Thar She Blows!

Today’s agenda was whale watching.

It had been postponed due to high winds, so we rescheduled for today. This was our last chance because this is our last day. Luckily, the weather was perfect. The best we had. Sunny, mild temps, light breeze. Just perfect.

Dad did not go because it was not recommended for people with mobility issues or back problems. That describes Dad.

He stayed behind while we drove to the little town of Moss Landing. Laura read if we left from here instead of the Wharf in Monterey Bay, it would give us more boat time where the whales are instead of an extra hour on the boat getting to the whales. Our vessel was the Sea Goddess. We did not get on in time to get the primo seats up front, but we were right by the cabin doors which made running over to the other side of the boat easy so that worked out great.

As we worked our way through the harbor out to the bay, we saw otters and sea lions. Right at the mouth of the harbor, a gray whale was spotted. I heard his spout, but I never saw him which was a bummer. We could not hangout there long to spot him again since we were blocking the harbor.

But we did not have to wait long to actually see a whale. We entered an area covered in an oily looking substance. I did not smell anything, but it turned out to be whale poop. The naturalist said a young male humpback had been hanging out in this area lot, so apparently even teen whale boys do not keep their rooms clean.

Our boy was still hanging out in his messy room and soon appeared. He came up several times and then for a grand finale breached for us!

Next we ran into a pod of Risso’s dolphins. They are a large species of dolphin that are covered in scars from the beaks of the squid they eat. We were pretty much in the middle of them and they were very close. Apparently, there is a dolphin with albinism in the bay, but he did not make an appearance.

We left the group to check on a couple of spouts seen a mile up ahead. It turned out to be a couple of humpbacks. They gave us some great fluke (tail) shots and we ended our time with them doing a side dive that looked like a wave goodbye. It was a good way to end our whale watching.

It was funny for me to watch my sisters struggle to stay awake. We all took dramamine since there was rough waves the day before. The box said non-drowsy, but 3 out of 4 Abbott sisters say that is a lie.

We headed back to the hotel and stopped by a great little roadside fruit stand. It would have been even better this was a roadtrip where we could have filled the car with fresh (and cheap) fruits and vegetables. I tried a cara cara orange which was mentioned on our orange farm tour. It’s pink on the inside. I thought it did not have as strong of an orange flavor as navels, maybe a little sweeter instead of acidic. Amanda got some kiwis that were so sweet and juicy. They even had 10 avocados for $1!

We headed back to the hotel and got Dad for lunch at the iconic In-N-Out Burgers. Then back to the hotel where my sisters finished the naps they started on the boat.

Laura wanted to go see a vista called Lovers Point which is in Pacific Grove. The weather was grear, but we were still shocked to see some people thought it was warm enough to swim. I spent a month in Monterey in July and I never thought the Pacific was warm enough to swim in.

Our goal was to finally have a great meal. Mary’s husband’s cousin turned out to live in Seaside where our hotel is so, she asked her for recommendations and she came through.

Based on her advice, we went to a pizza place called Gusto. It was Italian with an emphasis on wood oven pizzas. It was so good and I had to cap it off with tiramisu. Yum!

It was a wonderful way to cap off our trip.

My Happy Place

Monterey Bay is my happy place. It’s best in the summer, but spring is not too bad either.

The aquarium opens at 10am and I assured everyone that it is an all day experience. We got there around 10:20 and even with Dad’s handicapped parking, we still ended up one street uphill and a few blocks away.

The line was super long, so we grabbed some (dry) cinnamon rolls for breakfast and browsed a few shops, but once we got in that long line it went pretty fast! There’s so much to see here and I am not going to break it all down, so if you ever get the chance come. I have been here three times and it is still mesmerizing.

They even had a special exhibit on my favorite: the octopus!

When we finished, I wanted to take them all to my favorite sea ,watching area on the other side of the Hopkins Marine Lab. Even though that was next door to the aquarium, it was too far for Dad to walk.

