Yosemite - smoked out, so we went down the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas

Here are some pics of what we had hoped to see of Yosemite Valley....


  


Instead, this is what the valley looked like due to the fire and smoke nearby....

  


There was a fire burning just SW of Yosemite NP, and it was causing the park to be filled with smoke, and crowds supposedly be worse than normal due to one entrance being closed.  So we just decided to pass on Yosemite for now as it's only a 10 hour drive from home, so hopefully we can do it at some point in the future with the girls.

My favorite type of pop!

So instead of going back through Sac and down to Yosemite, we instead decided to drive along the Eastern side of the Sierras on our way back home.  Highway 395 goes from the Reno, NV area down to the Barstow, CA area.  It is a beautiful drive, and there are a lot of unique things to do.see along the way.  I (think) I took this drive about 10-15 years ago as some of the area I remember, and other parts I have no recollection of.  Our friends Johnny & Eileen suggested the following web site for things to do along 395 - https://californiathroughmylens.com/

South Shore - Darby being a pig, and Betty Boop with her eyes on Boo!

On Friday morning, we got up in decent time, and headed towards the South Shore of Lake Tahoe as the girls had not been to this part of the lake during our visit.  It is a lot busier, and a lot more to do than the north side of the lake, but you also get a lot more people with those options.  We parked and walked around a bit, and got a light snack for lunch as we had a stop we wanted to hit on 395 down near Mono Lake that had been recommended to us.

Slackettes at the Whoa Nellie Deli!

After South Shore, we hopped up and over the Eastern side of the Sierras to the Gardnerville area and hit Hwy 395.  For some reason, our "check engine" light came on as we were heading up the grade.  It doesn't seem to be anything serious, but is also a concern as we still have 500 miles or so to drive, and a big chunk of it in the heat.  Hopefully we can get home without any issues.  We stopped and got cheap gas - ~ $1 less than in Cali, and then headed South.... right into a thunderstorm!!!!  :-)

I was a real "bear" by the time we reached Whoa Nellie Deli!

Another "bear hug!"

We drove in/out of rain all along 395 down to the Mono Lake area.  It was awesome for us desert rats who do not see rain very often!  At times, it was a real "turd floater!"  We pulled off 395 at Hwy 120, which goes into Yosemite NP from the East side, and hit the "Who Nellie Deli" for a snack and a beer!  This is a Mobil gas station, with a popular deli in the building.  We ordered fish tacos and a swordfish sandwich to share, and both were pretty darned good considering we were in BFE!!!

Reminds me of Houston area last summer!

A funny liquid on the window for us desert rats!

If we had really wanted to go to Yosemite NP, we could have went into the back entrance by WND, but we passed on headed on South.  Soon after WND, we hit Manzanar, the home of a WW2 Japanese Internment Camp.  It was a neat place to visit, but very sad to learn that the US took many Japanese Americans and basically put them in prison after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, just due to them being of Japanese decent.

Girls at Manazanar Conctration Camp.

After the internment camp, we went on down to Mammoth Lakes, CA, which is a big ski area for SoCal people.  It was a typical ski town, with a lot of shops and restaurants in a small area.  We lucked out, and a reggae festival was going on that night, so there was a lot going on in the downtown area.  After checking into our room at the Mammoth Lakes Mountain Resort, we took the shuttle into downtown for the night.  Of course, we had to stop by a micro brewery or two that evening!  It was a relatively quite night and then we headed on South the next morning.

Tired of visiting micro breweries!

Some sort of "world famous" bakery in BFE Bishop, CA.  I almost schat myself after eating there!

Fossil Falls

Lake Tahoe

Tram ride up the mountain at Squaw Valley.

After we left Sac, we headed to the North shore of Lake Tahoe.  Our friends Alec and Kristen have a condo up there that we've been wanting to borrow for years, and finally had the opportunity to do so!  Their place is in Tahoe City on the NW corner of the lake.  It is affectionately referred to as the "Ghetto in the Meadow" and was a perfect spot for us to hang out and relax for our time there!

