TRIP TO PORTLAND OREGON

We got a week off for Thanks-giving.  At the beginning of the week, I took a trip to Oregon to see my friend Joyce Cerimele.  I figured, somehow, that Charlie and I would drive up the coast to see Glenn and Krysty.  It was becoming increasingly clear that would never happen.  Flights up there are only 3 hours and that gives us more time to spend with them.  The only way I would get to see Joyce and Frank would be to go there directly from LA.  So that's what I did.

Joyce and Frank were amazing hosts - now they'll get invaded by us some more!  The first day we went to the Portland River walk.  Portland sits on several rivers - the Willamette (pronounced with an accent on the Will- kind of Will ah met) and the Colombia River.  The Colombia River is the dividing line between Washington and Oregon.  I knew very little of this (except the last fact) before I got there.

Joyce and Frank along the river.

We then went to the Portland rose garden.  Apparently, Portland is known as the Rose City.  The trees were at the end of their coloring in the fall - but still beautiful.

The next morning, after a relaxing start, Joyce and I drove to Multnomah Falls.  What a gorgeous spot!

I walked up to the second level of the falls.  The trail up there is seen in the photos above.

It rains a lot in Oregon, and the trees show the results

At the risk of sounding a little Sarah Palinesque, we could see Washington from the trail.  The mountain above is in Washington across the Colombia River.  The photos below are of the Colombia River gorge.  It's a huge river, and the gorge looks almost like an ocean scene.

My last day in Oregon, Joyce and Frank drove me around the countryside.  Lots of apple farms and nut farms.  We stopped at a nut farm and I bought the best filberts and walnuts I have ever tasted.

Then I flew home.  A great trip!

Thanks Joyce!!

WIND STORM IN SOUTH PASADENA

About three weeks ago, we had a Santa Ana wind storm here.  It was quite unusual.  Usually, when the wind howls it goes down the canyons or in the mountains.  Very, very rarely, it hits in the city itself.  This particular wind storm whacked South Pasadena, Pasadena, San Marino, Temple City, Sierra Madre .... basically all around our neck of the woods.  The winds were incredibly loud, so Charlie and I laid in bed and listened to the howling (some of the winds were clocked at 94 mph).  We heard a huge thud against the roof and looked outside to see if we could figure out what that was.  Sigh... it was a branch of our old 50 foot avocado tree knocking against the garage roof.

A little, loud, later I heard another huge thud and looked outside again.  "Charlie", I said, "the tree's gone".

We went outside in the middle of the storm to see what else happened.  It was terrifying, branches, leaves, and who-knows-what else blowing past us.  We went back inside pretty quickly.  The next morning we saw what we thought was one of our orange trees out back on its side.  What it was was the top of our neighbor's tree that crashed into our fire pit furniture.

Our neighbor to the south lost a huge branch of a street-side tree that crashed into his front yard.  When we were out exploring the yard in the middle of the storm we saw him running about.  He had just moved his car from what would have been a parking space under the branch.   Whew.

A day or so later, we found a guy (thanks to our neighbor to the south) who took down the avocado remains (I was worried they'd cause more damage)  Much to everyone's surprise, despite the branch that hit the garage, another that whacked into our fence, another that crunched into our neighbor's car parked in the back, we had very little damage.  I do miss the tree....

The only damage was our neighbor's tree top and our patio furniture.

We lost our electricity for four days.  That was awful.  Fortunately, my brother (who lives only a couple of blocks away) who lost his electricity too, suggested we get some dry ice for the refrigerator and freezers.  Thanks to that we lost very little.  On Sunday, Charlie went to a meeting in San Francisco, leaving a dark, cold house behind.  I went to a local laundromat.  How long can one go without clothes washing?  I went home around 11:30 to get a dryer sheet, and noticed odd lighting in the kitchen.  I thought it must have been because the tree was missing.  ELECTRICITY!!  I'll never go into a dark closet again without a bit of joy being able to light it up!

quick update - for the first time in 3 weeks - the local cities are beginning to pick up the piles of branches and leaves in the gutter.  Driving around here has been scary.  Most streets have at least one lane blocked with branches.

Harriet's Recital

We came up to Hayward this weekend to watch Harriet's dance recital.  The only problem was that her act came in the second half of the show.  Yikes.  The first half had 44 different dances and three slide presentations.  We had a great time anyhow.  Harriet is really quite good! She has pizzazz!

This evening as a celebration we went to a buffet Chinese/Japanese restaurant.  It is in Hayward and is an all you can eat place -and- really reasonable.  Beyond that it's on the 2nd floor of a building with great window views of Hayward.  OK it's not San Francisco, but the sunset was lovely.