We decided instead to head to dinner since we looked around in the aquarium right through lunch. We went the ultra-tourist route and went to Bubba Gumps. Even with the heaters, we we still freezing out on the patio as the sun was going down and the wind was picking up. Yep, definitely prefer summer.

After that, we got the car so Dad would not have to go uphill, went over to park by my favorite seal watching spot. It did not disappoint. Bunches of cute-pies were there! All their roly-poliness and lounging about made me miss my own puppies.

We headed back to the hotel and the played euchre. Like my disclaimer on the last post said, I may get things out of order and I got our game out of order.

It was a great day, even if this is a short post.

Tomorrow is whale-watching!

Get Your Motor Runnin’, It’s the Pacific Coast Highway

Today we were supposed to go whale watching, but high winds (which make big waves) got it hopefully just postponed. Since that was out, we moved up going down California Highway 1 or the Pacific Coast Highway. I jumped at the chance to drive this one, even though our rental is a minivan.

The idea was we would pullover for views while working our way to a whole group of parks in the Big Sur area. This is my second time and I am still not exactly sure what includes Big Sur and what or who a Big Sur is. Was Big Sur the patriarch of the Pfeiffer family because there were a lot of things named after them in the area, too?

I had been telling Amanda that cows have some of the best real estate around here with pastures right on the Pacific. I think she was doubting me since all we had really been seeing were feed lots, but the Pacific Coast Highway is where they live.

Our first pull off was a cliffty ocean view with some paths and a few more varieties of wildflowers we had not seen. There were also several wild flowering succulents. Laura took a path to a cliff’s edge. She could hear little feet running down the hill behind her and stuck out her arm to stop a little boy from running right off the edge! That’s right, we are traveling with a hero.

Our next pull off was to look at cows enjoying their beachfront property. There were also holes all over the pasture with several animals that looked like a kind of ground squirrel.

We also stopped at Bixby Bridge… and so did everybody else. It was a parking challenge that was a bigger challenge getting back out. It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday so everyone else was doing the same thing.

Another stop was basically a small parking lot with info about California condors There were some large birds flying around, so maybe…

We did have some planned stops. One was the McKay Waterfall. It is a waterfall from a mountain creek onto the beach. They were doing construction on the trail, so we could only go far enough to see the waterfall. We could not go all the way down to the beach.

Then we had lunch at a place called Smokehouse. It looked and smelled so promising, but it was mediocre at best. Again with dry mac & cheese. DOES ANYONE IN THIS STATE KNOW HOW TO MAKE DECENT MAC & CHEESE?!?! I know you all have had a lot of problems with drought, but your food does not have to be dry in solidarity.

After that, we stopped at Pfeiffer Beach. It probably was not as long as it felt, but it was a long drive down a very narrow one lane road with cars coming from the other direction, too. One car would have to pull over to let the other car pass. At one point, I had to pull over, let the other car pass me halfway, then I had to go. This was all really helped by a tailgater I had the whole way down.

When we reached the parking lot, I recognized the place as somewhere I had visited the year before this blog started with my NEH teacher summer institute. This beach is well known for having purple sand, but I remembered it as the place with screaming winds that pelt you with that famous sand. Not one of my favorite stops then or now.

I was pretty pooped (and sand-blasted) at that point, but we decided to make one last stop at Point Lobos Natural Preserve. The brochure they gave us said there were a few coves where harbor seals go to have their pups. Seal puppies! I wanna see seal puppies!

We started at Whalers Cove with one solitary seal who swam away. We girls decided to do a hike to look in some of the other coves. We passed the whalers cabin that gives the cove its name and looked at tthe whale bones left behind all those decades ago. No seals, but lots of gorgeous views and wild succulents growing everywhere.

We decided to head back since sunset was coming and the park would be closing soon. When we got back, Dad told us about the otters he watched play while we hiked. The we decided to try one more cove.

We made the drive over to China Cove. There was a little hike for that. Laura ran ahead to see if it was worth it since the park was closing in 20 minutes. Laura came back and declared, ”Pups!” so we ran for what felt like forever. Had no clue I had that much running in me.