Roller skating at the top of Squaw Valley.

Upon arriving, we unpacked and all took it easy for a bit.  I ran over to see a friend, Mike Tentis, on the West shore that I met years ago in the turf industry, and later learned that he was a Farmhouse alum for U of Minnesota.  On the way home, I ran by the grocery and stocked us up for a few days as well as got something to cook on the grill for dinner that night.  We enjoyed a quiet night hanging on the deck enjoying the cool weather.

Swimming at the top of Squaw Valley!

On Monday, we decided to go to Squaw Valley, the home of the 1960 Winter Olympics.  It seems that the Olympics were much smaller then than now, as there were only about 25 countries that participated in 1960.  Squaw is a big ski resort, so we got passes and rode the aerial tram up to the top of the mountain.  The passes included roller skate rentals for the hockey rink, as well as pool passes.  I went skiing here with my buddy Kipp back in the mid 1990s in late June.  It was over 100 down in San Jose, and we drove up early to Squaw.  Skied in shorts and no shirt; got sun burned; went swimming; and drove back down the hill to 100+ in SJ all in the same day!  That was a neat experience for a kid from Indiana at the time!  After the tram ride, we came down and kicked around in Tahoe City for a bit that afternoon.

Danica getting grumpy because she needs food!

Tuesday was the day we went over to Kings Beach area to rent paddle boards and go onto the lake.  I was feeling kind of light headed (probably elevation I guessed), so dropped off Bish and the girls and went back to the Ghetto and took a nap.  They had a great time paddle boarding and playing in the water!  Danica had paddle boarded at a girl scout camp a few summers back, but it was the first time doing so for Bish and Darby.

Paddle boarding on Tahoe.

That evening we went looking for a spot to eat and see the sun set on the water.  We initially went to a place called Gar Woods near the water, but only had a beer there as it was pretty darned expensive (we thought! - a cheeseburger started at $21!)  The food looked good, but we passed on dinner there.  Instead we went to a local rec called the Bridgetender right near where the Truckee river flowed out of Lake Tahoe.  We sat outside near the river and enjoyed some decent bar food and a beer.

Rafting on the Truckee River.

We had made reservations to raft the Truckee River for Wednesday.  Our trip began around 11 am, and only took 2 hours or so, but was a fun experience!  It was the four of us in a heavy duty blow up raft.  There were some small rapids, but nothing too exciting.  No one fell in/off the raft, and we took some time to stop and chase the geese around near a sand bar once too.  Rafting the river was one of the better experiences we did on this trip IMHO.  We cooked out again that night and hung out on the deck to boot!

Miniature golf at Kings Beach.

We originally were planning to leave Tahoe on Thursday morning and go to Yosemite National Park with the girls.  But the Ferguson Fire had started a week or so ago just Southwest of the park, that was making the park very smokey, and had closed one of the entrances to the park.  We decided to pass on Yosemite on this trip due to the smokey environment.  There was no point in driving into the valley just to look at smoke and not be able to see Half Dome or El Capitan.

Slackettes giving a "bear hug!"

Instead, on Thursday we just kind of took it easy and screwed around in the afternoon.  Everyone slept in and took it easy in the am.  We finally ventured out of the place around 1 pm and headed for Incline Village... but we never really found much to do there!  I thought there was some sort of central area there to walk around and shop, but if there was, we never found it!  So we went back to Kings Beach area to walk around.  We stopped for ice cream at the Log Cabin, and then went across the street to play miniature golf!  We (sadly) determined that the girls inherited their mothers lack of touch putting!!!!  After miniature golf, we headed back to Tahoe City and had dinner at Jake's overlooking the lake/a boat dock for our final night in Tahoe!  It was a nice conclusion to our time in Tahoe City at the Ghetto in the Meadow!

Rafting the Truckee.

