Cruising the California Coast

Vacation! It's been a long, long time since Hawaii last July, but we're finally back in vacation mode. Which means more adventures for Toby & Marg.

No trip west of Las Vegas starts without a visit to Peggy Sue's diner in Yermo. So, after leaving LV on Wednesday evening, we hit this 50's gem in the desert for a quick dinner.

Toby's Best Bet: Peggy Sue's. Get out at Ghost Town Road off of I-15, go east 1/4 mile, make a left. Order a Vanilla Coke, surrounded by every kitschy thing you can think of from the 1950s...rock 'n roll memorabilia, music photos, and a really cool gift shop (lots of great Wizard of Oz stuff I've already added to my collection).

Then, on to San Diego and our friends Linda and Becky and their cats Zin and Merlot. (Hmm, is there wine in our future? I think so.)

Thursday, the Fourth of July, was filled with small-town celebrating (Mira Mesa-style). And yes, there are still small towns around San Diego. First, a little holiday parade, where the stars were every local politician, one marching band, a fire truck, Cub Scouts and Brownies, and some military machines. The best part...the chance to cheer for every veteran who passed by.

We spent the afternoon sipping wine by the pool at the house and after a yummy dinner of tri-tip on the grill, it was off to a nearby parking lot (tailgate viewing) to watch the fireworks. By the way, compared to the 117 degree temps we were experiencing in Las Vegas, it was COLD in San Diego!

Linda, Becky, Marg freezing their butts off.

 

Friday, July 5, we did one of our favorite things...a trip to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (formerly the Wild Animal Park) in Escondido. The springboks were quite boingy!



Marg's kid's lunch.



Baby elephant



OK, you have to check this out...they have a new, open access area with lemurs. (David, this one's for you.) One of them was completely fascinated by the taste of leather and feet. (Hey, it's a lemur.)



Curious lemur.



Licking lemur.



Marg with lemur tail?

 We expected to be disppointed at the gorilla exhibit because when we got there, they were all in their caves, but within minutes, out came the family.

Here's Dad.

And here's a pic of the kids torturing each other. C'mon, tell me the little one doesn't remind you of your most obnoxious brother!

Friday night was an event we've been waiting a lifetime to experience...Fleetwood Mac at the Viejas Arena at San Diego State. And what a concert it was! Almost 3 hours of every song you ever loved, Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham together again, celebrating the 35th anniversary of their Rumors album.



Fleetwood Mac fans.



Fleetwood Mac 2013 (John, Stevie, Mick, Lindsay)

 

A really drunk blonde who insisted on being in our picture.

Saturday, July 6, got us on the road again, headed toward Santa Monica (Note: I lived there in 1981) and a quick lunch visit with son Michael and friends. Nothing spectacular about the restaurant, but it is called Yankee Doodle and it was the 4th of July weekend...

And then, on to Solvang, a unique, Scandinavian/Danish town just north of Santa Barbara. You really do have to visit, even if just to eat breakfast pastries!

After checking in at the Royal Copenhagen Inn, we took a stroll through town and had a delightful dinner at the Red Viking Restaurant (if you enjoy personal service with a bit of personality included, this is the place to eat), where we were entertained by our wait-person, Alex, whom I found it hard to believe didn't come from New York. I told her I'd post her picture and here it is:



Alex, the Witch of Solvang



Three long days and three late nights put an early end to the evening. Tomorrow, a breakfast of aebleskivers (dough-balls with powdered sugar and raspberry sauce) awaits!

Hey, it's only been 19 months ...

Welcome back. My last blog entry was October 29, 2011. Mostly because 2012 sucked. Hard to believe I'm actually saying that about an entire year, but I am. The good news is that the healing has taken root and looks like we're back "on the road again." Yippee!

We just returned home from Memorial Day Weekend, mixing someplace Marg and I had visited before with an all-new journey. Just a short one, but quite memorable, nontheless. Two days in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and one night in a cabin at Kodachrome Basin State Park, both in Utah (our absolutely favorite scenic state).

Here are a few highlights:

The Toadstools just east of Kanab, Utah. It took is about 2 miles to hike the 1.5 mile roundtrip trail. (I think we missed a few rock cairns marking the way.) But the climb was sure worth it! We followed some dry washes and ended up on top of a plateau with some very strange formations (thus, the toadstools).

Marg under a BIG toadstool.

Toby under a short toadstool. Cousin Ellen, I thought you'd appreciate
TLGF (The Little Green Frog) under a toadstool!

We spent the rest of the day driving Cottonwood Canyon Road through the Grand Staircase. The rewards were the red, white, yellow and pink rocks, mixed with a variety of juniper, pinon pine and sagebrush.

Oh yeah, and the cow.

Just off the gravel and sand road was a short, paved trail to Grosvenor Arch; a rare double-arch within a monumental structure.




Grosvenor Arch



Us at the Arch. I love taking these awful self-portraits!

A closer view.