The first thing you see as you come around the bend is a huge rock covered with thousands of birds (cormorants, I believe) and white with their poop.

Then when we looked on the beach below there was a small group of harbor seals and one pup! 🥹😍 Mary said thet\y look like slugs, but I thing they are adorable to the n-th degree. We watched the sunset the best we could with the clouds, then headed out the park and back to the hotel. We were going to go to In-N-Out Burger, but the line was out in the road, so we got normal fast food, ate, and the played euchre in the lobby until bedtime.

I am almost certain I am getting things out of order.

Tomorrow we visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Farm Fun

Today we took a leisurely route to Monterey Bay.

Our first stop was a citrus farm called Farmer Bob’s World at McKellar Family Farms. Normally, it’s a tractor pulling a 30 person wagon, but today it was just us so we rode in a Ranger.

This farm grows oranges and tangerines. Dad was full of questions and this may be his favorite part of the trip. We got some questions answered about things we had been seeing like:

1. Because of the fairly mild, pretty consistent temperatures year round, the various crops are on different timelines Some were ready for harvest, some were blossoming, hile some had no leaves.

2. Orchards or groves that have nets on them are to keep bees out so that they do not get pollenated and that’s how we get seedless fruit.

3. There are some tall windmills with just 2 blades They were not moving in the wind, so we knew they were not for power. I thought maybe it was irrigation, but they are used when it does get cold enough to possibly frost or freeze. Cold air sinks, so the wind machines come on to push the warmer air back down. It can warm it by a few degrees.

When the tour was over, we got to pick our own oranges. It was more interesting than i expected and Dad was basically quizzing us for at least an hour.

We stopped for lunch at the Blossom Trail Cafe It was crowded and in the middle of nowhere. That’s usually a good sign. Good food, reasonable prices.

We also stopped at a winery I do not have the most sophisticated palette. I prefer sweeter wines, but I can enjoy a drier red on occasion Amanda and Mary are a different story. After confirming that California does not really produce sweet wines, it became our only winery stop. We were joined however by a Ferrari club which was a bunch of old guys wearing racing gear.

The rest of the drive was beautiful. You could see the change in soil as we entered a new valley.

Our hotel is in Seaside and our room are on Monterey Bay. It is gorgeous and the crashing waves are my favorite sound to sleep to. We were even greeted by a group of sea lions leaping out of the water as they swam by.

We decided for dinner to go to the hotel’s upscale restaurant. I debated spending this much, but I went ahead and ordered a $46 pork chop. When they brought, some thing about it had a smell that I did not like , but it is $46 so I was going to try. The first couple bites were okay. Edible, but did not change my initial reaction. A couple more and I could not do anymore. Someone asked me what I thought and I said I was not liking it, then Amanda, who was sitting next to me looked at it and said, ”it’s raw on the inside.”

Well there went the rest of my appetite.

But also, there was an opportunity. When we got tge waiter, he asked if I wanted anything to replace it. I saidI had no appetite. Which, i did not, but having this option instead of just sending it back for further cooking got me out of a big bill and did not stick me with leftovers of something else I would not eat much of.

He came back later and offered me a dessert instead, so I did say yes to cheesecake. One of my sisters pointed out my birthday was the next day. O fid not think he heard her, but he brought a candle.

I did tip, he did not cook it. So what started as a $60-$70 bill became a $10 one and I got cheesecake!

Big Day with the Giant Sequoias

Today we went to the Sequoia National Park side. Sequoia and King’s Canyon are technically two separate parks, but they are joined by a road called the Generals Highway. The Generals Highway had been closed until today due to fire damage (and probably snow.)

We started off the day with a 50’s style Diner called Dimples. It was in a chrome building and everything. It was good and had better prices than Black Bear.

Once again we headed out across the valley that would just suddenly BOOM, turn into mountains. This drive felt different because we passed a large reservoir and as we got closer, there was a lot more little tourist towns built up. I guess this is what happens when you are the park with the world’s largest tree instead of the 2nd or 3rd (conflicting info on Grant’s ranking.)

