Sunday, March 15, 2015

We are camped El Chorro Regional Park near Morro Bay, California.  Here’s the view out our back window:

I didn’t show you our view at Anaheim.  The back view wasn’t much:

But out our side window, you could see the Matterhorn at Disneyland (in the center of the picture).

We really enjoyed this park.  They had a nice laundry and a neighbor who was a professional dog sitter.  She took great care of Obi so we could spend two days at Disneyland.  The park also had a preferred rig washing company, so the truck and trailer got a good scrubbing.

There was a shuttle to the parks, which was about $5 a day, much less than parking and ran every 20 minutes.  Just about as good as at Disney World.

We had a day of catching up on chores, 2 days at Disney and then we went to see a Frank Lloyd Wright house, Hollyhock House.  They’ve recently restored part of the house and that’s open for the first time in years.  We enjoyed it, but only were able to see the dining room, living room and library.  One guest did note that all of the books in the library were easily reached.  I hadn’t thought about that, but a lot of libraries have a lot of shelves that are hard to reach.

Steve and I hadn’t been to Disneyland since 2001, when Purdue lost the Rose Bowl.  Steve had managed to see California Adventure at some point.   I don’t remember much about our last trip and was amazed to see the differences.

Much is the same, but for example, in the Small World ride, there are Disney characters.  The first one I spotted was Peter Pan, with Tinkerbelle nearby.  I spotted him because he was “flying”.  Next I spotted Cinderella, with some mice.  Now Cinderella and Peter Pan were the normal Small World dolls in appropriate dress, but Tinkerbelle and the mice were different.  Aladdin and Jasmine were on a flying carpet and Woody and Jessie were in a Wild West segment. 

And Ariel had her own scene:

The castle at Disneyland is much smaller than the one at Disney World:

But the outstanding event was the Aladdin Show at California adventure.  I assumed this would be similar to the 15 minute Beauty and the Beast show at Walt Disney World, but I was wrong.  It was an hour long, Broadway worthy production including an elephant and flying carpets.  I only got a picture of the elephant.

We loved the show, even though it made Steve miss his fast pass to Tower of Terror.  (He was able to get another.)  Disney has a Broadway show of Aladdin and if history repeats itself, the Broadway version will be even better.  Maybe they’ll bring it to Chicago, but the flying carpet will be hard to duplicate in most theaters.  (Just a note:  We’ve seen both Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King on stage and they are excellent.  If you get a chance to see them, take it.)

We hung around Morrow Bay today and this was my lunch view:

We had lunch with an old friend from Purdue, Tom Tengdin.  He lives near Morrow Bay and had noticed on a ham radio site that Steve was nearby.  He emailed and we were able to meet up with him.  It was great to see him again.

We’re headed for Hearst Castle tomorrow, so I need to head for bed so we can get an early start.

Deb

Friday, March 13, 2015

We are in Anaheim, California.  And, yes, that’s where Disneyland is.  It’s also where summer is.  It’s 90 out right now (2 pm), on it’s way to a high of 93.  It’s actually been a nice week this week in the 70’s and 80’s.  Today’s a quiet day for us, so I’m holed up in the air conditioning and Steve’s off at the Apple store trying to get his computer fixed.  It keeps giving him problems with his mail application.

But we have a nice spot in a nice park.

Obi and I spent some time this morning lying out on the grass.  Since he’s gone blind, he loves laying outside, enjoying the sun and smells.  But eventually it got too hot for him and he barked to go in.

When I last wrote, we were in Death Valley.  We went to Scotty’s Castle the next day.  It’s an amazing place with an amazing story.  It’s a rich man’s retreat in a desolate place. 

Scotty was Walter Scott, who never actually owned the villa.  Scotty had traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, did some prospecting and was a great con man. One of his cons was selling shares in a non-existent gold mine.  Albert Johnson was one of his investors.  He ran a family company in Chicago, but had trained as a civil and mining engineer at Cornell.  He demanded to visit the mine and Scotty planned an elaborate charade, including a shootout, to keep him from finding out the truth.  The plan collapsed when someone got shot (not seriously) and Scotty confessed all.  Johnson was furious and headed home.  Later, he realized he hadn’t had that much fun in years and got back in touch with Scotty.  The two of them became fast friends and explored and camped in Death Valley.  Johnson’s wife eventually wanted to come, too, so Johnson decided to build her something comfortable to stay in, starting in 1922.  The site they chose was close to a prolific spring.

One of our guides called it the ultimate unfinished home improvement project and I think he’s not far from right.  This is a project that grew from having a reasonably comfortable place to stay, to an estate, with servants quarters and guest houses.  Johnson was an engineer and he kept tinkering and adding.  He powered the house with water from the spring, which worked fine until he decided he needed a pipe organ, which took more power, so he installed a generator.  And of course he had build something to house the organ and a power house for the generator.  Since no one at the estate played the organ, he had a player machine that played both the organ and grand piano on rolls like a player piano.

So Johnson had a great time building the villa, but perhaps he had the most fun listening to Scotty’s tall tales.  People would come to visit and Scotty would sit in the living room, introducing Johnson as his banker, and tell the stories of finding his gold mine and building his castle.  Johnson loved seeing everyone believe the tale and the villa became known as Scotty’s Castle.  The National Park Service now owns the castle and runs the tours.

