Expect Me When You See Me

Total Elapsed Time: 41 days, 40 nights
Number of States visited: 20
Number of Countries visited: 2
Mileage: 10, 690 miles
Cheapest Gas encountered: $2.29 /gallon (I40, New Mexico)
Most Expensive Gas encountered: $4.99 /gallon (Hollywood, CA)
Worst Meal: the ceasar salad in the cafe at Crater Lake
Best Meal: country fried steak and strawberry rhubarb pie in the diner, Mollie's Cafe, off the last exit in Utah on I84
Amount of oil we went through: 2 quarts and an oil change in California
Number of National Parks visited: 13
Money saved by Dad's senior park pass: $116
Best Museum: It's a tie between San Diego's Maritime Museum and Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
Most recommended hotel: Any Best Western in Idaho (be warned, they vary in quality outside of this state), Hampton Inn (if you have the money)
Worst Hotel: Days Inn, Jackson Hole, WY
Best Advice for booking a hotel: Only look at reviews from the past year, always stay somewhere with 3 1/2 review stars or above, and never stay anywhere where all the recent reviews are in German/French/Russian etc.
Favourite Highway: I40 through Arizona
Most Boring Highway: I55 to Chicago
Most Decorated Highway: I40 in New Mexico
Cities I would visit again: San Diego, CA, Chicago, IL, Vancouver, BC, and Trinidad, CA
Cities I never want to see again: Jackson's Hole, WY, and Williams, AZ
Number of Maps we carried: 16 (we gathered more as we travelled, of course)
Best Electronic Device bought for the trip: Escort X50, Passport 8500 radar detector
Amount of Tread lost from tires on trip: 2/32nds of an inch
Highest Speed Driven: 108 mph
Number of pins/badges bought: 34
Worst state for hitting bugs with the car: South Dakota
Best Cup of coffee: Love's, I65, Kentucky, north of Cave City
Best Cup of hot chocolate: gas station on the outskirts of the city, Jackson Hole, WY
Best Cup of tea: Holiday Inn Express, Riverside, CA
Number of Amish buggies encountered and almost run over: 1
New Animals Eaten: Elk
Number of Stuffed animals bought: 4
Number of Books bought: 26
Amount of pictures taken: 20GB worth
Hours of video camera film taken: 8 hours

Day 39 - We headed to my brother R.'s house in Kentucky and made it there in time to watch a few shows with them before heading off to dinner with the family. My niece talked my ear off the whole time *L* After a good meal, I spent the evening reading Naruto fic, or rather, rereading, since there's nothing new and good since the last time I checked. I went to sleep around 11pm their time and slept until around 4am.

Day 40 - I dozed for awhile in the morning but even though I was very tired, I couldn't get back to sleep before everyone got up and headed off to school. Once everyone was off, and Dad and my brother went off to do other important things, I crashed in my nephew's bunk bed for an hour or so. That revived me immensely, and I was awake enough for our excellent lunch (I had a hamburger for the first time in years...) From there, we said goodbye and headed off towards Cincinnati. There, we arrived fairly late due to the time change, and chatted with my cousin, D. until we went off to eat at an Italian place I've forgotten the name of. D. keeps a great house, so I was able to get a lot of sleep.

Day 41 - I was up around 9 and surprised to see my Dad still sleeping. We had to make our final run into New Jersey today so I expected him up a bit earlier. I took a shower and found out he'd been thinking we were still on central time, so we caffeinated up and headed out. We stopped for brunch at a Cracker Barrel outside Columbus. The food was great, but I wish they'd stop lighting wood fires in there at all hours in cold weather. Sure, it's nice, but I end up having to go for my inhaler due to the smoke.