Our first pull off was at the Sequoia National Park sign. It was beside a mountain river with lots of boulders and rushing water. I swear everything around here is the dictionary definition of picturesque. We spotted our first wildlife of the day: little lizards sunning on some of the boulders. Mary and I went on town to the river bank to stand on the boulders and listen to the rushing water. I took a different route and ended up at a spot that was right by the water. The sun was shining and there was a calm spot. I looked down and there was really black silt with lots of teeny tiny yellow sparkles shining in the sun. I think it was gold dust. I am not 100% certain which river it was (the area is called 3 rivers,) but I think this was Kaweah River. I showed Mary, she could see the possibility. So today as I looked it up and this river is listed as a great place to prospect for gold! It would have taken forever to get all those little flakes together to amount to anything, so I left my fortune behind.

We went into the park and it was very long and winding up the mountains with just majestic views everywhere.

We reached the heart of the park and there was a sign that said ”Giant Forest” and then there were sequoias everywhere! It was amazing to see all these huge trees that were just not huge enough to be of note in the park. We stopped in the visitors center and I discovered after finally getting a extra fancy passport book for stamping at the parks that the first one I did was on the wrong page. I had stamped the Sequoia page with the Kings Canyon stamp and the Kings Canyon page was not stamped. Nuts.

Our next stop was the grandaddy of them all: General Sherman. General Sherman is the world’s largest tree. While we enjoyed the small crowds at General Grant, it was much more crowded here. Even with Dad’s handicapped parking, it was a challenge. I don’t know how they handle summer crowds. The loop back to Sherman was just 0.2 miles and paved, so Dad could handle it. On the way was a fallen tree that had a hole cut through it like a tunnel to walk through.

The General Sherman even had a huge branch that had fallen back in the ’90’s that they left for perspective and it was bigger than most trees I see around home.

The rest of the loop had stairs, so Dad backtracked and we went on. There were two called Tough Twins that you could go into a nook. I felt like a safe little chipmunk.

They also had a cookie from a 2200 year old tree they had cut down. As you can see, we measured it to be three sisters wide.

Next we headed to the Giant Forest Museum. The snow in this park was so much deeper than in Kings Canyon. After the museum, Mary, Amanda, Laura, and I decided to to a short hike and for most of the way, there was 2 feet of hard packed snow. I was wearing slip on shoes which also slip on slushy snow really well, too. It was not looking great for me, but somehow I never fell. We decided against taking the loop up the slick mountain and instead went to the Giant Tree Trail. We had asked Dad if he was up to doing this one since it was supposed to be paved and accessible. Well, Dad made the right call in passing, because the path up to the trailhead was cleared, but then you took a giant step up onto the packed snow. Large parts of the trail were cleared, but then you’d cross a bridge with two feet of snow on it. It was worth it, though.

When we finished that, we headed back to the museum and that trail took us to the road. At this crossing, the snow was at least 3 feet high. We had to get down from this 3 foot slick, slushy drift to the road. I was successful-ish and had one hip get wet. The rest did fine because they got longer legs than me.

When we were back, we saw that Beetle Rock was super close. We made that walk and it was so awesome! It is just a huge granite outcropping that has the best views of the mountains and no one else was up there. We enjoyed the views and laid out on the rock for a long time and never saw another soul. I don’t know why, but mountain cold is different from midwest cold. I was comfortable (temperature wise) all day in a jacket with a hoodie underneath.

We decided to get Dad. I wasn’t sure he would have the energy to make it since it was short, but uphill, but I had underestimated him. He got up there and we enjoyed the view and each other’s company for awhile longer. We thought it would be a perfect place to watch a sunset, but we had to be out of the park before sunset. It was a lot of downhill driving with hairpin turns, so probably for the best.

We left and as we were leaving, we had our first intruders come up so we had all the time we needed up there to ourselves.

As we headed back down the mountain, we went through some forest fire damage. I can’t imagine being in the middle of that. Amanda had talked to a ranger who had not gone up that way yet because she couldn’t bear to see what had happened to her favorite lookout.

