Tom Dually on the Golden Gate Bridge

 

Finally!  We're in San Francisco! 
  We went to Marin for lunch with Giano and Georgia on a beautiful day to cross the bridge.  Notice how we  had to use the wide lane - and that was just with the truck.  Homer is  settled in an RV Park in South San Francisco, but it's as close as we can get. There used to be a park smack in the city but the ball park is there now, which is quite an improvement.
Today's project is to help Marco (and a crew of kindly volunteers) inflate 4,000 balloons so the people
can enjoy their celebration in fancy style.

May your New Year be filled with health and happiness.

Bakersfield to Monterey

We chose to cut across from 5 to 101 on 46.  (Sounds like a math formula, doesn't it?)
We saw orchards,

oil fields,

the intersection where on September 30, 1955 James Dean's
 Porsche 550 Spyder collided with another car at the junction of Route 466 {now 46} and Route 41,  

lush green hills,

acres of dormant vineyards,

and the full moon rising over Monterey Fisherman's Wharf.
We met cousins Jeanne and Rich for dinner and will mosey up to San Francisco tomorrow.

Part Two

I was a little bit sorry to leave the Escondido RV Resort because it was filled with these beauties.
And I was very reluctant to leave Jackie but there will be more opportunities for future fun.

Does a vague rainbow have as much magic as one with all its finery? 
This is just about at the peak of the Grapevine on Highway 5.  Or "the 5" as they say in SoCal.

Now we're in Bakersfield for the night and I'm all atwitter with the excitement of being in San Francisco on Saturday.  I hope I can sleep.
The train that roars nearby might also be a contributing factor.

And to All a Good Night

Christmas Eve at Vintana in Escondido.  It's a wonderful restaurant built above the Lexus dealership.  Interesting concept, isn't it?  It might have been Al's second Jameson that made us a little blurry.
Or maybe it was the earlier experience of finding a dentist just down the road a piece who was willing to open his office on a holiday just to glue on my crown that popped off on Saturday night.
Al wanted to use Liquid Nails and save a few bucks. 

Jackie and Rob enjoying the view from their front yard.
We had a frenzy of eating for more than a week and now some of us are nearly as roly-poly as Santa.  I'll diet tomorrow.

Laguna

Yesterday Rob and Jackie took us on an little adventure to frolic in Laguna Beach. 
You can see what a pleasant day it was.  Not to mention the lunch, S'Mores bar, Butter Brickle bar, ice cream, and dinner.  But we skipped dessert, so that makes it okay, right?
I should have walked back to Escondido to burn off all those calories.

 

 

 

Yuma

Saturday we drove from Casa Grande to Yuma, which could be considered a mite boring.
 but we saw:  cotton fields, 

mountains and cactus,

citrus groves,

amazing desert plants.  This one is in the RV park,
which we'll be leaving in a few hours, heading to Escondido for Christmas.
I hope Santa has been reading the blog so he can find us.  

Remember the Alamo

Originally named Mission San Antonio de Valero, the Alamo served as home to
missionaries and their Indian converts for nearly seventy years.  In the early 1800s, the Spanish military stationed a cavalry unit at the former mission and the story of 13 fateful days in 1865 is known to every school child since then. 

The live oak in the courtyard is 140 years old. 

Everything in Texas is big.

Could this be how Davy killed him a bear when he was only three?

 

There is a beautiful Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio runs for about five miles , looping under bridges, lined with shops, restaurants, shops, hotels, theaters and more.

Thousands of sparkly lights twinkle through it all of December.
Do you think the nearly two hundred men, plus several women,
children and servants
 would be pleased,

Hometown Christmas

Welcome to Texas!
We're  at the Escapees RV Park in Livingston, TX, our official "home" and last night went to the Hometown Christmas celebration, complete with craft fair and lighted parade.  Brightly-lit floats, lots of Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, cheerleaders, a marching band and fun for all.

 

 

 

 

 

Whining

Now we are in League City, Texas, where we arrived on Sunday with the intention of visiting the Space Center.  A nasty cold attacked me on Saturday and Al joined the party on Sunday afternoon (at least he didn't begin to feel crappy until we were unhooked and settled) so we're just staying in to have chicken soup, popsicles, and feel sorry for ourselves.
  Like the pharmacist says "A cold is a week and a half with medication, ten days without."
So we'll soon be out of the doldrums and ready for more fun. 

In the meantime, here are some more shots from the European adventure.  Above is a sculpture we spotted in Berlin, made from ordinary clothespins.  Below is wire coat hangers, probably collected from the closet of Joan Fontaine. 

 

In the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens), Berlin's premier department store.

The Berlin Wall Memorial.

The Brandenburg Gate

A section of the wall that is still standing as a constant reminder of what the world
was like from August 1961  until November 9, 1989.
Kind of puts the common cold in perspective, doesn't it?

Rice is nice

Yesterday we went to a super burger place where I had a beer-batter deep-fried burger.  The sound of my arteries clogging nearly brought the paramedics.  Even I could only eat half of it, but what a concept.  The South is big on deer-fried pickles, too.

Robert's friend took us on a tour of the local rice mill, where we learned how it gets from the field to the market.  Machinery is miraculous, but there are still many jobs that require the 100 employees.

A guy loads the bag into the hopper thing, where it is filled and this machine sews it closed so it can be loaded on the trucks.   No need to fear if you're driving down the road next to a full load, because they first spray the bag with a little bit of clue so they stick together during transport.

Yes, a person laboriously picks out the good grains from the not-so-good grains.
  Just a representative sample from each load, then machines do the big job with teeny
bursts of air and lots of separating screens.

There's a whole lot of shakin' going' on.

See how it gets whiter with each pass through the machinery?

Robbie 'splained it to us very enthusiastically.  We're all so much smarter now.