I tried to drive after brunch but my usual afternoon lethargy caught up with me despite the high amount of sleep; I took a nap through the rest of Ohio. Once we hit Pennsylvania, it was strange to see proper autumn leaves lining the sides of the road. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed them and they're all the more striking when you don't see them turning. The Penn. turnpike, otherwise known as one of my favourite roads to drive, simply because it's where I learnt to drive (through hail, and fog and rain...), was the driest I've ever seen it. I'm used to driving it through fog and rain during the summer, but we had blue skies and fall leaves which made it quite pretty, even if we are hitting the end of autumn at this point and some trees were bare. I took over driving about half way through, and we'd both forgotten how desolate the last part of Penn. before NJ is since we ended up driving for an extra half hour before settling on Long John Silver's to eat.

From there, it was a surprisingly short drive of about 2 1/2 hours to get home, which put us in at around 10:30pm. We unpacked the barest of necessities, threw a load of wash in the machine, and settled in to watch Eureka and relax. The GPU in my computer had been on the fritz for the past couple of days and it finally gave up the ghost when we reached home, refusing to show anything other than vertical rainbow lines which faded to white or black. Hence, the lack of updates.

It's good to be home and sleep in my own bed. I missed my slippers.

A simple day really. We hung out at my brother J.'s house and had doughnuts and pumpkin pie for breakfast. After a time spent talking and trying to contact one of Dad's friends for a meet-up, we gave up on the idea and decided to head for my brother B's house near Louisville. We stopped for lunch first at the St. Louis Bread Company which is essentially Panera bread only they change the name around St. Louis. I had a lovely creamy tomato soup in a sourdough bread bowl while Dad had the broccoli cheddar soup. From there, it was a four or five hour drive to Louisville and the time zone changed again when we weren't looking so we arrived a bit later than we thought. I actually slept through the whole first part of the drive, mostly cause doing a drive through means the quality of the sleep you get while in the car is not as good as sleeping in a bed, so even though I got at least seven hours of sleep the night before, I was still exhausted.

Anyway, we stopped at Cheddar's when we got to the proper area and got tilapia with mango salsa and some fantastic brocolli cheese casserole to go, and brought it back to B's house to watch Simpsons with him and my nephew. After that was done, we watched Bladerunner: the Final Cut, which was much better than I remember the director's cut being. I really love how in depth the sets are in that movie. From there it was merely updating the journal and going to bed. We head for my brother R's place in the morning.

We didn't leave as early as we'd hoped in the morning due to life's little aggravations (bills, emails) but when we did set off down I40, we were cruising at a good speed. Our first stop around 11 was at Meteor Crater, which is exactly what the name says. It's pretty interesting to see, though I'm glad we got in on a senior and youth ticket since the privately owned site is expensive to visit (if people are going to keep mistaking me for a teenager, I might as well take advantage of it). Our stated purpose was simply to take some pictures and be on our way. We stopped to buy some souvenirs and get a sub from subway for lunch, which I scarfed so I could continue driving while Dad ate in the passenger seat.

It was a little over an hour to our main goal for the day, Petrified Forest National Park, which despite it's name, has a ton of other things in it, including the famous painted desert. You're supposed to enter the park from the southern entrance and drive north to exit on 40, but since we didn't want to see the very south part of the park we went the other way around and simply doubled back to 40 when we were finished.

It was around 2am when we finished with the gift shops (buying petrified wood and sand paintings), and entered the park. The painted desert is in the northern part and is really astonishing in terms of looks. I've never seen anything like it, though I also would never have named it the painted desert since there were less colours than I'd pictured. The view went on forever and we had a good time checking the historical inn there which was built of petrified wood *L* They are very strict about people not taking anything out of the park and will even search your car when you leave (not that they did, but they had the option) and ask you to report anyone you see taking anything. After our fill of the painted desert, we made our way over route 66 and 40 to the Puerco Pueblo. I studied the Native Americans and their archaeology/history when I was a kid; it's been so many years, it was a bit of a shock to see an actual kiva. But the truly amazing bit was the petroglyph on the rocks there. They're so varied in form, and fun to spot hidden on any available surface. The only shame is that you can't see them all at that particular viewing spot and are forbidden to leave the path.

