Month: January 2010

This morning we turned onto Route 66, the old highway that stretched all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles. It is now a historical highway and while it wasn’t busy, it was clear that we weren’t the only tourists.

The first place we stopped, there was a fake gas station with a vintage car parked in front of it. Inside were booths set up to look like in the sixties. You could buy lots of things including a copy of Elvis’ driving license. I bought a Route 66 Beer (root beer).

We stopped so that Louise and Morgane could tour the Grand Canyon Caverns. They had a good underground visit and took lots of pictures. I’ll have to post some of them later.

Ghis and I took Carmanah on a walk through the snow, which she loved! She saw a rabbit run by and she started to chase after it, but she was so terribly slow that we could only laugh and applaud her spirit. We also met some friendly, gentle horses.

We had lunch at the Roadkill Cafe. The food was normal, but the names of the dishes weren’t very appetizing. Their motto was: You kill it, we grill it.

After lunch we just kept driving so we could get to the Grand Canyon before dark.

With Ghis’s sister, Louise, we left San Diego and headed towards the Grand Canyon. We have one week to do our tour and get back to San Diego again, so we drove a lot the first day. Morgane always has company in the back seat now.

We were rewarded with an amazing sunset as we drove past the Mojave Desert. Then the moon rose over another mountain and it got even better!

We slept at the Wal Mart in Kingman, Arizona, so that we could drive part of old Route 66 in the morning. Yes, we slept all four of us and the dog in the van… and survived. But tomorrow night we’ll be in a hotel at the Grand Canyon because it’s freezing there!

This morning we played tennis – another perk of Jean’s townhome. Before that, Ghis walked the twins to school and they were proud to show off Carmanah.

After tennis we met some very cute dogs with a very nice owner who says we can visit her horse sometime. Morgane sat on the ground and got her face licked. She was trying to take pictures of the dogs.

Later we went to Balboa Park and played in the park. We went to peek to see which museum was beside the park and it turned out to be the science centre – the one that our pass gets us into for free.

After amusing ourselves (while Ghis napped in the pop-top), we looked at the next museum. It was the Museum of Natural History and we got in for free there, too. But it was almost closing time, so we’ll have to go back to see the Imax film.

On the way home, we stopped atop a hill to take pictures of this sunset. Ghis convinced us to climb on the roof of the van, but I haven’t seen those pictures yet.

Here is the top of the van picture:

Morgane and I took Carmanah down to the beach today. It’s a beautiful spot and there were lots of friendly dogs to play with. Most of them looked like they’d need a bath once they got home.

Since it was only $15 for a second day, Morgane and I went back to Legoland to do the things that we missed. Like the roller coaster. We rode two, but the dragon one was closed for maintenance.

Again, Morgane spent the most time in the big playground and building cars to race down the ramp. It makes me happy that she likes this more than the rides.

After Ghis and Jean enjoyed a game of tennis (it’s finally sunny and nice), Jean and I and Morgane and the twins headed to Legoland. I’d heard it was definitely worth seeing. In the end, I’d say it was okay – there was lots to do and it wasn’t too crowded, but the lego sculptures didn’t interest me that much.

The ones I did like were part of Mini Land, kind of a small replica of our world with beaches and skyscrapers, kayakers and fire engines, houses and picnics and sailboats and the statue of liberty, the White House and everything else you can imagine.

The kids had some trouble getting along – it seems that after a couple of days together, they were getting on each others’ nerves. They still enjoyed the rides though: the pirate ship that spun around in circles, the roller coaster and the log boat ride that they had to wait so long to go on.

They even went to driving school and got to drive little lego vehicles around a realistic-looking lego neighbourhood. They told the kids to drive on the right-hand side, but I don’t think all the kids knew their right from their left!

Morgane liked digging up bones like a paleontologist and she really liked designing and building her own lego vehicle and then testing it out on a ramp (and racing against others). Once she had a vehicle she was happy with, she didn’t want to take it apart so she convinced the staff member to put it on his special shelf for awhile.

We also rode the Sky Rider which we got to pedal as we enjoyed a view overlooking the park.

The kids also loved the adventurers labyrinth – a dark, scary and mysterious place where they had to search for 6 keys.

At 5 o’clock, the park closed and we came home and had a great dinner with Jean and the kids and the Bodeswell’s who are around again for a few days before they head off to Baja in Mexico.

Morgane and I may go back to Legoland since the second day is pretty cheap and we still haven’t seen a good half of the park.

Last night we went out with Jean and had an adult night – his kids were going with their mother and she offered to take Morgane, too. They went to Chuck E. Cheese, so Morgane was happy.

The three of us ate some good Thai food. The water they brought us to drink was flavoured with lemon, mint and cucumber! Then we went downtown and saw a movie. Downtown was full of bars and clubs and there were lots of people out drinking. We drove past one club that had a toy bucking bronco that people could ride. We watched Up in the Air which was good, but not as good as Juno or Thank You For Smoking, the director’s previous films.

