Lincoln, California, October 16, 2009

We’re Home!!!

We woke up Friday morning to a cool 45 degrees in Mammoth Lakes, CA. I wanted to go see Devil’s Post pile so we packed up Bart and headed out. We got to the Mammoth Lakes Ski Resort where there were millions of annoying kids with skis and snowboards parking, walking and milling about. Bc and I wondered if they weren’t supposed to be in school! Harrumph! We are getting old! In any case, you can’t get to Devil’s Post pile as the road is closed due to snow. Sure wish we’d known that before we drove up there. Oh well.





However, the Devils’ Post pile jaunt provided us with a nice scenic shortcut back to Hwy 395 to Yosemite. We drove through Yosemite and once again, the sights are so beautiful that we made a smilebox for you. At one point in Yosemite the elevation was over 9500 feet. The weather was perfect, we had Andrea Bocelli serenading us on the IPod and we had each other. Nice. (see the Yosemite pictures in the smilebox below)







We drove all the way through Yosemite coming out the west side. We drove Hwy 120 going through Buck Meadows, Groveland, Chinese Camp and Copperopolis. We took Hwy 4 to Hwy 49, through the old gold rush towns of Angel’s Camp, San Andreas, Mokelumne Hill, Jackson, Sutter Creek and Dry Town.





Here’s a picture of downtown Sacramento going west on Hwy 50. Welcome(?) home!



We arrived home at 5:10pm having driven 8,530 miles in 40 days. Wow! What an adventure! We unloaded Bart,



sat in our comfy chairs, had a drink and marveled at what we had seen, where we had been and all the wonderful people we had visited with. We are truly blessed to have friends and family who made our trip a lifetime adventure. Thank you to all of you who put us up and put up with us! We love you and will cherish the memories. And, amazingly enough we are still friends, lovers and soul mates.



“You're still the one that makes me laugh
Still the one that's my better half
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

You're still the one that makes me strong
Still the one I want to take along
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

Changing, our love is going gold
Even though we grow old, it grows new”

Orleans

Here’s the finalized travel quilt. Thank you to everyone for your signatures, notes and wishes to complete our trip memories.



Here are a few end-of-travels thoughts:

• Cruise control is awesome except when hydroplaning through a Texas rainstorm.

• Bugs must be removed from Bart via hand waxing.

• All high speed Internet is NOT created equal.

• Not all “queen” sized beds are…..

• We wish we had purchased a year pass for the National Parks system.

• You can’t see everything you want in 6 weeks.

• Most Americans don’t pay attention to Hollywood or Washington DC. They are just living, loving and getting through each day with their loved ones just like us.

• Most of the United States is unpopulated which may account in some way for its beauty.

• BC: “but not again by driving a motor vehicle.” Fly and drive is nice.

• Natural resources abound, as do corn and soybeans.

• There is great poverty in much of the rural US yet the people still smile and get by, day to day, somehow...

• We saw large numbers of people who will never be able to afford health insurance…..I don’t have a good solution for them. BC

• If you ever think the problems of this country and our population are out of control and insurmountable, get out a take a drive for a few weeks and realize the strength of our nation and resources and be grateful for all those who support and defend its freedom.

• We thank you for joining us. We looked forward to your comments on our blog and you made our trip that much more fun!

• We have seen a great part of “AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL” and may God bless her!

Take care and Thank you!!! Bc and Gc.

Foot(e)note: On a somewhat sad note, we did not find the Big Ball of Yarn and are beginning to suspect it may be co-located with the Sasquatch and winning lottery ticket for which millions have similarly searched and none have found.

Yosemite

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Mammoth Lakes, October 15, 2009

We left Kate’s house this morning around 10:30am wearing summer clothes again. (85 degrees). I hated to leave, but we must press on to find the BBOY. Last night our storage facility called to say the N. Cal. storm flooded our storage unit and we needed to come right now and open it to check for damage and to dry things out. Hmmm, that's a problem we're a long ways away. Short story, we found out this AM our unit did NOT get flooded. Whew!!

Bc came down with some sort of galloping crud. He has a snittery nose. But he is feeling better today after his scotch medicine last night.

Bc drove through So Cal to Hwy 395 which is boring at first, but beautiful at last. While watching all the traffic maze and people the Eagle’s song came on “Life in the fast lane, surely make you lose your mind. Everything, all the time.” If that doesn’t describe So Cal, I don’t know what does. Crazy!





We passed through Adelante which had a parking lot and no buildings. But, the porto potty and trash bin were tagged. Thank goodness we know which gang owns those!



As we passed through the cutoffs for Ridgecrest, California City and Edwards Air Force Base I thought of my brother, Buddy. (Howard). He used to fly his glider out there. He still holds the youth altitude record for California. 34,000 feet. Yup, glider, no engine, up there really high….