The next place we stopped sort of made up for that since it was Newspaper Rock where there are hundreds of petroglyph on chunks of rock and cliffs below the lookout spot. This was good when you could pick them out like here, but hard when you were forced to scan the exisiting cliff face with naked eye, camera zoom or the provided binocular thingies. I picked out a fair number of them, but I'm sure I missed some. There was also very little explanation of the phenomena, so I ended up buying a book on the petroglyph at the gift shop when we were leaving.

Next, we drove through the Tepees area which is not named because there are tepees but because the hills vaguely look like them, I guess. They were very beautiful, but easy enough to photograph from the car so we didn't stop. Our final stop of the afternoon was at Jasper Forest, the site of the 'petrified forest' in the park's name. There were hundreds of fractured bits of stump (they tend to fragment in segments of trunk) on the valley ground where they had fallen from the surrounding cliff faces. Jasper was thick on the ground, and we got to see a few of the trunks up close.

From there, it was a matter of driving out of the park and hitting the road. We were both starving so we stopped for an early dinner on the Navajo reservation. There's a little restaurant in the one hotel right off the road there. We both opted for the Navajo taco, which was actually Navajo flatbread with chilli, lettuce, cheese, tomato and onions on top of it. It was really good and I loved the flatbread. It's kinda like a much larger and different flavoured version of naan bread. We split a home made piece of pumpkin pie for dessert (it had less milk and more pumpkin in it, which was nice), then were on our way before six.

The rest of our evening was a bit repetitive. We had a goal to stop and sleep in the car at the first rest stop in Oklahoma, which meant we were driving through all of New Mexico and the Texas panhandle before we could stop - a good 400 miles if not more. I can't tell you much about New Mexico since it was dark by the time we got there, but if I have the chance some day, I'd like to go back and explore the numerous cultural sites around Albequerque. I was driving when we hit Texas and was not impressed by their low night speed limit, or by the sheriff who pretty much tailgated me for a minute to try to get me to break the speed limit.

I dozed for the last hour while Dad drove but was luckily awake when we hit Oklahoma since Dad was all set to keep driving until exhaustion set in. The first rest stop in Oklahoma is a bit over the top in terms of amenities but we were there at 3am so it's not like we could take advantage of any other than the toilets. We settled in with pillows and blankets in our respective seats and tried to get some sleep. I didn't drop off until I'd tossed and turned a bit since even exhaustion isn't enough to make me sleep well on a half back chair in a car. I was also freezing by the time Dad woke up at 6:30am since the temperature had dropped pretty far in the night. I continued to doze (thank god for face masks and ear plugs) until 8:30 or so, or rather, 9:30am Oklahoma time. We hit a Cracker Barrel for breakfast shortly after and I loaded up on caffiene through tea (despite the expected headaches later) because the next leg of the journey (five hours...) was my turn to drive. We had a good breakfast, Dad bought his own Indiana Jones hat (his is the pressed wool version) (I am very amused that we both came back from this trip with what looks like cowboy hats. Perhaps we were more influenced by where we visited than we think we were...), and we set off. Incidentally, as a New Jersian, I can't get used to how nice people are in Oklahoma (and, you know, the South in general). I don't know how to respond when even the toll worker asks you how you are. (The New Jersey/New York voice in your head keeps expecting them to want something other than an exchange of courtesies.)

Anyway, our run through Oklahoma was swift since the speed limit was back up to 75 again. We were also, inadvertently following Route 66 up north since we were heading towards St. Louis. It amuses me that we accidentally managed to follow Route 66 all the way from California to Missouri. It's the same route my grandparents on my father's side used to do in a 1936 Chrysler truck.