Here's some views of the pre-recital wait and the recital itself.

AN UPDATE IN VANCOUVER

We left LA at 9 and got to Vancouver by 11:30.  Easy flight.  Glenn met us at the airport, and we drove to his house.  Our first day, we walked up to Broadway and had lunch at the Banana Leaf, a Mallasian restaurant.  Later, we went to Tattilow Park and Kayley played on the slides. She's gotten so much better in the last six months.  She can really climb up all sorts of ladders and had no problem with slides - huge change.  For dinner we walked up and got sushi at a great place on Broadway and Balaclava.

Tuesday,  after breakfast, we drove over to Grenville Island.  Our original goal was to replace our daily tea pot that has had a bit of a difficult time of it recently (broken lid).  We also had a goal of buying groceries for dinner Tuesday night and Wednesday.  While Kayley and Krystie went to the children's park, Charlie and I stomped around finding things on the shopping list.  There were the largest cherries I have ever seen. We got some, hard not to, a pyramid of monster cherries is really a draw.  We found Kayley and Krysty later.

We had lunch at Grenville at the "Juice Shop".  They have Vietnamese wraps with smoked salmon (my special Grenville Island treat), they also had some salads which were delicious.

When Kayley went down for her nap, Charlie and I walked back to Broadway.  We first stopped at the tea shop and got some of their great English Breakfast Tea.  We also stopped at Safeway for more supplies.  I made orange chicken for dinner - great day.

Yesterday, we went to Bloeddell Conservatory.  Kayley chased around the circular route, and we watched birds.  After our chase around the interior paths, on the way back to the car, Kayley had a bit of a splash in the fountain.  It really is a great fountain.

We then went to a vegetarian Indian restaurant.  Delicious lunch.  And we picked up samosas for dinner.

During Kayley nap time, Charlie and I, again, tromped up to Broadway.  This time we stopped at the children's bookstore, then we picked up wine and beer for dinner.

At 5 Jim and Christie Tiempo came for dinner.  Glenn had cooked up a portabello mushroom dish and a barbequed chicken.  Both were really wonderful.  We had the samosas as well.  That was a GREAT indian restaurant, they were great.  Glenn made flan for dessert - he's good at that too.

Thursday, today, we went up to Glenn and Krystie's.  I walked Holly first thing (it's kind of my morning routine).  I'll finish our day later.

LONDON - FULL DAY OF STOMPING

We got up this morning and had a breakfast at the hotel.  Error!  We were forced to demand coffee.  After that, the rest of the day, fortunately, went beautifully. We first walked to the British Museum Store - one of the greatest museum stores ever.  It had been undergoing renovation the last time I visited, now it's fixed up and gorgeous!

 We began our stroll through Gray's Inns and Lincoln Inn Fields - beautiful buildings and gardens hidden amongst them.  Off to the Temple, then down to the Embankment,  It was a beautiful day with big fluffy clouds and wonderful visibility.  We walked down to Westminster bridge.  A great stroll.

The Griffin is the symbol of London.  These symbols mark the borders of the city sections.

We took the Westminster tube to Leister Square.  Normally, we end up in the square itself, brassy, loud, full of cheap restaurants and touts.  By a slight error, we went into China town.  I don't remember it being as large as it seemed today.  It's probably grown.  By error, again, we wandered into a restaurant called Baozi - we had meat baozta (yum!) and dumpling soup.  Mine was outstanding.  Charlie ordered sweet and sour which was very spicy.  On our way out the door, we found out the place was Zagat rated - I would have, too!

From lunch, we took another tube (we, obviously had a day-pass) to Charing Cross tube station and went to the National Portrait Gallery.  With all our walking, and being leg-weary, we found it interesting anyway.

From there, we took another tube to Piccadilly Circus.  We walked down Regent street to Fortnam and Mason's.  Nothing really appealed, although I was drawn to an "Owl and the pussy cat" lunch box.  Reason prevailed, and I didn't buy it!  We needed a bit of a rest, so we stopped at a Starbucks.  Hey!  They have flat whites here AND lemon cake - the best of Australia and Canada!

We then got on the Green Park tube and went to Covent Garden (ack!  another station with elevators - or 192 steps)  We found some cute kid's T shirts.  Back to the tube then to Tottenham Court Road and walked down to Foyles.  By that point we were getting really foot weary.  We went back to the hotel, got our suitcases out of storage.  It was only 4 pm.  We really didn't want to have dinner - too full - so we decided to go out to the airport on the tube.  We walked to Holborn Station (not too bad) and took the 1 hour ride to Terminal 1, 2, 3.  Outside of Terminal 1 we got a bus to our hotel, Sheraton Heathrow.  Had a nice dinner at the hotel, early bed.  Tomorrow back to LA.  How weird!