When we got out of the park, we stopped at a restaurant called the Gateway Restaurant and Lodge because it had patio dining on a rocky mountain river. It was a very unpretentious looking place, but looks can be deceiving. The hostess, who stood behind a cash register by the bar asked us if we had reservations. We, of course, did not. She acted very put out by this and told us it could be a 20-30 minute wait and we said fine. It would take us that long to even see another place to eat.

It was a nicer menu. I got the Pasta Marsala and a glass of California Chardonnay. It was delicious and the sound of the mountain river with water rushing over the rocks was a nice touch. I expected Dad to blanch at the prices, but again I underestimated him.

We got back to our hotel in Visalia motel late and exhausted. I would like to say I slept soundly, but we had tickets for an orange farm at 9am and needed to be packed to check out. Knowing that kept me from sleeping well.

Oh, California, I Can’t Stay Mad at You

But I can stay mad at Petaluma. And I will. Buttheads.

Anyway, the three hour time difference really worked in our favor because we all got our rest, but still naturally got up early. Now that we can see it in the daylight, the grounds of this motel are beautiful and it has a great 1950’s sign still. However, my bed felt like I had a second box spring instead of a mattress, but I was worn out enough to still sleep.

Lamp Lighter Motel sign in the background. Retro vibes.

Today we were going to drive from Fresno to King’s Canyon National Park via the Bloom Trail to see the General Sherman and as much as we could of the open roads. Our first stop, however was breakfast. We went to a local diner called the Black Bear Diner. It is basically an IHOP or Denny’s with a bear-theme. We left overstuffed. Then we made a quick stop at Walmart for supplies including tire chains because we were going up into the mountains where there is still plenty of snow (enough to still have parts of the park closed). That was hard to believe in our short sleeves as we drove past acres and acres of orchards for the Bloom Trail. We saw orange trees ready for harvest (that blew Mary’s mind), apple trees just starting to bloom, blueberry bushes, lemon trees, pomegranate bushes, and so much more.

After a while, the mountains came into view and the valley gave way to hills. It does not matter how often I see them, but I cannot get over just the majesty of the mountains out West. As we were climbing in altitude, I realized I had never seen California this green before. I had only been here in the high heat of summer (often during a drought and heat wave) or in the fall. It was so many shades of green everywhere and wildflowers were blooming. We pulled off to look at a vista and the flowers. When we opened the car door, it just smelled wonderful.

As we climbed higher, the grass was replaced more and more by pine and cedar trees. When we hit the 6000 feet mark not long before the entrance to the park, there was snow on the ground. It was melting, but still looked to be around a foot deep where it still was. When we got out of the car at the Visitor’s Center, it was winter coat time.

I decided to treat myself, because I had been thinking I kind of wanted to start collecting something. I was doing bumper stickers, but most of those are on the little pop-up I traded in for Old Unreliable. *Sigh

I did go ahead and buy another sticker, but I also treated myself to a way overpriced little book with all the National parks with some info about each and a spot to do the passport stamp they all have. Of course this means I will need to revisit them all again to get the stamp in my book. Darn. 😉

Once we had all shopped and had our bathroom breaks, we headed to the grove that holds the General Grant. The General Grant is a giant sequoia that is the third largest tree in the world. (We are seeing the largest tomorrow.) Grant is over 1700 years old.

The grove had a paved trail which made it accessible for Dad with his walker. There was some uphill, but it wasn’t excessive so we did the uphill first while he had the energy and then he could rest as he needed. What really impressed me was that not only was this accessible for people with mobility challenges; it also had extensive braille signage with tactile graphics! I read most of the braille signs and they were great!

It was fun to see Dad sitting looking up at the sequoias gobsmacked. We all kept taking pictures and every time we lamented that the picture just did not do how huge they are justice. Some of the other highlights of the trail were a couple of fallen sequoias where we could walk through the hollowed out trunk. The first one had even been used as a stable. I am pretty sure Dad was not disappointed.