After loading up on caffeine and sugar, we finally reached my older brother, J.s house and were able to relax and have a pumpkin beer (not as tasty as it sounds) and Tequiza before crashing from lack of sleep. It's not something I like to do every day, but it was kinda fun to go back to my childhood roadtrips where Dad invariably ended up driving through the night, scorning hotel rooms and the lack of an alternate driver.

Our drive east (how strange it is to be going east again) was all along I40 which runs through the desert, past unseen government bases, abandoned houses and trailers and tiny little towns where the only places to eat are fast food. That being said, the scenery is gorgeous with stark, low hills showing up on all sides, and later, cactus reaching to the sky with their spindly fingers. Route 66 runs right along the road sometimes and we marvelled at how narrow the road was and how bumpy and twisty. We didn't drive it, simply because 40 was so poorly maintained in places, historic route 66 would have been hell, plus it takes a lot longer to drive 66 and we had a goal of reaching the Grand Canyon before sunset (Our hotel of the night before was actually on Route 66 so we did drive part of it.). We ended up at Dennys for lunch, and at the next town, got our cheapest gas of the trip (3.09). From there, it was a long run to the Grand Canyon, watching the desert turn into scraggly trees. At Williams (or rather, just after Williams, the tourist trap) we turned north and sped through the forest to get to the entrance. The ranger who let us in understood our purpose perfectly and directed us to Yavapai Point and told us the sunset was in 40 minutes. We followed his directions and found out Yavapai was perfect for watching the sunset with a curve in the canyon there so you could see it on both sides and a high bluff in the west for the sun to set into.

It's a truly astonishing place. My first reaction was just to gape and say, 'Wow!'. We started on the east side of the point and took lots of pictures. Dad was very nervous for me when he took this photo. From there, we moved around the point to the west, stopping to take many pictures along the way. When we settled on the west side of the point, we were able to watch the sun go down and slowly illuminate more of the canyon in an orange-reddish glow. Meanwhile, the other parts of the canyon that didn't get the sun were turning a deep blue and purple. We watched for awhile, taking many pictures and eventually the sunset, which we also took many pictures of. It was a wonderful experience, and I'm glad our timing worked out so well.

From there, we headed to our hotel which was about an hour away since anything closer was either expensive or filled with bedbugs (*shudder*). (You can stay cheaply near or in the Grand Canyon, you just have to book well in advance.) We ended up stopping at the Cracker Barrel for dinner, mostly because we haven't seen one in weeks and it's Dad's favourite restaurant (though I like it too, even if this one sent me into a coughing fit cause of their fireplace. stupid asthma.). Once we hit the hotel, it took awhile to sink in, but we eventually decided it was time to make our way home. We're skipping one or two places we'd planned on (like Carlsbad caverns), and just heading straight back to our family in the midwest. This takes us straight through some places though so we'll still be stopping along the way. Ja ne.

We actually set out today intending on doing most of the run to the Grand Canyon, but as we were driving by LA, the siren call of Hollywood issued forth and we cancelled our hotel reservation in Arizona, booked one in Barstow, CA, and called up Paramount Studios to book the last two spots they had on their 2pm tour (there are four tours a day with 18 people let in each time; what a horror it must be to get tickets during the summer). We were about an hour away by that point so we arrived early, were told we couldn't park in the main parking lot so went around the corner and found parking on the street and walked to a cafe on the opposite corner from the studio. It was like visiting a New York deli only without the New York part - they even had four different kinds of proper New York bagels. We had a sandwich called a Kremlin (like a Reuben only with roast beef and barbecue sauce). Very tasty. They also had fantastic, homemade lemonade there. By the time we finished, it was time for our tour (you have to arrive a half hour early) so we parked in the proper parking lot and went through security. I used the guard's toilet and was amused to find they had one of the chairs from Monk in there. They passed us from one person to the Paramount store where you were encouraged to wait and buy something, though there was nothing really of interest other than Iron Man toys. Our tour guide was very friendly and tried to get us in a lot of places though we were only ultimately allowed on two lots.