Today we slept in and then had the exciting job of putting our new stickers on the van! We ordered them from our Buses by the Bridge neighbour, Scott, of Pinsville in Las Vegas and they came in the mail very quickly. I felt strange putting something on our van, but Ghis seemed happy about it.  I still can’t believe that Ghis consented to us putting something pink up.

It was a bit of a learning curve applying the stickers, but with Jean’s help, it turned out fine.

Then we took the van for a spin and had breakfast in Encinitas. We sat on the sunny patio and watched the many bikes go by.

After picking up the kids, we went hiking at Torrey Pines Park. Unfortunately, we lost Ghis early on – he never noticed us coming out of the washrooms and we looked but didn’t see him sitting and waiting.

The rest of us walked the road to the top of the hill and got to see a roadrunner outside the visitor’s centre. Then we followed a trail to a viewpoint and from there, we descended to the beach.

Halfway down, Jean pointed out a couple of dolphins swimming in the waves.

There were caves and interesting indents in the colourful sandstone. At the beach, the waves came up all the way and threatened to soak our feet.

Since it was easier to walk along the beach than to walk back up the hill and down the other side, we took off our shoes and alternated sprinting over the sand with shuffling along a dry ledge.

Unfortunately, I stuck Morgane’s shoes on the back of my pack where there is some stretchy cord. Young Gabriel noticed when the second shoe fell off, but we never found the first shoe and the waves were so high it was probably washed away.

Morgane loved the giant kelp that was washed up on the beach. She even tied one around her waist and walked along, dragging it behind her.

We saw a lot of erosion that had happened during the rains of the last few days – a lot of sandstone had been washed away and sometimes the steps were missing except for the bare skeleton of the staircase.

Back at home, everyone was tired. We had a BBQ, watched a movie, and soon we will all be asleep.

We are visiting Jean, a new friend, in San Diego. He is from Drummondville and was just a bit younger than Ghis in school. Morgane is happy because Jean has twins – a boy and a girl – only six months younger than Morgane. It’s fun to speak and hear French after so long. Of course, Ghis can’t send Morgane private messages anymore because everyone understands!

We are happy to be sitting by the fire inside because the weather has been stormy. We haven’t seen anything scary, but there was a brief tornado warning and there seems to be flooding in some areas. Here it’s raining but not enough to keep us out of the hot tub!

Yesterday we got out of the house to go to Trader Joe’s, our favourite grocery store. Today we went to the Patagonia store. We love this company and their clothes! I think it’s the first time I’ve been to one of their company stores, not counting the discount outlet in Maine which I love, too.

We admired the enormous waves at the beach but didn’t stay outside for long. Hopefully we’ll have better weather for exploring this weekend.

We stayed at a hotel near Joshua Tree Park and in the morning began the drive to San Diego. We passed huge farms of windmills along the way.

I HAD to stop in Palm Springs since that is where my mother went last year to watch tennis and she talks about it a lot.

Oddly enough, it was raining when we drove into this desert oasis town. There were lots of palm trees and a huge mountain towering over the little community.

We stopped and ate at Joe’s sushi and then walked down the main street a bit. Then, since it’s no fun in Palm Springs when it’s cold and rainy, we hit the road.

We decided to follow the Bodeswell family on a longer drive past a large salt-water lake and through the mountains. Apparently the lake was made after a large dam was built by a developer. But the lake turned out to be salty and it didn’t quite draw crowds.

After the lake, we drove through a different kind of dessert with flowering plants and little rock canyons which experience flash flooding.

Further on, it started raining. And then it rained more. We expected this turn in the weather, but were still glad to arrive in San Diego around dinner time.

We drove through a lot of desert after leaving Lake Havascu, most of it in California. I felt like we were hardly moving. Even in this bare landscape, there was graffiti made with wood and stones.

We arrived at a town called Twenty-nine Palms and turned to enter Joshua Tree Park.

We were still travelling with the Bodeswells and they wanted to take a picture of a Joshua Tree just like the on the U2 album cover, but we couldn’t remember what it looked like. So we took a picture of the coolest Joshua Tree we could find.

Morgane had a scavenger hunt to do for her junior ranger badge and we found a lot of evidence of life – around every plant were different sized burrows where snakes, kangaroo rats or large spiders might live. I’m glad to say they were all sleeping or hibernating at the time.

Our next stop in the park was to check out the amazing rock formations. The kids loved it and they could squeeze through little cracks and crevices, but I found it difficult and the rock really hurt my fingers. Angela got a nasty scrape when she was helping the kids get down.

Stop number three was to admire the view over the valley where Palm Springs sits. It was cold and windy, but we had a good view despite a few ominous clouds.

After that we appreciated the park only from inside our van. We drove past many more rock formations and hillsides covered with Joshua trees before we exited the park. Morgane got her gold junior ranger badge. They even liked the fact that she had invented a new desert animal: the dogadillo who lives in a prickly cactus doghouse and eats catmice.