can pretty much walk all along the water from the Piers to the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of it is National Park Service land. It’s very pretty. You can see a lot, that is until the fog rolls in. Which of course it did shortly after lunch. I was very glad I had a jacket with a hood because the wind was strong and COLD! To get to the bridge where you can walk across, (from down by the water) of course you have to walk up another huge hill! By the time I got up there I was completely exhausted! Since it was cold and foggy you couldn’t really see much so I didn’t walk across the bridge (I had done it before anyway). From the gift shop area I caught a bus that would take me over towards Golden Gate park.

Rode the bus for quite awhile just to rest. It meandered through the city in parts that tourists probably never go, so it was neat to see the “regular” San Francisco. Eventually, not really knowing where the heck I was, the bus stopped at a Mall so I got off, got something to drink and consulted the map. I decided there wasn’t a whole lot more I wanted to see, so I took the metro back to the BART station and headed back to the hotel.
When I got back, there was a Target next to the station so I went there (and walgreens) to get some snacks and some other things for my Yosemite trip. Got a little supper, went back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

California Trip Day 1

Yep, it's hot. It got to 109 at one point.

Ok, enough already about not updating my blog. I guess I’ll appease you all with an account of my vacation to California and Minnesota. I guess I’ll have to break it up in parts with pictures.

Friday, June 23rd.

I awoke very, very early to catch a 6:30 AM direct flight to LAX from Orlando. I went up to Kissimmee Thursday night after work and spent the night at Lora’s parents house. Her dad brought me to the airport. I got to the airport and found out my flight was delayed 3 HOURS! Man, I could have slept in more! Instead I just napped a bit at the fabulous Orlando airport. They actually have a lot of nice stores, but at 7 AM, nothing’s really open yet.

Finally took off about 9:30 AM. Pretty uneventful flight. Got to watch a movie. It was 8 Below, which was really good. I hadn’t seen it yet. It was a completely full flight (as were all my flights on this trip). (By the way, I flew United)

Landed and got my bags no problem and hopped the shuttle to Hertz. With AAA I got about 40% off so it was a much better deal than any of the usual cheaper places. Got in the door and the line was enormous. Thought I’d be there for at least an hour. Thankfully they had a lot of people to help, so the line moved pretty quickly and only took about 20 minutes.

Of course the size of car I had reserved they were out of (compact) but they always upgrade you for free, so I ended up with a Subaru Outback. Which turned out to be a very nice car to drive, especially in the mountains! Got instructions on how to get to the 405 (which was incredibly easy) got in the car, checked it all out and got going.

By this time it’s about 1:00 PDT. Traffic on the 405 was very heavy, but it moved quite well. I was expecting horrendous gridlock. Wound my way around on the 405 to the 5 and north towards San Francisco.

The car had an outside temperature gage that when I left LA read about 74, a few hours later going up the 5 it got to as high as 110, then once I was in the Bay area got down to 59! Quite a temperature range I must say!

Stopped somewhere along the freeway for some lunch and gas. Ate at Carl’s Jr. I must say their Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich is very good. It has a green chilie in it. I like most anything with green chillies! Shortly after leaving my lunch spot I got in some very slow traffic due to an accident that probably added an extra hour on to the trip. As you will read later, this was not the last time I wound up slowly creeping along on a hot, remote freeway.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. Pretty. Saw a HUGE feedlot that had to have 10,000 cattle. Smelled it before I came over a hill and saw it! Also it must have been onion harvesting time ‘cause you certainly could smell onions everywhere, and I saw a lot of trucks hauling onions. There was also a pretty cool spot just before going into the Bay area that had all these windmills up on the hills. They were kind of cool, but kind of ugly at the same time.

Eventually I made it into the Bay Area to El Cerrito where I stayed at a Super 8 right off the freeway and about 2 blocks from a BART station (commuter rail station). It was a pretty nice hotel and excellent location. Since I got in much later than planned and was too tired, I just crashed.