The tour starts outside and we were shown one of the cars used in the 4th Indiana Jones film. We also had a great view of the Hollywood sign. From there, we were drive round the lot to see where Lucille Ball used to work and where the cast of Cheers went crazy. We were allowed on the set of some new show called Privileged (which sounds quite boring, frankly) but it was interesting to see the set which was in the process of being converted into a new set of rooms. From there, we were driven round 'New York'. The bottom, corner store in that picture was the cafe where Indy met his son and got into the fight with the 50's stereotypes, and was also the place where Peter Parker made a fool of himself in Spiderman 3, and I'm sure, a bunch of other places as well. This alley way, in 'Chicago' is where they filmed a lot of Angel and Charmed scenes apparently. We saw the giant sky backdrop where they filmed the exit scene for The Truman Show. We also learnt that they do very silly things to accommodate Tom Cruise's shortness *L*

Probably the coolest part of the tour was when we were allowed on the set of Monk (sorry, no pics were allowed). We got to wander through the police precinct and marvel at the details of half done crosswords on tables and strange little notes written on things. The police set was right next to Monk's apartment set which was interesting to explore. You could check out his alphabetically arranged music and record collection. Very neat.

From there, we went to the original Paramount gates with their pretty fountain which they only just turned on because they were filming another show out on the lawn there (Dirty Sexy something or another). (Here's a fun tidbit, apparently they just hire actual bums off the street when they need them - easy casting.) Forest Gump's bench was also on the side near there. Here's Dad playing the part:)

The tour ended after that so Dad and I hoped in the car, stopped for drinks down the road then navigated out of Los Angeles and north (because you have to go north before you can go east *sigh*) There was a gorgeous sunset at our backs and the full(?) moon tonight was amazing. We watched it rise over the desert hills as we drove, a bright orange. Later, at the hotel, it looked like this.

Tomorrow, we head towards the Grand Canyon, though we won't get there until the day after. By my calculations, were not only on the last leg of our trip, but it should take only another week or so to finish off all our touristy stuff (still have to stop by my brothers on the way back etc).

Since our only goal for the day was to visit the San Diego zoo, we decided to sleep in. Our exhaustion led us to sleep to the late hour of 9am (yes, I wake up earlier on holidays then I ever do in actual life), which amusingly enough, missed us our hotel breakfast since we have the 'honour' of staying in the only hotel we've found so far that ends its breakfast at 9am. Dad ate some leftovers from last night for breakfast and I scarfed some granola bars so all was well. The next hour or so was spent trying to upload photos since, while the connection here is fine, it positively hates uploading stuff. So consider that this entry was brought to you by hours of work on my part. Anyway, around 11 we decided to head off to the zoo which was about 15 minutes from our hotel.

The San Diego zoo is rather famous, and very large with lots of hills. We didn't finish seeing all of it actually since our feet were hurting so badly. I'm quite happy with what we did see though. The park has some wonderfully innovative and attractive habitat designs. It made taking pictures quite convivial most of the time. I loved the rainforest aviary where you could wander through and spot over 20 varieties of birds. I also thought the hippo tank was pretty cool with lots of alternate views both above and below water. I really enjoyed seeing the gorillas, some of the big cats, the meerkats, the warthogs (there were babies!), the otters, the pandas (which included a baby), the giraffes, and the rhinos. There were a lot of species I'd never seen before, which is always a plus.

I saved the best part for last, which for me, is always the reptile house and exhibits. They had some great snakes there, including an emerald tree boa I wanted to take home. So cute. I also liked their variety of turtles and tortoises and the sheer number of poison dart frogs they had (though I have yet to go to any sort of exhibit in any park/zoo/aquarium/etc. which keeps the class clear enough for you to get decent pictures of the little buggers). By then, we were exhausted, I had a pounding headache from dehydration (I had brought a bottle of water into the park, but it disappeared very quickly and when we stopped to buy a very overpriced soda since the water fountains are few and far between and taste funny, our lemonade disappeared like the wind, which eventually caught up with me), but we did stop to view the myriad of stuffed animals they had and I succumbed to temptation and bought a stuffed badger and an anteater (what?).