Inner courtyard and original front of the castle:

The Johnson’s obviously had money and paid attention to detail.  The texture on the outside walls had to have been time consuming:

And it was repeated as additions were made, so it all looks as if it were built as one.

Here’s a bridge between the main house and one guest house, which was where the organ is also housed. 

The fireplace in the great hall:

There was exquisite tile work and iron work everywhere.

The pool in front of the house was never finished, but they had tile to use if they ever decided on a design.  This is half of the pool from the bridge crossing the middle:

And this is the some of the tile in the basement:

After we left Scotty’s Castle we headed for a place in Death Valley called Artist Pallet.  I didn’t know what to expect but here’s a picture:

This picture doesn’t do the colors justice.  These are real rock colors.  They were sherbet colors.  Pink, orange, violet, green, vanilla.  Totally amazing.

We’re headed out tomorrow, so itb’s time to start packing up.  Hopefully I’ll be able to blog again soon.

Deb

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

We are camped at Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley.  It’s 218 feet below sea level and 62 degrees at 8 pm. Here's our view out the back window.

But other than the trees along one side, this is about the least hospitable campground we’ve been in.  It’s just a gravel lot.  At one point there were palm trees lining some of the sites, but they’ve all been cut down, leaving two foot stumps.  No water or electricity.  There are a few picnic tables, but not one for every site.

As barren as this parking lot is, Furnace Creek Ranch next door is really a resort with a capital R.  This is a picture of the road we took from check in to the RV area:

There is a hotel, cabins, stores, restaurants, golf course and a HUGE solar array.  They have 5740 solar panels covering 4 acres and generate more than two million kWh of electricity per year, which only supplies about one third of the electricity for the resort.  Their water bill must also be huge.

Most of today’s pictures were shot through the car windows, so I apologize for the quality.  We spent most of the day driving and the scenery changed so often, we didn’t stop for photos.

When we left the campground at Willow Springs and got on US 93, I saw snow capped mountains I hadn’t seen yesterday when we drove this route to Boulder City.  Either it snowed in the mountains overnight or the clouds obscured them yesterday.  We continued on through Boulder City, Henderson and then Las Vegas, always with snow capped mountains in site.  Coming out of Vegas on US 95, I started taking pictures.

West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada have a lot of desolate desert land.  It’s dry and parched looking even after a rain.  But it is infinite in its’ variety.  As we headed north out of Vegas, we had soft hills on the right:

and snow capped mountains on the left:

We saw several signs for ski areas, but no cars with skis.

As part of the desert’s variety, you sometimes get the crazy:

I didn’t know it, but we were running along the edge of the Nellis Air Force Range and test site, otherwise known as Area 51 to UFO enthusiasts.  This building was at the junction where we turned toward Death Valley.  They also offered adult entertainment in an establishment in the rear.  We are in Nevada.  If you are unfamiliar with Area 51, there’s a nice write up on Wikipedia, which goes into it’s use by the Air Force, but it’s major claim to fame are theories connecting it to UFO’s.  In the movie, Independence Day, it’s where the government had been hiding an alien aircraft.

We turned onto the scenic drive into Death Valley and this is where I took most of the pictures.  This one shows unusual patterns made by the vegetation on the mountains.

This mountain had softer colors and the striations were almost vertical.  So after all the layers were compacted, there was a tremendous upheaval in the earth.

Then we started descending into Death Valley itself and the scenery changed again.

It’s a bit hard to tell, but on the right the mountain is covered in small uniform almost gravel, while on the left are much larger stones.

Then we enter another valley, where some of the mountains are white stone. 

And we get even more white stone.  The texture seems very rough, almost like pumice.

The terrain turns more rugged.

And then we see more white hills.

We’re headed up to Scotty’s Castle tomorrow.  It’s a rich man’s 20^th century retreat that has become part of the National Park. 

By the way, spring is hiding out in Arizona.  As soon as we left Arizona, we stopped seeing flowers.  And in spite of the fact that it has recently rained, as evidenced by a few puddles along the roads, there were no blooms in either Nevada or, so far in California.

When we entered Arizona on February 22, we headed for Roper Lake State Park.  On the way we saw a couple of flowering trees and some blooming flowers in yards.  I even saw a few daffodils.  We even saw blooming cactus.  See yesterday’s pictures.  And in Phoenix, there were even blooming bushes along the highways.  Robin and Mike had two red blooming bushes in their front yard.  So spring is waiting in Arizona for the rest of the country to warm up.

When Steve booked us at Roper Lake State Park, he tried to pick a site with a view of the lake.  None of the sites had a rear view of the lake, but we did manage a view out our side window:

Not our best, but ok.  We had just finished setting up and were sitting at our back window planning out our visit when I looked up and saw:

The bushes behind us were filled with yellow headed black birds, all chirping away.  Here’s a close up:

The view in the other direction was the stellar view, however:

Lesson learned – we need to look closer at our destination to pick out the best view!

Time for bed, so I’ll sign off.

Take care, and stay warm!

Deb