I have to say, being a fan of micro brewed beers, I was very disappointed in the micro breweries in the Tahoe area, as well as the limited selection of beers at most local restaurants.  There was a brewery/restaurant in Tahoe City, Tahoe Mountain Brewery that we visited and the beer wasn't that great.  We also drank some beer from Alibi Brewery in Incline Village, and didn't think it was that good either.  Most of the local restaurants were limited in their beer selections - SNPA, Deschutes Fresh Squeezed, the two locals listed above, and Blue Moon was all that most of them carried.

You gotta love a place that serves beer in schooners!  Sargent Preston's for those from FH!!!

We got up Friday morning and started to clean the Ghetto, and headed out midday for South Shore and then down to Mammoth Lakes area....

My future retirement rocking chair.

Bend - Crater Lake - Redding - Sacramento

Bish and the girls found this saying somewhere along the way in our travels and think it should be our motto!

We arrived into Bend, OR mid afternoon on July 11th, and promptly started touring around downtown to some of the local micro breweries!  We hit Silver Moon, Deschutes, and Bend breweries and snacked at each spot.  It was fun to hang out last at Bend Brewery as it was right along the river at dusk.

The Slackettes caught up with one of their O'Donnell cousins in Deschutes Brewery!

The next day, we went out to Mt. Bachelor and went up the mountain on the chair lifts.  We had lunch up there (terrible service!), but the wrong food I got was good!  Bish and Darby hiked down the mountain, and Danica and I took the chair lift back down.  We then headed over to the Old Mill area to kick around, and I eventually went into downtown to have a beer with an old friend from Verrado, Bill Morris, who now live sin the area.  It was fun to see him and catch up.  We took it pretty easy that night since we had to get up and moving early the next morning for Crater Lake.

On top of Mt. Bachelor

We left Bend early (8 am for us) on Friday, July 13 headed for Carter Lake.  It was a relatively easy drive down to CL on Hwy 97.  We passed some sort of big lava display/park/site to visit, but did not pull off as we were on a schedule.  If you have never been to the NW US, they refer to all of the inactive volcanoes as the "ring of fire."  A lot of this area was formed by volcanoes erupting in the past.  And most (probably all) of the highest peaks are volcanoes - Mt. Hood, Mt. Bachelor, Mt. Adams, Mt. Ranier, Mt. Saint Helens, etc.  And of course, Crater Lake was formed due to a volcano too!  The lake is the deepest one in the US - 1943' deep!

At Crater Lake

Bish had arranged for a boat tour around CL.  The idea seemed really cool, until I learned that we had to hike down and back UP to do the boat tour!  From the parking area, it was a 700' elevation change to get down to the lake level!  The good news, is it wasn't really that bad, and I'm still alive to type this blog!  Our boat tour was at noon, and we got down to the lake level around 10:45 am or so and had a small picnic lunch with some sandwiches we had stopped to get at Subway.  CL was absolutely beautiful!  The variety of blueish colors were fascinating to see.  I guess they originally allowed outside boats onto the lake, but stopped that practice years ago to try and not contaminate the water with outside inputs.  So the NPS runs the place, and offer the only boat tour available.  Our park ranger, Alan, that gave the tour was from Lewes, DE but was not a fan of Nicolbolis! (heathen!)  So the mountain blew it's top 1000s of years ago, and then a small island formed in the middle of the lake from the volcanic cone inside and has a small crater on top of it, hence the name of the lake.  The high sides of the lake are actually a caldera, not a crater.  The highlight of the boat ride (for me) was getting to see the "old man in the lake!"  Which is a 30'-40' long tree trunk that has been floating around the lake vertically for 123 years.  They cannot explain why it floats vertically instead of horizontally, but about 4' of it sticks up out of the water.  You can see the bottom of it based on how clear the water is.  I guess it moves around the lake with the wind, and some people say you can predict the weather based on where it is in the lake!

It was a Villanova kind of day at Crater Lake!

After our hike back up the hill, we headed South towards Redding, CA for the night.  We have some friends who come down to AZ every spring to watch the Dojers in spring training.  Some of them live in the Redding, CA area, so we got together with them for dinner.  It was nice to see the Visser clan and to catch up with them a bit!

