Beachcombing, March 22-24

Patrick's Point State Beach in California and Harris Beach State Park in Oregon. Beautiful coastline, awesome tidal pools.

San Francisco!

We drove to our park by way of the Golden Gate Bridge. The next day we all took the ferry into Fisherman's Wharf, getting a great view of the city.

At Pier 39 we watched the sea lions lounging, fighting and swimming around the wharves.
We watched San Francisco bread being made, ate chowder out of bread bowls, rode the cable cars hanging off the outside of them, bought candy, drank Irish coffees and walked around China Town.

Elephant Seals at Ano Neuvo, California

With our New Zealand friends we enjoyed a great afternoon on a ranger-led walk to see the elephant seals. What a great experience! We got very close to these wonderful creatures as they lazed in the sun. Most of the mothers had already left their giant 2-3 month old babies, going back out to sea. The big babies still called for their moms making the girls and I go 'awww!' The babies are about 75 lbs when born and grow to 250-300lbs by the time they're 3 months old. A few males still hung around in the hopes they may still get a date. Apparently the males are much smaller than they were in January, before they had all their fighting over the ladies.

Monteray Bay Aquarium and Turkeys.

This aquarium was awesome! We had a great time here, even seeing wild seals and otters in the bay off the aquarium balcony. We got to watch otters being fed, saw microscopic sea life on a big screen, attended a talk on jelly fish, and loved the touch tanks.

The turkeys? They were wild and were in our campsite at Coyote Lake county park. Very entertaining birds, even giving our girls an 'education'. Yikes.

Sequoia National Park, California

On March 13 we had a beautiful and difficult drive 7000 feet up into the mountains and were rewarded with the giant trees. I was here as a kid but the roads were too slippery then and we never made it to the General Sherman, the largest living tree in the world. Thanks to Kevin's expert driving I finally got to see it! The girls loved the snow that was over our heads in some spots.

The General Sherman is 275 feet tall and is 103 feet around at the base, we could park our motorhome inside it. It is estimated to be 2,200 years old and grows enough new wood every year to make a 60 foot tall tree. One tree species lives longer, one is wider, and three grow taller including the redwood, but the sequoia is the largest in volume of total wood. Impressive!

The Pacific Ocean March 8-10

We travelled to the coast with our New Zealanders and put our feet in the Pacific ocean. It felt like a victory for all of us, making it across the continent from one ocean to another.
The next day our friends went off to see the sights in San Diego while we worked our way up the coast We found a beautiful beach to park on and watched dolphins and seals just off our beach.

California! March 6-8

Finally we've reached the west coast.
We spent our first 2 nights in California with our New Zealand friends camping in the desert. We had so much fun here, the kids could run and be as noisy as they liked, and so could we! We set of fire crackers and watched the dune buggys and dirt bikes race around (from a distance). The stars at night were awesome.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, March 4-6

We spent a few days near Tucson hanging with our New Zealanders. BBQ-ing, watching movies, and I got my hair cut by Kelly. She's good. Thanks for making me look so fashionable Kelly!

Then we took a trip to southern Arizona to Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. We took a guided van tour of the beautiful Sonoran desert, into the Ajo mountain range. This is one of the few places in the US where you can find the organ pipe cactuses, although they are common in Mexio.

March 2

Yay, the cast comes off!
Kyra was pretty freaked about having the pins pulled out, but it didn't bother her much at all. Surprising, because they were long, as you can see, and the doctor grabbed the end of each one with pliers and yanked them out. Yikes! The xrays show that all healed well.

Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Feb. 28

A walk at Dead Horse Ranch state park
The moon and Venus hanging out together

Walnut Canyon

Back to the Sinagua people again. This time they've built dwellings into the cliff caves of this canyon. The walk to them takes you on a treacherous and beautiful trail around the cliffs to the dwellings. The people lived here about 800 years ago and only for 100 years. We wondered if their short stay had something to do with the treacherous drop-offs at their doorsteps. It was a fun walk and we got to go right into the caves where the ceilings are stained black with their fires, making history fun!

Meteor Crater, east of Flagstaff, AZ

This is so cool. I remember going here when I was a kid.

50 000 years ago a meteor the size of the parking lot our bus is parked in sped at 18 miles/second and crashed into the earth creating this hole behind the girls. You can fit 20 football fields in it while millions of fans watch the games from it's slopes. Or, for those of you who know it, you could plunk Blomidon into it. It's nearly a mile across, and 550 feet deep. It's 2.4 miles around (translate to metric on your own!). Eugene Shoemaker (of the Shoemaker-Levy comet) did the research that confirmed the crater is the result of meteor impact and not from volcanic activity. He also trained the astronauts here in geology. His ashes are on the moon.

The Grand Canyon

29km wide, 1.6km deep, and 446 km of river.
We spent a beautiful day driving the south rim of the canyon. The girls loved the view but may have been more interested in the patches of snow.

Montezuma Castle

In the 1100s the Sinagua (spanish for 'without water') people built this five story, 20 room castle into the cliff, 100 feet above the valley. Cool! They abandoned the area in the 1400s and no one knows why.

Some other visitors spotted this life and death struggle in the bushes at Montezuma. It seemed to us this little garter snake made a mistake. We got tired of watching after about 15 minutes. Now we wonder who won.

Cactus

A giant saguaro.
A chain fruit chollo cactus.
We're learning so much!

East of Phoenix, Feb. 09

We headed east of Phoenix on our own for the rest of the week, camping in some beautiful places and finding some snow in the mountains, something the girls miss.

And, here's a happy horse!

Thank you for all your 'get well soons' to Kyra! All the attention helps.

When Kyra got out of the hospital we drove just north of Phoenix where our New Zealand friends were waiting. They had made a get well cake for Kyra and had a little party for her. Kyra was feeling pretty good, they have some awesome pain killers here in the USA!