From there, we headed back to our hotel via 163 which took us past a Book Off I'd spotted on the way down. We stopped off there and I introduced Dad to the joys of $1 hardcovers and books. He actually bought a lot more than I did, since all I did was pick up a few mangas and one or two $1 kids books I've been meaning to read. After a half hour there, we went to the Mitsuwa which was in the same shopping centre, and bought the fixings for okonomiyaki (thus saving us a drive to the Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ when we get home). I picked up some makie-e stickers for my cell phone, and introduced Dad to coffee in a can, Japanese style. It was 6:30 by then, so I suggested we eat at Mitsuwa. We both got kitsune udon (my favourite udon of sweet fried tofu for those who don't know). Dad really liked the flavour, but not the difficulty of eating it. From there, we headed back to the hotel. It was a long, rewarding day, so I went to soak my blistered feet in the hot tub, then settled in for the joys of trying to upload photos here.

We head to Los Angeles tomorrow, then on towards the Grand Canyon.

Our stated goal for the day was visiting the San Diego Maritime Museum. We actually checked in to our hotel first, for once, and then had a fantastic Chinese lunch (of actual Chinese food, not American Chinese food) before hitting the museum. It's on the harbour by necessity since the entire museum is housed on the ships it showcases - a very good idea imo. There were a lot of ships I wanted to see with top of the list being the Soviet submarine, the HMS Surprise and The Star of India. We started on the Star of India (claims to be the oldest age of sail ship still working from 1863) which was a big ship and a lot of fun to explore, though how educational the mini-pirate ship in the bottom was, we will never know. I had fun playing in it *L* The ship was busy because they were taking on a bunch of school children for the evening to crew it. I though it'd be noisy but actually they whipped those kids into shape in less than ten minutes. After that, the kids didn't talk, asked permission to enter and leave rooms, walked in single file. Very impressive, and they got to crew the ship for the whole night. I'd sign on for that. After exploring every inch of the Star, we moved on to the b-39 Foxtrot class Soviet Submarine. I may have been humming the Soviet national anthem for most of my exploration of it... They haven't changed much of it, and you still have to climb through small portholes to visit different parts of the ship. It looked quite similar to the u-boat, which isn't all that surprising since the Soviet's based their designs on them. I thought it was all very cool. Did you know they weren't allowed to have vodka on those subs? And yet when they retired and sold off one, they found dozens of bottles of vodka hidden strategically about the ship *L*

Our next ship was the HMS Surprise which is a replica, and was used for Master and Commander. This was very obvious once you get inside (or take a look at the stern), and it was more like exploring a movie set. They had the costumes from the movie there and pictures from the production. It was all very interesting, though I had no one to make jokes about weevils too. We then went to explore the steamboat which wasn't as interesting though it was cool to be allowed to explore the boiler room. By then, it was getting quite late (the museum is open until 8pm which I heartily approve of) and the moon was rising. We got directions from my friend A. who goes to uni here in San Diego and went to pick her up at campus, then drive to a good little sushi place, Arigato, near her house. It had very good eel and the salmon was nice as well, though there was no inari *pout* I liked having proper gyoza too (when I make it, it always falls apart *sigh*). Though cream cheese on sushi is weird, and they put avacado in everything, mostly because they have far too many avacado *L* For desert we had tempura fried plum wine ice cream, which was very good, and talked for ages and sipped green tea. From there, we dropped her off at her house and headed back to our own hotel.