The Slackettes and Brooke's kids hanging out in Redding on the Sundial Bridge.

On Saturday morning, we headed towards Chico, CA to stop and have lunch with my friend Jeff's parents, Jim & Judy Roberts.  We don't get to see them often, and Jim has dementia (Alzheimer's I believe?), so it is kind of bittersweet to see them as he is slowly fading away upstairs.  In many respects, he is still the same person we have known for years - jovial, chatty, inquisitive, etc., but he often does not remember that he asked you the same quesiton just 2 minutes earlier.  The girls were great sports with Jim and answered his questions again, and again, and again many times.  I know it has to be tough on my buddy Jeff to watch his dad fade away as Jeff and his dad have had the closest father -son relationship of anyone I know.  Jeff sees the humor in it, as he occasionally will call me up with a good "dad story!"

The "two" old men on the lake!

After lunch in Chico, we drove down to Sacramento, CA for the night.  We got together with Nunzio and Michele, as well as Bish's friend Jill from HP and her family for dinner in downtown Sac.  We all met for drinks, and then dinner at Mikuni's!!!  On Sunday morning, we got up and had breakfast with my friend Mark and his new bride Jennifer.  It was nice to meet Jennifer and to catch up with Mark.  On our drive up to Lake Tahoe, we stopped and said hi to Bob and Andrea in Colfax before heading up the mountain.

Slackettes posing in some store in Bend.

Slackettes with another teepee!

Slackettes visiting "Mecca" aka Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico!

Seattle

Slackettes posing in from of Mount Saint Helens!

There used to be a lot more to the mountain than there is now.

We finally hit the road North around 9 am on July 5th.  We were headed to see Mt. St. Helens for those old enough to remember the occurrence in 1980.  I remember it, but was not that in tune with it since I lived so far away and had never been to that part of the US at that age.  I had visited MSH back in 1996 or so on a trip North with Zoysia, but that was 22 years before, so it has changed a lot since then!  I have a fraternity brother, Mark Sheldahl who lives in Southern WA, and has worked for Weyerhauser as a forester since getting out of Purdue.  We met up with Mark and his son Nathan at a MSH visitor center just off I.5.  Mark and Nathan both had a lot of good pointers on what to do/see in the area, as well as general info on the eruption, etc.  Mark's wife works at the Weyerhauser MSH visitor center which we stopped at also on our way up to see MSH.  And Nathan helps out there some too, which is why he was so knowledgeable too!  The best tidbit of info from Nathan was the Noble Fir trees looked like they were blurry/3D on the slopes based on how the branches where more horizontal than vertical.  Most of the trees grown for commerical harvest are Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii if I recall correctly from my Hort 217 days!).

There were numerous BIGFOOT sightings as we traveled the PNW!  Sasquatch does exist!!!  :-)

The MSH visitor center I saw 22 years ago is no longer in existence, and there are now three different ones - one that is federally operated and at the end of the road, the Weyerhauser sponsored one that is 5 miles or so from the end of the road, and the one closer to the interstate.  All were good to visit and learn from, but each was a bit different in what they offered and what you could learn.  My visit years ago seems to stick out more in my mind as I learned a lot about the people that were killed in the eruption, and what they were doing/where they were at the time .  There was a lot less info on those people this time around it seemed.  Another stark difference was the general view of the forest landscape where the eruption had occurred.  I vividly recall being able to see the trees all laid over in the direction of the blast, as well as very little green plants growing up on the forest floor.  Not surprisingly, after 22 more years, you can no longer see the forest floor due to replanting, as well as nature taking it's course of plants getting reestablished.  While the new greener look was neat to see, the older look of grey with just a bit of green, and the result of the blast left a different impression in my mind.

Gum Alley in Seattle!