Last stop of the day ... Kodachrome Basin State Park. A really cool cabin, with lots of great amenities: comfy bed, full bath, microwave, coffeemaker, outdoor propane grill with all the necessary utensils, satellite TV, covered porch with picnic table, and a hiking trail just steps from the front door.



Cabin #4



View from the front porch. Just can't beat that, huh?

Morning got us on another backroad traveling south through the monument: Skutumpah Road. The second day's highlight was a fabulous 3-mile hike along Willis Creek in a slot canyon. The creek squiggled along the center of the canyon ... we just wished we'd worn our river shoes or flip-flops instead of sneakers so we could splash in the water all the way!

How about this fantastical tree dragon?

We finished the afternoon with a stop at a roadside park in Kanab for a late lunch and then returned to our RV in Hurricane, Utah. (Yes, even though we're back in our house in Las Vegas and I have a new Las Vegas job, we have kept our annual, leased campsite so we can visit any time.)

Well, friends and family, thanks for reading. Glad to be back sharing our outdoor adventures. The next big one should be our upcoming July vacation when we drive from San Diego to Morro Bay and Monterey, California.

Happy journeys!

Toby

You wouldn’t think you could set an inflatable raft on fire … twice.

A few weeks ago, Marg, Maija (the dog) and I took the raft out on the lake for the first time in three years (annual summer surgeries … you don’t wanna know). The 12’ raft has a trolling motor, so we don’t have to do any work (OK, Marg steers), just relax and float. A beautiful day. And, we almost made it. Until the dog started climbing around and maybe pulled on the wires that attach the motor to the 50 lb. battery in the raft. I see the smoke start pouring out. (I recognize this because it happened on the Colorado River a few years ago … the time we sunk our first raft.) I grab the wires off the battery. Marg tosses the wires into the lake to stop the fire. But they don’t quite make it into the water and we hear the “sssssssss” sound as the wire burns a hole in the vinyl raft. We make it to shore. Only a small hole this time, so we can repair the raft. Last time, the hot wires melted a giant gash in the side of the raft, we had to be carried ashore by the National Park Service boat, and there was nothing to do but drop the raft into a dumpster. This time we tried to focus on the lovely two hours before the accident. I’m beginning to understand why none of our family or friends will sail with us.

We’ve been living in the RV for almost two months and are truly appreciating being so close to the outdoors. Marg fixed up a nice patio for us (see photo below), so we threw a cocktail party for some of the other campground residents. We’ve had friends spend a weekend (yes, we do have room for guests). And we look at the stars at night.

Toby’s Best Bets: Thanks to my co-worker Chris, I have discovered the joy of the “Google Sky Map” app for my Droid. I just point my phone at the night sky and, magically (OK, it’s probably some kind of GPS coordinates), the stars and constellations in front of me appear in the phone window and tell me what they’re called. I’m in ecstasy!

Work trips have been keeping me busy. Montana, North Dakota, Bainbridge Island (across Puget Sound from Seattle).

Toby's Best Bets: If you're ever in Miles City, Montana, stop at The Cellar Casino (tell the owner, Denis Leidholt, I said hi!). Check out the huge collection of Jim Beam bottles. It's amazing.

This is just one section of the collection.

And then there's the fun stuff. Two recent trips have been highlights of our outdoor living …

LEAF-PEEPING FROM BRIAN HEAD TO LAKE PANGUITCH

The photos tell the entire story. Since I left New York in 1991, I’ve truly missed the fall colors. Colorado has aspen that turn yellow; Las Vegas has rocks. But after 10 years of camping in Southern Utah, we finally discovered that trees in the higher elevations DO wear all the colors of the autumns of my younger days back East. It was almost like taking a drive upstate NY on the Taconic Parkway.

MOAB, UTAH

Last weekend, after a 10-year absence, we returned to one of our very favorite haunts: Moab, Utah. We spent a day driving through and hiking in Arches National Park … as always, stopping to climb into Sand Dune Arch and taking the required photos of Delicate Arch (check out a Utah license plate) and Windows.

Marg under arch.




Sand Dune Arch. It's like a cool, red-sand beach under there.

 
The next day, we rented a Jeep and spent 8 hours 4-wheeling the back country on Chicken Corners Trail. Spectacular scenery and just plain fun climbing up the slickrock, driving around narrow curves overlooking scary drop-offs, and realigning every vertebrae over the rocky/sandy trail. Whoo-hoo!

Toby’s Best Bets: Since Marg is an Italian cook, we are often hesitant to eat at unfamiliar Italian restaurants. But when chicken parmigiana calls, it just does. Cassano’s, on the main drag in Moab, was outstanding! We shared the chicken parm and baked rigatoni … the sauce was delicious, they didn’t skimp on the mozzarella, and our waiter was charming. (The downside is that the chairs were super uncomfortable, but the tastiness of the food more than made up for the seating issues.)

On our last day, we were supposed to take a raft trip down the Colorado River. It was cancelled due to weather. The adventure outfitters must have heard that we are prone to setting rafts on fire.

Thanks for reading!

Toby