BACK TO LONDON

For a very hurried trip to London and Paris, it worked out well.  We got up, had our tea with Geoff this morning, then walked to Cactus Cafe for the wonderful croissants.  Geoff's leg was bothering him, so Charlie and I hoofed it down Rue de Temple to the Jewish Historical Museum.  Weirdest part were two semitic guys out front hovering around.  They didn't seem to belong to the place, but as we walked up to the door, they asked us to put our carry bags through security.  It's a beautifully laid out museum, but many of the items, I knew - torah decorations and the like.  One room, however, had models of Eastern European Temples which were interesting. They had another room of Hanuka lamps, many the traditional candle holders, but some with oil that were more interesting. Another larger room had costumes and jewelry from Sephardic Jewish communities in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria.  Really interesting, and things I had never seen.  I was gearing up for the historical drag through the Nazis, but fortunately, they first had a room of art ( a lot of which was black on black), another artist did doll-like things hanging from threads, then a wall which was visible through a stair landing with people's names on it.  Then they gently let us outside.

Back to Geoff's.  After a bit of conversation, we walked downstairs to his local boulangerie - it's called Le Gai Choc - Geoff's section of Paris is famous for it's gay and bisexual population.  This particular boulangerie has brioches made in the shape of men's parts.  Last year when we visited the creations were prominently displayed because there was a gay pride parade.  This time, they were discretely in the back.  We got sandwiches which were delicious.  Charlie and Geoff got ham and cheese, I got a chicken all of which were on wonderful short baguettes.

After lunch, we walked to the Pompidou centre.

 Geoff went off on a bus to work, Charlie and I took the 38 bus to Gare du Nord.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the bus is very easy to get, clear as to where you are (there is a LCD display telling you what the next stop is, what the last stop is, and how long you can expect to get there).  Gare du Nord is the terminus for the 38 bus, so we really couldn't mess this up.

We took the ride back to London, and, of course, gained our hour back.  We then got tube tickets for today, and day-passes for tomorrow.  I remember that the ride to Heathrow by tube is 5 pounds each.  For 8.50 pounds, we got day passes that would let us ride to Heathrow at the end of the day.  We took the Piccadilly Line from St. Pancreas to Russell Square.  Charlie remembered (I'd forgotten) that particular station has an elevator to the street - that or 175 steps - we took the elevator.  We then walked to our hotel.  Radisson Eduardian Kennelworth on Great Russell Street.  There are two Radisson hotels within a block of each other - ours and the Bloombury (something) - ours is clearly the "deal" of the two.  We still have a fun view from our window.

We walked to  Covant Garden for dinner.  Right in the middle is "The Pie Shop"  Hurray!  More pies!  Back to the hotel for a quick pint.  Now in our room with free WIFI.    Tomorrow - our last day of the trip - will be wandering around London for fun.

Hasta manana

WEDNESDAY IN PARIS

We had a cup of tea, then a stroll out for a croissant and coffee.  (coffee creme is pretty close to flat white) After breakfast we walked over to the Doll Museum very close to Geoff's flat.  It is a wonderful museum. Dolls are sorted 1.) by what they were made from (porcelain, paper mache, "biscuit" a lower fire clay, and plastic.  2.) where they were made  3.)  what they were representing (babies, adults, foreign places) 4.) what companies made them.  Some were really nice, some were down-right scary.  My favorite bits were the doll dishes, silverware, pets, etc.  There was a room of dolls representing characters from history.  As Charlie said, they were definitely nice versions of the people.  Finally, my all-time favorite, they had a special display of Ken dolls through the years.  He was always a wimpy doll - even with added muscles.

Building was across from the cafe where we had breakfast

Geoff and me in Anne Frank's Square near the doll museum

After the museum we had a perrier near the Pompidou Centre (also near Geoff's flat)

We then walked to the river, and took a bus to the Jardin des Plants.

We went to the Natural History Museum.  Lots of great displays of all types of animals, emphasizing evolution and diversity.

A stroll for lunch through the Jardin des Plants.

A plant house at Jardin des Plants

We then took the Metro back to the river.   Geoff bought a few plants for his house.  Geoff and Charlie then lugged the larger of the two back to his house.  Rest this afternoon - dinner at a close restaurant tonight.