San Francisco on Jul 4-8

We enjoyed 5 excellent and busy days in San Francisco!

July 4 - see some sights; enjoy Independence Day festivities downtown including fireworks at Pier 39

July 5 - drive south on peninsula to Santa Cruz; dinner with Brad & Carole in Foster City

July 6 - visit the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom amusement park

July 7 - ride San Francisco cable cars; visit the cable car museum; walk through Chinatown and downtown; visit SF Museum of Modern Art

Wed Jul 8 - San Francisco harbour tour; visit California Academy of Science museum; visit Exploratorium museum

Here are the links to the photos for those days.


http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090704?authkey=Gv1sRgCKnR6ryfv56hWA

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090705?authkey=Gv1sRgCJGzxsjq89qTjwE

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090706?authkey=Gv1sRgCJu29OfR0fOxaw

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090707?authkey=Gv1sRgCIbU4pzF_q6sMg

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090708?authkey=Gv1sRgCJX00NmS-s-dqwE#

Heading to San Francisco - Jul 2 and 3

We travelled from Florence, OR to Arcata, CA on July 2. Arcata is near Eureka in northern California. On July 3 we reached San Francisco.

On the way we saw some really beautiful coastlines and forests. We saw the famous "drive thru" tree in Leggett, which Ann visited with her family as a youth.

The impression one gets of southern Oregon and northern California is that it's economy is quite depressed.


Here are links to some photos for the two days:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090702?authkey=Gv1sRgCKv00ZPQlPvEhQE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090703?authkey=Gv1sRgCKOqw_WSpaWkjQE#

Around Florence, OR, on Jun 30 and Jul 1

We arrived in Florence on Monday night. The weather was cool, after being pretty warm along I-5. It started to cool after turning west at Eugene.

On Tuesday we rested a bit and did some grocery shopping at the Fred Meyer (it's huge). Of course we had to check out the dunes blowing into the back of the Fred Meyer parking lot.

We drove south a bit to check out the dune riding opportunities, but didn't take any rides that day.

We tried to go the beach near the dunes, but it was so windy that the sand was stinging our faces, so we didn't make it down to the beach. We ate in Old Town Florence that night.

On Wednesday morning Mark, Callum and Lara went dune riding on ATV's at Sand Dunes Frontier along Route 101, about 4 miles south of Florence. Callum and I took out a 250cc 4-wheel ATV and Lara rode a 90cc 4-wheel ATV. We were out for 1 hour. It was a lot of fun. I didn't take a camera along, so only have photos of the ATV's parked in the lot. We each got stuck in the sand a few times, so Mark got some exercise lifting the ATV's out of the holes dug in the sand. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Not as windy as the previous day.

Ann walked through Florence that morning checking out the shops.

On Wednesday afternoon we all took a drive north of Florence along the coast as far as Waldport. Really nice scenery and viewpoints. We ate in Old Town Florence again that night.

Here are links to some photos.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090630?authkey=Gv1sRgCJPY2OTsvvSh3gE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090701?authkey=Gv1sRgCP7tzLjBlL60eg#

From Olympia, WA to Florence, OR on Jun 29

We left Olympia after breakfast, heading for the dunes in Florence, Oregon. Straight down I-5, but we stopped in Portland to visit R.E.I. I had to replace my hat!!! R.E.I. is the American equivalent of M.E.C. You can spend a long time looking around at all the stuff.

We bought Callum a hat there, too. Also picked up him up some swimming goggles and a waterproof bag to protect my camera when around the sand dunes. We had lunch in downtown Portland at a Mexican restaurant and headed out again.

We stopped at a couple of shopping centers along I-5 trying to find clip-on sunglasses for Ann, since hers broke, but had no luck.

Traffic wasn't too bad all the way to Eugene, OR, where we left I-5 and heading west for the coast. It was quite busy on the highway until we got a ways from Eugene. Then it was an easy drive through the forested (and some mohawked) hills.

It was interesting to see wood lots full of logs at mills along I-5 on the drive down. There have been a lot of saw mills and pulp mills close in BC over the last 5 years due to lack of raw lumber. Some BC logs end up at saw mills in Washington and Oregon instead. We did see some closed mills along the highway from Eugene to Florence.

Ate some delicious sea food at the "International C-Food Market". The owner met us on the sidewalk and promoted all his food. We had ate there three years ago and so knew we were getting a good meal.

Lara's Notes
After that good dinner Callum and I went for a swim at the hotel pool. It was nice, but, the heated part wasn't included. Even not going in the hot tub before going in, it wasn't the hottest pool. not only that, but the depth. It was 3 feet on each end and 4 feet in the middle. I wanted it to be a little deeper (maybe 3 feet until the middle and then 4 feet near the end), but at least I could touch! I also liked the hot tub, hot, but relaxing.

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Here's a link to some photos from the day

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090629?authkey=Gv1sRgCLPcj7GVvtmlDg#

Ready to go Sun Aug 28 - trip to Oregon and San Franciso

Here we are, in line at the Sidney, BC, ferry terminal for the 11:20 AM Washington State ferry to Anacortes, WA.

A funny thing happened to me on the ferry. On my first step outside to take pictures, my Tilly hat blew off my head and right into the water beside the ferry!!! Bummer, I lost my hat!

We had an otherwise good ferry trip and landed at Anacortes at 1:30PM. We ate lunch in Anacortes at a brew pub. Mark had a tasty Vienna lager. We picked up a basket of Washington state cherries at a stand after lunch.

Then we drove to Olympia, WA, where we spent the night at Phoenix Inn Suites.

We had a nice dinner at the Bamboo Restaurant.

Here are some more photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mark.Jeffrey.McIntosh/BlogOregonSanFrancisco20090628?authkey=Gv1sRgCPvXy8D_x5v4-AE#

Saw The Brave One on Blu-Ray last weekend. I liked it.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0476964/

Watched the movie Gone Baby Gone. Really good performances. The story really isn't as sad as the trailers might lead you to believe. It is disturbing at times, but the ending is a surprise. It will make you think!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452623/