Day One - New York
So I jave no sympathy for Omouse or consideration for her being jet lagged. I made her get up at 7 am, 4 am West Coast time. Poor tired Omouse. But we had a Broadway show to see! We needed to get up and out the door ASAP to catch the train to New York. We had a busy day.
We were up and out the door by 8 (which is really impressive). Cruising down the highway, we made plans to go to the
Museum of Modern Art and maybe have time to take a gander at the ceiling of Grand Central Station. Out show,
The Drowsy Chaperone was at 2.
Then...traffic came to a halt. No one was moving. It took an hour to get to Trenton. All the while, I swearing to Omouse that this drive takes ten minutes, tops, on a normal day. I have no idea what was happening. (What happened was the star crossed occurance of the Delaware River flooding, closing some of the roads, and an accident on the bridge. Not a good traffic day.)
We got to the trains at 9.30 and found out the next train to New York was leaving in five minutes! Run!
At MOMA we really only had time to see one floor, but it was a great floor. There was a ton of Picaso. And Dali, the most famous one being the melting clocks painting, the
Persistence of Memory. And Weyth's
Christina's World, which is one of my favorite paintings.
Here's some hisotry on the house in the painting. Lots of Monets, some Van Goghs, always popular, and
Birthday, which I remember being in my high school literature book. It always struck me as funny and odd and approipiate the way the man drifts through the air to snatch a kiss. I like it.
I 've run out of time. I'll finish this later.
Super Spy Girl Camp 06!
It took me a few days, but I ready to start recounting the wild crazy super spy girl activites Omouse and I got up to.
First, Omouse's flight was two hours late. Rather typical for Philadelphia. On the Arrivals Board the flight was listed as "Delayed." I asked Information, and they had no idea when the flight was coming in. Lots of flights were delayed, I was told. Storms. Uh-huh.
I brought me book and I read. I tried to be patient, but it was close to 7 pm and Liarbyrd was hungry. Liarbyrd also spent her last dollar on a soda and was so hungry she spoke about herself in third person.
I called Omouse's cell. If there was no answer, she was in the air. If she did answer, she was probably still at the lay over in Chicago. If that was the case, I might as well leave the airport and go find some food.
So I called and imagine my surprise when Omouse answered.
"Where are you?"
"I'm here."
"In Philly?"
"In the toilets actually. Can I call you back?"
So Omouse managed to arrive on the Super Secret Flight that never showed up on the Arrival Board. Cool.
The rest of the evening was spent trying to out race the massive thunder storm and get home before it rained.
Jenny Finally Got Her Act Together
So I'm packing for my next vaca when I think... hmmm where's my camera... and hey, it still has photos from Xmas and my last trip on it. So here we go...
Here's one of the Lovely Clare with A Viking! We visited the picturesque Solvang to snag this one.
And what's a vacation without a statue picture? This one is in the garden of the "eccentric" (Crazy as a loon) Mrs. Sara Winchester who thought the spirits would kill her if she stopped building on her house.
And More Vikings! These ones were located outside of our hotel in San Francisco. Unfortunately, we were only there for breakfast... which we missed anyway.
And here's one of us in Wine Country! This is at the top of the Sterling Vinyard. We got to take an air gondala up the hill.
Clare drinks honest to goodness Calistoga water. They sell it, but we got it from Joe and Jean's tap for free!
Beautiful San Simeon Sunset. Unfortunately it was a little too cold and rainy to do much else.
Dear Mel, Day 2
Dear Mel,
We've reached day 2 with slightly better travel karma, despite the weather. (Yes, it does rain in CA) We had a nice leisurely lie in and then headed to brekkie which was pretty good. Cereal, pastries and the like. And since our little detour the night before showed us another easier way onto the freeway, I told Clare, "If you see a Sprint Store of a Bank of America, holler." Lo and behold, in the five or so blocks to the freeway, we find both! So after realizing that the Sprint Store was closed on Easter Sunday, I got cash and we headed to our destination... Solvang!