The night before, after we'd finished our laundry, I was invited down to the bar to watch bad karaoke. This sounded amiable to me, so I headed to The Lounge which had saloon style doors and was filled with men in cowboy hats, jeans and boots, and bikers and their women (since our hotel was full of them). Being from New Jersey, this was my first time in such a... country bar, and I just gawked in a corner at this strange culture. I hear some people think that this sort of thing is America, but it was certainly the first time I'd even encountered it. My friend who I was drinking with (we'd met doing laundry earlier) said the bars back in Arkansas looked like that all the time, but you'd have to drive for miles and miles to find one in the northeast. Anyway, I got to see a bunch of bikers sing YMCA, and then their women got up and sang Redneck Woman (and everyone knew the lyrics except for me...). It was an interesting cultural experience. If I were an anthropologist, I'd have been taking notes.

In the morning, we had a surprisingly short drive to Los Angeles. We allowed the GPS to lead us to La Brea Tarpits which took us right across several famous roads. We were lucky to find parking a few blocks away and walked to the park. The tar pits aren't as full of asphalt as I thought they'd be (though note the baby mammoth crying tears of tar for his dying mummy), but it can get pretty thick where it unauthorizedly bubbles from the ground, and the smaller pits are full of tar. We went inside the museum, watched their very old film, and did a quick round of the museum. The skeletons there are very nice, but their old animatrons are kinda dull and broken. The fossil lab there is the most interesting bit, but I just felt sympathy for them spending hours cleaning bones (been there, done that). I had a lot of fun in the gift shop at least. They had lots of anachronistic stuff in there so even though there were no dinosaurs at La Brea, they still sell dinosaur memorabilia *rolls eyes*. They also sold Indiana Jones stuff, which is, well, just plain wrong (archaeologists deal with human remains, paleontologists deal with ancient animal remains, capiche?) but I couldn't resist buying an Indiana Jones hat, which I am modelling in this picture *grin* There was a pet adoption fair going on in the park outside the museum which we had to wander through to see the other pits. This turned out to be a great idea since it took us by their main stage where the mayor of Los Angeles, and Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy on House, etc.) were there. Considering we'd been watching House the day before, it was a treat to see one of the stars in person.

From there, we headed back to Hollywood Blvd and turned so we could drive past the Chinese theatre. I got a picture on it's own and one with Sauron-chan, so we didn't bother stopping (parking would have been a bitch). Instead we headed further down Hollywood which is very pretty once you get past the downtown and turned to go back past La Brea and further to visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology. That is one weird place. It's a labyrinth inside and the exhibits range from the excruciatingly boring to the fascinating to the incomprehensible. You can see Napoleon, carved in miniature and placed in the eye of a needle, displays of decaying dice, magnetic spheres used for divination, boring displays of mobile homes, obsolete forms of 3-D imagery, a room devoted for folk cures etc. I can't say it's a museum for everyone, but if you want to go weird and bemused, it's the museum for you. They did have free tea and cookies upstairs which was a nice break from the bafflement of the displays. (I kinda wish I had charge of running this museum. I could make it twice as weird, and also twice as entertaining.)

Dad wished to find his grandmother's old home in LA so we plugged it into the GPS and braved the evening traffic to find a very pretty house, then discovered our hotel was an hour's drive out of LA, which was a bit annoying. I don't really want to go into it at this point, but we stopped at Walmart, my bank card didn't work, and to make a long story short, something bad happened with my bank (and not because of all the banks failing atm). I was very upset, and it didn't help that when we tried to go eat, our waitress ignored us for a good 15 minutes. We walked out, and ended up at Outback where the good food and service brought back some cheer at least. Then the evening was spent sorting out all the crap and trying to plan our day. So, in conclusion, it was a pretty good day until the evening.

We're off to San Diego now. We'd thought to hit a studio tour before we went, but for some reason, all the studios are closed for Columbus day. Go figure.