We passed through 4 corners. Here’s a picture of the sign offering exceptional coffee. Let’s hope their coffee is better than their spelling.



We saw the Carroll Market. We passed Manzanar which housed 110,000 Japanese during WWII.





We passed by a place with hundreds of acres of solar panels, the Mojave Desert on the right and the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sorry we didn't get better pix but it was huge.





At 3:12pm today we turned our map to the page we started at on September 7th. “Wherever you go, there you are.”

The scenery here is beautiful. So much nicer than the Mojave Desert! We have seen all sorts of weather, including snow today. Here’s Bart with the snow.









When I was a teenager we used to go camping at Mammoth Lakes. I hated it. 26 foot trailer, 5 of us, nothing to do except fish, no bathroom and of course, the whole being 13-15 years old thing going on. Now that I think about it, it must have been 10 times worse for my mom. Think about all that and having to do cooking, laundry and whatever else for the 5 of us. Not my idea of a vacation. Maybe that’s why mom likes cruises now! (She’s in Turkey as we blog.)

It is now 48 degrees, going down to 36 degrees, which means we need to change to the “cold weather” clothes before we go to dinner.

No BBOY, but we are still looking! Take care, bc and gc.

Corona, California, October 14, 2009
Fullerton, California, October 13, 2009

Happy Anniversary, Mike and Jenn!

Monday night we had dinner with my brother Howard Foote, his girlfriend Monica Rose and their daughter, Morgan. Morgan is too cute! Buddy, (that’s what we call him) had just returned from China the evening before. Buddy works with JPL, NASA and the Chinese government to install very small solar chips for energy. I hadn’t seen Buddy, Monica and Morgan in several years, so this was a treat for me. Morgan was such a good kid, being very patient with the grownup conversation.





We left Indio in beautiful weather, but as we got closer to the mountains, the storms coming into CA were packed up against the mountains and were an incredible sight. Shortly after we left the desert windmills the clouds closed in.







I drove from Indio to Fullerton, which was quite a journey! The traffic in So Cal is horrible. I don’t know how people deal with it.



We met Andy at his office and went to lunch. Nice. Later that day we went to a seminar Andy (excuse me, Andrew!) was putting on. It was called “5 reasons small businesses fail”. We are so proud of him.



We spent the night at Andy and Zina’s place in Fullerton. Zina made a really good split pea soup. They have the cutest dog, Dakota. We enjoyed sitting around, chatting, getting caught up….





It rained all night long. I haven’t heard rain like that in a long time. It’s nice.

We spent the morning at Andy and Zina’s then drove to Kate’s in Corona. It is still cloudy, but the major rain is over.

We went to lunch and the grocery store and here we are relaxing at Kate’s. Kate has a very large dog, Max! He’s cute but very rambunctious! Yikes! Kate’s boyfriend Jeff, will be home soon and we will have chili and another nice evening of catching up with our kids.





It is so good to see the kids. I miss them so much.

We will be making the last few days of our trip north to Lincoln tomorrow. Maybe we will find the BBOY in our own backyard! Oh well. I guess it’s the journey not the ending point!

Take care, bc and gc

Indio, California, October 12, 2009
Columbus Day

We left Yuma, AZ this morning and drove onto I8. While crossing the overpass we crossed into CA! That was rather anticlimactic. We barely got a picture of the “welcome to CA” sign.



Yuma, AZ is very close to the Mexican-US border. Here is a picture of the “border”. We were greeted by 3 different border patrol stops this morning. I guess they are really glad to see us! Gas is over $3.20 a gallon again. We sure miss the lower gas prices in the other 49 states!









Bart said he would not be going into Mexico as he is not insured there. Geico will be happy to know this.

There were lots of big rocks, then sand and sand and sand.









We stopped at the Salton Sea Marina. It was really sad. I thought we could go to the marina, sit by the window and order a gin and tonic and a crab cocktail. Nope. So we had cheez-its and bison jerky.













My phone did some sort of weird thing with AT&T assigning me to a Mexican cell tower, and then once we were further north into CA, I had no cell service at all. After sitting at a truck stop chatting with AT&T, I was told that my sim card was not updating. (bc’s phone worked perfectly, but didn’t receive the “free” text message from AT&T outlining Mexican cell charges.) So, we went to AT&T in La Quinta only to notice that my phone finally did work!

On the way to La Quinta we passed through Westmorland which was advertising its Honey Festival in November. I’m sorry we will miss it. But I’m sure there will be lots of local honey there, wouldn’t you say DDM? (Inside joke.)



We did not turn right to go to Mecca.



We are in our room here in Indio. Did you know that Indio is the “City of Festivals”? There is a big storm brewing here in So Cal. It seems odd that we packed all those cold weather clothes across the country and back to only need them in So Cal. Well, at least we have them!

Hope all is well with you. Love, bc and gc