We drove on up to Seattle and stopped off in the Tacoma area for a beer at Sluggo Brewery (we had the best waitress there!) and to let traffic thin out a bit before heading to our next Air BnB in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle.  We pulled in and unloaded for a bit, and then headed out to find a spot for dinner.  We discovered a cool downtown/city center sort of an area a few miles to the South of us.  After driving around trying to determine where we would eat, the girls found some sort of game restaurant/bar that was cool, and creepy in the same respect.  It was called MOX, and half was a restaurant/bar with about 10 beers on tap, and half was a game store!  The game store part had different rooms with different types of games that were played in each room - role playing, board, tiny figurine, world conquering, card, etc.  Not surprisingly they sold a bunch of games and game supplies.  The cool part was the game rooms had a lot of people (aka geeky gamers!) in each room actively playing a variety of games!  It was literally a geek heaven for nerds!  And we found out from our waiter that the second floor of the building was where they shipped out $200k/day in Magic, The Gathering supplies!

"Dad, we're getting tired of visiting all of these breweries."

On Friday we were slow to get moving, and just ran down to Pike St. Market area to kick around for the day.  It was packed due to July 4th holiday/weekend, but still fun.  PSM is always a fun place to walk around and people watch.  You obviously have the guys throwing fish and all, but there are also a lot of interesting people usually too.  For some reason, the big thing we tasted while walking through PSM was spicy jelly.  We stopped at a number of places that had samples of jelly to try the hot ones.  I'm not sure why, but there are a number of brass pigs near the market.  I did not pick up on the significance of them though.  Danica wanted to visit the "first Starbucks" but then was OK to pass on that opportunity when she saw the long line to get into the place!   We stopped into a little German store and got some German sausages and a drink in honor of Larissa!  Then after walking through more of PSM, we had to stop by Pike Street Brewery too!

Bish sampling some Washington red wines.

When we got a bit hungry, we found a little crepe place and had a savory crepe as a treat.  The consensus was that it was good, but not as good (or cheap) as the crepe place in Rehoboth Beach!    We visited the Gum Alley near PSM and decided it is very different than the Gum Alley in SLO.  I guess the Seattle one gets sand blasted/washed once/year, where the SLO one has years and years of gum accumulated on it.  The Seattle one is most definitely bigger, brighter, and covers more square feet of wall, but the SLO wins out on being more gross due to the grayish color the older gum has taken on.  There was a little cheese shop on PSM area that was fun to see cheese being made.  And their samples were delicious!  We finally stopped into a wine tasting place on Post Alley so Bish got some wine in, and not all beer!  That evening we went back to the Ballard/Market St. area near our place for dinner, and ate at a Korean BBQ place that Darby had picked out.  Darby and I both had Bibimbap for dinner.  Mine was in a "hot bowl" and hers was not.  I decided that Bibimbap in Korean means "find a toilet fast in English!!!!"  :-)

Boo outside in the gardens of Chihuly.

Bish & Darby inside the Chuhuly Gardens.

On Saturday, July 7th we stuck around the downtown Seattle area again and visited the Seattle Center which is where the Space Needle is, along with a bunch of other stuff.  The first thing we did on this day was to visit the Chihuly Gardens.  The glass work this guy has done is absolutely amazing if you've never seen it before!  I've seen it a few time sin other places, but it is always an enjoyable experience to see his work again!  Btw, I've decided that Chihuly reminds me of a smaller version of Andre the Giant from the wrestling world!  Look his picture up!

Darby got kind of sideways with Spiderman!

Sometimes Danica just feels like a rock.

After Chuhuly, we visited the Museum of Pop Culture (aka, MoPop!) which is close by.  The girls really enjoyed this place as it had a lot of stuff they knew of/could relate to based on their age.  I was not planning on going in, but ended up going to use the bathroom, and figured out that I was inside the museum without paying!  So I hooked up with the rest of the clan, and joined them for a bit seeing some of the inside of the museum.  I eventually went out to the van and took a nap!  :-)

Slackettes by the Puget Sound... I think?