Even with the snow, it was not as cold as I expected. I will admit, I was not thrilled with coming when it was colder here than at home, but it was fine and it made for fewer other tourists there too which was really great. It was a bummer that several roads in the park were still closed from snow, but we had enough to do in the park to fill our whole day, so it was fine. We stopped at several vistas for amazing view after amazing view. Again, no picture can do them justice. We also went to Lake Hume where we spotted our first wildlife of some mule deer and a bird that looked like a type of jay or maybe woodpecker. I had the crest on top of its head and the top half of his body was black and the bottom half was an iridescent blue. We also spotted a tom turkey on our way out of the park.

Mule deer

We detoured again on the way back through the orchards. I saw a beautiful moon rise over the mountains.

When we got back to Fresno, we were going to try a BBQ place we saw, but it did not look open so since it was right there we went to the Black Bear Diner.

This was not a good choice. I ordered a mac & cheese topped with Texas hot links and a huckleberry milkshake. Who could mess up mac & cheese? The answer is the Black Bear Diner. The hot links were fine, but the mac & cheese was basically just mac. It was like they only added enough cheese powder to dye the macaroni. It was dry and there was not even a hint of cheese flavor. My second mistake was I ordered it off the limited time only menu on the placemat with no prices listed. Everything else on the menu was in the $12 range, but this was $17!

At least the milkshake was good.

Amanda asked our waitress if she could recommend any other places in town since we had been there twice. She looked to be in her late teens or very early twenties. She asks if we are looking for breakfast and dinner and we say both. She suggests IHOP for breakfast and then says, ”now I’m a bit bougie, but I like Olive Garden for dinner.”

OMG, that statement made me have to repress every mean girl instinct in my body not to laugh at this girl. For those of you who don’t know, being bougie means pretentious and often for the sake of being pretentious. Like the girl with the really complicated Starbucks order when ordering right off the menu tastes the same. Its there person who eats organic because it’s a trend, not for health or the environment. All to say, the Olive Garden is not bougie. It is the opposite of bougie.

When she left, Amanda said she should have specified she wanted local places.

When it was time to pay, Amanda asked the cashier the same question. The cashier then turns to a waitress who walked up and asked her. It was our waitress who then proceeded to name off a bunch of chains. Not only does our waitress not understand what bougie means, she also does not know what local means.

See how I’m being pretentious, that’s bougie.

Time Warped

Forty—some years of assuming my dad was afraid of flying and it just turned out he never had to, so he didn’t. I must have gotten my love of roadtrips from him. He was worried about getting through airport security. He’s not a criminal who’s been in hiding or anything (that we know of…), he just cannot stand long so he had visions of long lines. We assured him that he was not the TSA’s first disabled person, so they would have procedures in place plus our first airport was the Fort Wayne International Airport whose ”international” means Canada.

Our flight was at 3:45, but the airport had put out a news story a few weeks ago telling passengers to arrive two hours early because they were upgrading their equipment. They, of course, did not include an end date to this and with Dad being a world class worrier and being late is one of his numero uno worries, being told we had to be their two hours early was almost comforting.

Mom was going to take us to the airport, because it had enough seating for us, but the trunk space is terrible, so Kathy was on stand-by if we could not fit our luggage in. Well, with just Dad and my suitcases and his walker we ran out of room and we still had Mary and Amanda to pick up, so we started a caravan to the airport.

We stopped for lunch and while there, I looked up the airport site and found the original article about coming early and it had an end date on it of March 10, about a week ago. We were going to be soooo early which is Dad’s favorite thing to be.

TSA was no problem since we were the only ones there. There was only one terminal with four gates, so not intimidating at all. We hung out, Dad got priority boarding and a window seat. I was across the way in the other window. When we landed, we asked Dad what he thought and he said his window was foggy.

Our layover was in Dallas where Laura joined us. Now Dallas was a whole other animal from Fort Wayne and thank goodness we had wheelchair assistance for Dad, because we only had an hour. At first, I thought it would be easy because we landed in Terminal E and just had to go one over to Terminal D. WRONG! We took 5 elevators and a train to get to the other terminal! We would still be wandering around that airport without someone who knew where they were going.