Somewhere around 1911, a bunch of Danes (obviously educated in the Canterbury Monks School of Thought) decided to build a tourist trap in the beautiful yet remote St. Ynes Valley. After tooling about looking at all the cool Danish touristy shops featuring Native American Jewelry, dancing cows, and kookoo clocks (the chocolate shop was closed, but the bakery was open[it must have belonged to one of Viggo's ancestors (Mortensen's) grrr]) and consulting the happy helpful tourist info guy on the proper way to get to San Simeon, we headed onward to our Quality Inn, turning down the $100 dollar a night rooms complete with whirlpool tubs. (Long sentence, huh? English teachers are good at them.)
We spent about an hour arranging our hotels for the last part of the journey (finding a hopefully good deal in Napa - 2 nights at $55 special AAA winter rate.) Cross fingers it isn't a skanky hotel. One night San Fran and one San Jose - near the airport so we don't have to worry about trekking though traffic to get there.
After a late lunch in the room - beach picnic cancelled on account of the rain - we headed out to explore the exciting town of San Simeon... which is really no more than some motels, a restaurant or two, and some beach cottages. We walked along the beach for a while and watched the ocean until we got cold. Then we hopped in the car, turned up the heat and sang along to The Lion King until we were nice and toasty. We went to a Mexican place called El Chorlito for dinner and now back here, waiting for the 9:30 movie... whatever it may be.
PS Turned out to be too fuzzy to watch. Watched new(er) Bond flic instead.
Spring Break!
Dear Melissa,
So I'll probably take this home and post it on our blog first, but I decided that since you weren't here, I'd work in letter format.
Let's just say this holiday has not started out smoothly. Oh, Clare's flight came in on time and I was there waiting for her, and we only hit a little traffic on the way out of LA, and we managed to find the hotel okay.
Then the clerk informed me that my hotel room had been paid for last night. I'd booked the wrong night. Fun. $130 down the drain. The guy at the desk said he felt sorry for us, so he pulled some strings and got us the room we requested for another $130. We can call and talk to his manager on Monday, who might hopefully refund our money minus a $50 cancellation fee. I love making expensive mistakes.
So after perusing the hotel "Dining and Destinations" magazine, Clare insisted that we eat at a place across from the pier because of the title: Eladio's. (Eladio! You are the chulpacabra!) It was nice. I ordered the dinner special of a crunchy minnestroni soup followed by veal cannanoli and a canolli for dessert. Clare had an Angus Burger with garlic parsley fries. She grimaced when I ordered ice tea with my dinner.
Man, I totally forgot to mention our detour. The main drag of Santa Barbara is State Street, and we managed to drive about 10 minutes in the wrong direction, because it parallels the beach before hooking towards the ocean and ending at the pier. We finally realized our mistake and turned around. Though apparently, there seems to be this thing in Santa Barbara for naming hotels after trees: Pepper Tree Inn, Orange Tree Inn, Lemon Tree Inn, and Treehouse Inn - all on State Street. Ours is the Sandpiper Lodge - a standard motel.
Still cringing over my mistake. Which is funny, because I regularly spend that much on a grocery run. Anyway, Clare's asleep and it's almost ten. Then I'll join her.
We're Ba-ack!
Okay, so you're going to have to start looking back to July 1, as all posts are going to be back dated. I'm going to try to get them all in within a week, but we used almost the entire book so keep checking back. Each of the others will add their own entries in different colors. I however, will choose black.
Sitting Here Waiting for Omouse to Finish
I'm sitting on the opposite side of the internet cafe, waiting for Jenny to finish whatever it is she needed to get done.
This trip to England has been fantastic from beginning to end and completely exhuasting. Last night Clare and I could barely scrape ourselves off the couch we were so tired. And my feet hurt. And the memory card of my camera is full, which is amazing because it can hold 500 photos. Been a little snap happy, I think.