And then I headed across the street to the Gates Foundation Discovery Center (I think that's what it was called?).  It was a display of many of the things that are funded by the Gates Foundation, which was actually quite interesting!  They have done a lot to rid other countries of polio and other diseases that governments in other countries have not been able to overcome.  They are working on funding research on self sufficient toilets for many of the people that do not even have access to toilets or sewers.  They said it is estimated that 1 in every 3 people in the world do not have access to a functioning toilet!  There was an example self sufficient toilet in the place that generated energy every time the seat went up/down, which in turn the energy ran an auger that moved the dried out poop, and there was a membrane that captured the water from the urine.  It was a very educational stop if you are ever in the area!

The manufacturing floor at Boeing.

On Sunday, July 8th, we headed to the North a bit as Bish had scheduled a tour of the Boeing factory based on a recommendation from a friend.  It was a really cool thing to see/do.  The factory itself covers almost 100 acres of land under a roof!  Not much was happening on the day we visited based on it being a Sunday.  It was interesting to learn that Boeing "manufactures" some of the older models of airplanes they make, but that they "assemble" the newer models such as the 787 Dreamliner!  They have actually changed the process in which they make planes from one of building them, to putting the pieces made by others together to form a plane!  There are an estimated 30,000-40,000 people work at this place!  After Boeing, we went out to some podunk farm to the East and picked berries "for fun!"  Again, i took a nap in the car, because I could, and because I used to pick raspberries in the wild as a kid, so picking berries sounds to me more like work than fun!

Picking blueberries!

I will give Bish credit, as she finally came to the conclusion, on her own, that attempting to do a trip to something farther away one of the remaining days in Seattle didn't make any sense!  Whether it was the Olympic Peninsula, Mt. Ranier, or many other options within a few hours of traveling, it would end up being a long day.  So she gave in and decided it was OK to just have a few more days of doing things locally and taking it kind of easy!  She is the one out of the four of us that wants to "go, go, go" and "do, do, do" while on vacation.  I get it, but vacations are not restful when you are so busy seeing/doing stuff IMO!

Art pig in movie theater in Ballard area.

  So on Monday, we stuck around the area again.  We had wanted to do the Seattle Underground, so went downtown again to do one of these tours.  It was actually cool to learn about how the area grew and was built on top of itself.  After a big fire, they began to build stone/concrete walls and sidewalks, and then built a second layer of the same thing on top of the first as they were also building a big retaining wall to keep all of the water out and allow the soil to dry out.  So the lower layer of the original street layout exists under the older part of the downtown area.  And to back-fill the retaining wall on the non Puget Sound side, they just washed dirt down the hill with water pressure!

Of course!

After our underground tour, Darby wanted to see the Panama Hotel as it was in a book she read in school this past year.  Sadly it was uphill from where we were.  :-(  The good news is that it was near Chinatown, so we went and found a good lunch in the area.  The sad part of that is that we were only a block away from my favorite restaurant's location in the downtown area, 13 Coins.  Unfortunately I didn't realize it until the next morning.

The Slackettes were missing home, so we took them to a glass blowing place so it felt like AZ!

We were staying in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, which was a great recommendation.  and we stumbled upon the main restaurant area in this neighborhood on our first night in town.  I think we went to the area for dinner every night we were there!  There were about 10 micro breweries in the area, as well as a big selection of Asian places, lots of coffee shops, and other stuff too.

U Dub!

Tuesday was Danica's birthday!!!!  She officially turned 12 that day!  I ran and got donuts for breakfast to celebrate!  I'm not sure what the everyone else in the family had for breakfast, but my donuts were greats!!!  :-)  Midday we finally rolled out of the joint and headed over to U Dub for another college walk around.  After U Dub, we went to the Balalrd Locks and watched a few boats being raised up to go from the Sound to a lake.  That was fun to see and learn about.  We had been talking about going to see a movie, so finally were able to see The Incredibles 2!

I got a little sideways when they made me try on a kilt!  They were only $300!!!