Dad did not have a window seat this time, which is a shame because we go over mountains. I sat by Amanda and the other three were together. We arrived in Fresno around 8:30, but at this point we had been in three different time zones so time had no meaning. We made our way to the rental car place where Laura had booked a car none of us were familiar with, so we weren’t sure about the luggage fitting (again.) Laura asked about upgrading to a minivan and they told her it would be $500 dollars to upgrade!

We decided to give it the old college try. And we did, we tried several configurations and it just wasn’t going to work. The fact that the parking lot was lined with flowering trees that smelled like mushrooms gone bad should have been our warning that bad things were ahead. So we unloaded it and looked on the lot for something that would work.

Laura headed in and because when it come to luck, Laura is the ying to my yang, she got a $200 discount and a hybrid. That’s right, the other big cost concern was California gas prices during a gas price hike and we got a hybrid! Yay!

We had a 45 minute drive to the hotel (had to ask, because I had no sense of time at that point). It was dark, but I could see enough to know we were traveling through acres and acres of orchards that should be in bloom. It is going to be so gorgeous and remind me why I loved California.

Today we head to Kings Canyon National Park, so Dad can see some trees.

Daddy’s Girls

Tomorrow my sisters and I are starting a special trip. I cannot remember who got the ball rolling, but several months ago Amanda or Mary was having a conversation with our dad and he said that he always wanted to see the redwoods. Whichever one it was brought that little nugget to the rest of us and proposed that we take Dad on a “Bucket List” trip to see the redwoods and we all thought that was a great idea.

Now being our father’s children, we were obligated to do some hand-wringing first. Our two major issues were:

1. Would Dad be willing to fly? He’s never flown before and my sisters have children, so they could not be gone long enough to make a roadtrip feasible. Plus, Dad has muscular dystrophy and arthritis, so being in a car that long to drive cross country also ruled driving out.
2. Would this make Mom feel left out? Since this was about seeing the natural wonders of the Pacific Coast, we wanted this trip to be all parks and hiking. It really was not going to be something Mom would love, but we also did not want to make her feel bad. On the other hand, we had done other vacations and Mary had some work trips where only Mom went, so we thought this was Dad’s turn.

Shocker to me (and probably the others), but Dad was fine with flying (or so he claims), it’s the getting through security and all the walking that concerned him, so we let him know about the disability services provided at the airport and that he would not be the first person with mobility issues to use the airport. I think he will get a wheelchair, but I’m kinda hoping we get to do the whole golf cart zipping through the terminal thing, too.

Of course Mom was fine. We are a people who are very afraid to offend, but she could see this was going to be a trip that would not be her cup of tea, so it was set: we would be flying out to California for a week to see some redwoods.

Now that we had that decided, then it was time to figure out details. I am the experienced traveller, Amanda and Mary have no experience with California, and Laura is the planner. So I offered that what Dad probably should also see are giant sequoias. Redwoods get all the hype and they are taller, but sequoias are bigger around, so from the ground I think they look more impressive. I also threw in that Monterey Bay is pretty cool since the seals are everywhere and it is really easy to also see otters in the wild. We were originally looking at early June, but it got moved up to now in March.

Laura set to planning. She booked our flights and hotels, planned an itinerary, and made reservations for the Monterey Bay Aquarium and whale watching.

Amanda looked it up and the migrating animals (like the seals) should be in Monterey by now. I hope so, because it was really disappointing to not have them there when I went last time in the Fall. Plus, since we are in March instead of June, we will have to buy snow chains for our rental car for visiting the two National Parks on our itinerary. I am not thrilled about that, but both parks are new to me and will allow us to see redwoods and giant sequoias.

Wish us luck! Tomorrow, Dad will fly for the first time and we will meet up with Laura down in Dallas to make our connection to Fresno. This will also be my first time back in California after the disastrous experience last time, so that might bring up some feelings. Look in the archives of this blog if you need a refresher on that fiasco. I do plan on making rude gestures towards anything I see referring to Petaluma.

Like I said, wish us luck.