I didn't log on in the internet café - I was too hot and bothered! I think the exhaustion was getting to me. Seriously. And I missed having my own car. Reuben's car is a pain in the posterior to park sometimes. I think Jenny took some time making sure her mum knew she was okay and not killed in the bombs in London... which were 300 miles away at the time... but I guess England does looks pretty tiny to the average American. :) - A19
Two Weeks Down
Yes, I'm been slightly incommunicado, but internet access is slightly hard to find when you're in Ilfracombe. We've been traveling to cities, very far from London, but the entire country has been rocked hard. Clare and Debbie began to call their friends when Clare's boyfriend texted her to tell us to turn on the radio. We were in Exeter, and hadn't heard anything about it until 10:30am. All of Clare's friends are fine, but her boyfriend's cousin's girlfriend was in one of the tube carriages and was going to be getting out of hospital over the weekend.
On to cheerier news... Liz arrives tomorrow, and we'll be touring London before taking a quick adventure up towards Scotland and back down again. On Friday, we're probably heading off to Canterbury and then back to London before coming home on the 26th of July.
Thanks for the Birthday Wishes.
Salisbury, Home of RatMan
So he had a long bit of a lie in and at 11ish, Reuben called and said he was in Bournmouth, so we hopped in the car to meet him. We parked and walked up and down the boardwalk. The beach was crowded with quickly burning Brits. We stopped and had fun spending 60p in the arcade on the change sweeping machines. Fun. Basic story – should have quit while we were ahead. Had lunch in this surfy type place where the appetizer platter we ordered was a full lunch for 2. We drove back to the chalet and Mel and I spent the rest of the afternoon planning our Space Opera. My character is Ophelia, daughter of a captain of a lost space colony. Mel’s is Portia, Earth grad student stuck in middle management who decides to find lost colony.
At 9:15,(after wrestling with the telly) we went to see the holiday camp visiting comic. He wasn’t very funny. Most of his jokes were recycled from the internet. Went home to bed.
So moving on to today, we went to Salisbury and did a drive by of Stonehenge… literally. My camera ran out of batteries just as I was going to take one of Stonehenge. I was sad, but going back to the morning, we park and rode to the center of town, did a bit of shopping (I picked up “Nursery Crime,” Jasper FForde’s new book out today and Mel picked up some clothing for the nieces and nephews.)
We took a 90 minute guided tour of the cathedral with a pleasantly rambling gentleman who told us about the baby who died 11 days before its birthday, and the prince’s half brother who was found with a perfectly preserved rat in his skull. (We later saw the rat in the museum.)
After the tour we walked back to High Street for more shopping (Boots Baby!) and lunch at the New Inn, a Tudor pub that had to be at least 500 years old. I had a Brie Ploughman. Yummy. Cheese, bread and pickle.
Our next step was the museum (the one with the rat) back next to the cathedral. Bad planning on our part… but the museum had some interesting old costumes and a section on Stonehenge… and did I mention the rat? By the time we got out of the museum, Clare and Mel were knackered so we sat on a bench by the cathedral and watched all the Germans go by. After some ice cream, we managed to drag ourselves back to the bus stop. Once back in the car we did the Stonehenge drive by and then off towards home. We stopped on the way at Tescos for provisions and I still contend I use us there by the fastest route.
The dude with the rat in his head was John Longspree, the half brother of King John. Also the half brother of King Richard. BTW, I really dislike that guy. All he did was run around the holy land, kill Turks, and get kidnapped and hang around in dungeons waiting to be summoned. The jerk. Only everyone loves him for some reason. Poor John was stuck back in England, trying to scrape together enough money to ransom Richard out of a dungeon. I think John has a bad rap.
Tonight’s dinner was chicken balls and potato croquettes, both oddly orange and kiddie food. Not a criticism, just a statement of fact.
Jenny’s currently going on about how she needs another bottle of wine to get “happy.” Lush. (and I’ll take as much space writing as I please. So ha!)
Clare says, “That spider is watching me.”