Day 29 - Since our budget hotel had no breakfast (and instead bestowed a possible bed bug bite on me. gah.), we ate at a lovely little bakery round the corner. From there, it was a five minute drive to the Winchester Mystery House. I've been wanting to go to this place for years, ever since I saw a documentary on the place. For those of you who don't know about it, Mrs. Winchester the wife of the famous Winchester family who made all those rifles, went a bit insane in her later years and, so the story goes, believed that the ghosts of those killed by the Winchester rifle demanded she keep adding on to her house continuously to appease them. She held seances in her house in a room with a door that opens out onto the kitchen sink below. There are stairways going to cielings, doors which open on closets big enough to fit one suit in, cupboards that could contain and inch of storage space, and ones that open onto an entire wing of the house. There's a door that leads to nowhere, and the entire front section of the house was closed off after the earthquake in the early 1900s because Mrs. Winchester believed the ghosts had shown their disapproval. While she lived, they built 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She had several entertaining rooms, but no one came to visit, and in fact, no one was allowed through the front door - she even turned the president away. It's a pretty fascinating house to explore in their mansion tour with beautiful, if weird designs. She was obsessed with the number 13 and spider webs and daisies so they show up in strange motifs all through the house. We opted for the behind the scenes tour as well which took us into the outer buildings and into the basement of the house - probably not worth the money all things considered, but still pretty interesting. The rest of our day was spent driving to Mariposa, a small town outside Yosemite park. It's not the best place to stay and our Best Western was the worst of the trip - I had to get my internet from the hotel across the street and up the hill (don't ask me why that worked and our hotel's didn't). It had a bad breakfast too, though I liked the beds.

Day 30 - Although we slept late, I was still quite sleepy driving into Yosemite and Dad was in a grumpy mood so we both did not approach the park with our usual reverence for nature's beauty. This wasn't helped by the fact that despite the cold and the time of year, the park was still teaming with tourists. I shudder to think what it's like at the height of summer. The road into the park is nothing special though it did go by (yet another) Bear Creek and once you got into the park, it was quite nice except for the traffic and people driving far too fast. You couldn't pull over anywhere because either people had parked to go hiking or you were risking your life getting out of the driver's side of the car. It's probably a good thing I was driving though since I a) like twisty roads and b) keep my temper very well when others are assholes though I can be pushed to my limit as was shown today when we were driving out of the park. I was tailgated by this woman who not only kept within three feet of me for well over a half hour going down windy, steep roads that required you to keep around or below the speed limit to drive safely, but also had on her bright lights to annoy and blind me. I responded by continuing to drive the speed limit (or below for the turns) and not responding to her bullying like she wished me to, namely, pull over to let her pass. There are no passing lanes on 41 going south out of the park so I had her behind me for a very long time, and I got to watch her cursing me when I slowed down to 20 in the 20mph zones. She eventually got fed up and passed over the double yellow lines in a 20mph zone *L* What lesson have we learnt from this children? Don't piss off New Jersey drivers.

Anyway, we parked in the main parking and walked the half a mile to the visitor centre (wtf?), bought a pin for my collection, gazed at the dry Yosemite falls, bought lunch and went back to our car. The chicken salad croissant and apple slices with caramel cream dip were the best food I've had in a national park so far (possibly excepting the expensive dinner at Old Faithful Snow Lodge in Yellowstone). My theory is that Californians won't stand for the crappy food you get in other parks. We then decided to do a quick loop around the rest of the valley. By parking at the other village, Curry, we were able to walk out into a wide field that had panoramic views of the mountains on all sides of us. Our need to take pictures satisfied, we made our way out of the park, stopping to view the tiny trickle going over Bridalveil falls, and then stopping for a beautiful view of the whole valley on our way out. We weren't all that impressed by Yosemite honestly. Yes, it would have been gorgeous when the falls were wet, but even so, I don't think it was worth the hassle of all the tourists and the traffic to see those few things. Sauron-chan did learn the peril of feeding bears though.

We stopped in Bakersfield for the evening, eating at IHOP and doing laundry (so almost like home). We're off to Los Angeles tomorrow.