Home Again

Our last day in the US was, as anyone who knows Stephanie would expect, spent packing. But we did have time in the afternoon to go to the movies and see The Bee Movie. Finally, it was off to LAX to head home.

(Short intense vent about Qantas: QF had stuffed up our seating and our meals. My seat was ergonomically designed so that my book was half in shadow when the person in front reclined his seat. I had to hold it at head height to read. And, of course, the entertainment system had problems. This time it was just my controller Select buttons that didn't work rather than the whole system. And surly ground staff and vanishing cabin crew. Vent concluded.)

We had a wonderful time while we were away. It was great to see friends and catch up and thanks particularly to Peter, Gina, Amelia and Kevin for putting us up along the way.

Getty Center and Santa Monica

Today is our last full day in the US before flying out tomorrow and it was Derek's turn to choose what to do. He chose the Getty Museum where he'd been wanting to go for many years.

The Museum has wonderful architecture and landscaping with lots to do and see outside. Inside, there is amazing art.








Sienna saw some Degas paintings with ballerinas.


She also found a princess bed from France.

















Sienna went to two activities organised for kids. In the first, we got to analyse a painting, describing it and drawing it so that other families could guess what it was.

Later we went to the Family Room where there was a series of activities, including drawing biological speciments.


To finish the day, we went to Santa Monica, got cold in the wind at sunset. Sienna wants you to know that she was "cold cold cold!" Our final experience was a "Fusion Thai" dinner at a restaurant nearby. One more sleep before we go home!

San Jose to Los Angeles (Thursday - Friday)

Rumours were true. Not only was there no Internet access in Cambria where we stayed last night but even the mobile phone was out of operation. So this entry covers our trip from Amelia and Kevin's home on Thursday to our arrival in Los Angeles this evening.

It was a cold, foggy drive down the Big Sur coastline yesterday. We saw some great sights but the most amazing views were concealed beneath dense fog. It took us about five hours to get down to Hearst Castle but we decided to check into our hotel just south of there and do the Castle on Friday morning.

We did find the elephant seal colony that has set itself up right near the highway and we stopped to see them playing, well fighting really. Above is Sienna freezing on the beach with the elephant seals.


After lunch in a Cambria diner where the locals were recapping the Halloween party the night before, we checked into the San Simeon Pines Resort, built in 1960, and still in its original condition! Derek and Sienna had a game of shuttleboard next to the croquet pitch. We then went for a walk around the resort, past the small scale golf course and along the beach. After checking out the sea otters floating offshore, we beat it back to the heater in the hotel room.




We got up early on Friday and joined the 9.20 tour of Hearst Castle. Both Stephanie and Derek had been here before, separately, at the beginning of the nineties. The facilities have been considerably upgraded and W. R. Hearst's biography seems to be lacking details of certain events that were present last time we visited, but the pillages of European civilisation can't fail to impress.






We finished up at Heast Castle at 11.30 am and then headed down to Los Angeles. Five hours later, we arrived at Marina Del Rey which adjoins Venice and Santa Monica beaches.

San Jose to Los Angeles

We're leaving shortly to head back to Los Angeles for our flight out on Sunday. We plan to stop in Cambria, about half way down the coast, tonight. We will see the Hearst Castle either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Rumours are that the benefits of modern civilisation are still eschewed down the Big Sur, so not sure if we'll be updating the blog for the next couple of days.

Steps to Halloween

The steps to Halloween:

1. Prepare pumpkins to be as scary as possible. These go outside the front door to tell passing trick or treaters that it's ok to come inside.

2. Don appropriate costume and roam the streets, knocking on doors to extract maximum amounts of candy.



3. Return to base when containers are full and count candy.

4. Repeat from 1 until it is late.

San Jose Earthquake!

An earthquake happened here at 8.05 pm, nine miles from San Jose. It was 5.6 on the Richter Scale. The TV guy described it as a "good solid moderate quake". We are all well. The whole house rocked for 12 seconds. One picture fell off the wall and was broken.

Sienna now knows that you should get under a table when an earthquake happens and cover your head. Or, run outside or run run run to the bathroom or stand under a load bearing wall. Sebastian, Ian and Sienna are currently practising the "run run run" part and hiding under tables and running out of doors!

See http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqstats.html for earthquake facts and statistics.

Sonoma and Napa to Grapes of Joy

Monday, we travelled north to Sonoma county to check out the vineyards. On the way up, we stopped at the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, a grove of redwoods. The biggest was over 100 metres tall. That's the bottom of it above. It's called the Parson Jones tree.

The forest was very quiet and Sienna did all she could to address that problem. However, when she was quiet, she could hear the birds and squirrels.

She was very quiet and she saw a little brown bird, a wren, with a really large chirp.

This is Sienna standing next to a tree slice. The markers on the trunk show different events in human history. At the edge is the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. In the middle is the signing of the Magna Carta in 1066. This tree is over 1,500 years old.

We stayed that night in Healdsville, having dinner in a bear-themed microbrewery. The next day we quickly visited three vineyards, wending our way south to San Jose via Napa Valley.

The country is beautiful right now with the grape leaves changing to yellows and reds before they fall off for winter. The area has transcended its initial French theme and is now firmly mock-Tuscan. Huge amounts of money make us wonder what the Hunter would look like if we had a US economy. We drank some nice, expensive wine.