Day Two- Downtown SF

So, Day Two of my trip to the Bay Area of CA was a great day. I started out by getting up nice and early and driving to Fremont to take the BART(Public Tranportation) to Downtown area. I left Morgan Hill at about 6:45AM. I arrived a bit later than I would have lived and missed the train I was planning on taking but another came fairly soon afterwards and I had no problems getting on that one. It was nice because it was the end of the line of the train station so I had a good pick of places to sit. By the time we were getting closer to Oakland and SF, the train was full with Standing room only. I got off at the Embarcadero and purchased some bus passes and then headed toward the Peir were I was to catch the Light rail to the pier I wanted. (Or at least I THOUGHT I was heading to the Pier. Turns out I was walking Parallel to the Pier. Eventually I found my way there and was frustrated. I got to a platform where the Light Rail was supposed to show up. I waited for about 5-10 min for a train to come. It whizzed right past me. I thgouht perhaps if I went to a platform one ahead of where I was, I could get on. But the problem was another was right on its tail and as I was trying to get on the platform in went by again. Finally after some running, I was able to get on the light rail to get to my pier I wanted.

I started my day by going to the Aquarium of the Bay. This was a nice little Aquarium. It was right on Pier 39. It had a few things inside and then it had an elevator that took you down under the bay and they had two tunnels that were pretty neat with fish and sharks and junk all around.
I really liked this picture of the structure with the Jeremiah O Brian in the middle.
Then after the Aquarium, I visited the Wax Museum. I was not a huge fan of this attraction. I got to see some past presidents though, pretty cool right? hehe.
I went on the Jeremiah O Brian next. This was one of the freedom ships that was in Pearl Harbor in 1944. It was alright, but not an amazing attraction, especially for the $1o that some people were paying.
After that I got my ticket for the Double Decker Skyview Tour of SF in a Motorized-Cable-Car-type. it was pretty fun. I was there at the last minute and so I did not get to be on the top deck, but by the end was happy that I was not, it was very windy by the end and people up top looked incredibly cold. It was fun to see all the sights of the city in one two-hour tour.
Of course we got to visit the Golden Gate Bridge and the park near it. We even had 20 min. to explore there.
Here was a cool church, must be Catholic, right?
Some neat Architecture.
More houses that were built exactly 1 inch apart.
Very cool victorian house that I am sure is worth lots of money.

After the tour, I got some lunch at the Chowder Hut and had a great sourdough bread bowl of Chowder. It was 1pm by the time the tour was done. Then I just walked around after lunch and saw sights and sounds of the city. At 9AM when I first got to the City, there was noone down at the Piers. But, by the time I got back from my 2-hour tour, it was PACKED and I had no breathing room. I had to wait for about an hour for my next, and last attraction- the Bridge to Bridge Cruse.
The Bridge to Bridge cruise went from Pier 43.5 to the Golden Gate Bridge, then turned around and went past Alcatraz and went to the Bay Bridge and then traveled home. This was our Boat we cruised in.
This attraction was certainly my favorite of the day. I guess I saved the best for last. Good view of the City.
A very cool Wind Surfter trying to ride our wake.
Golden Gate Bridge view from underneath.
Alcatraz Island.
Another beautiful city view.

Then, I was done. It was 5 by the time I got back from my cruise and I was pooped. I caught the light rail back to the Embarcadero BART. This also proved a pain because everyone was trying to get home and it was FULL! After some waiting, I made it on one. Walked to the BART- the right way this time, and got on the wrong BART. I was taking the same one that I took to get there so I was going the oposite direction that I wanted to. I realized this after one stop and got off and got right on to the one that I needed to take- to Fremont. I was even able to sit down again, which I didn't think I would because of all the people traveling home.

About mid-day I realized that I had not paid for my parking at Fremont station and was worried I would get a ticket. Luckily, I came back to find that I did not have a ticket at all. I was free. Thank you Lord.

I drove from Fremont back to Morgan Hill, took a quick walk with the pup. Relaxed a bit and then went to my Aunt and Cousin's play rehearsal. That was fun to watch too.

What a long day. More to come later on.

Day One of the Trip

So, my first day of my fun San Francisco/San Jose trip was great. I left at 1:00AM on Wednesday and had no traffic (go figure) until around Redding. It was great because I could take my speed and when I needed to pass a semi truck- those guys were out there- it was super easy and I never had to wait. I traveled all the way down to Roseville, CA to see my grandmother. I got there around 10ish and we worked on some computer stuff. We went out to Lunch with my Great Uncle Bruce and that was great to see him in I don't know how many years. Then we went back to Grandma's place and did some more computer work until I left at 3PM.
Then I traveled to Emeryville, which is North of San Francisco on the East Bay. It is closer to Oakland. The reason for heading to Emeryville was to see Pixar. No, not my dog, he was with me, to see Pixar Animation Company. Pixar (my dog) and I got out and walked around Pixar (the company). We tried to get a tour, but as I read before and expected, they did not allow tours. So we walked around the campus a bit. Sadly, it was very closed off. There were fences up everywhere. We thought we might be able to find a sneaky way to get into the place, but no such luck. I did find a place to take a picture of their courtyard which has a huge replica of the infamous Lamp and Ball. (see photo a few down). While walking around the place, I came across a few people walking into Pixar with keycard swipers and such. As I was walking past I asked one dude if he worked and Pixar and continued to congratulate him on how AWESOME he and his company were. Maybe that's weird, but I am.
I also saw a few other cool buildings while walking around the Pixar area and had to take a pic of the Emeryville Civic Center.
Here is the picture of the large replica of the Lamp and Ball. If you look in the background, those are tables with large umbrellas. (ella, ella)

After my self-guided, can't-see-anything-past-the-gate-tour of Pixar, I got a quick dinner and headed to Morgan Hill to see my Aunt and Uncle. I stayed with them in their guest room most nights and they were so great to allow me to stay there and leave Pixar for a few days. And that pretty much concludes Day One. Stay RSS'd for Day Two.

Agents without a Mission & Naughty Children

So, I just came from Agents on a Mission, and if you take a look at my Blog title, you will infer that I was not that impressed. Ever since I heard this traveling event was coming somewhat close to me, I wanted to go. I was so excited to see Remote Control, Lifesize Cars Characters such as Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, and Fin McMissile. I knew that I just HAD to go to experience it. I planned a whole trip around it, with also adding some time in San Fran for touristy things, and of course seeing family in No Cal Bay Area. It has been a great trip, but the main event that I scheduled these days specifically to come down for, was a dud.

It was open from 10-4. I got there at 11:15ish and there was a line outside. I figured that when we got to the door, then it would speed up. Nope. I got to the door and there was more waiting down a long hallway. Surely, after the long hallways, then we could go walk around the place and see the RC cars going and have some fun. No, more line-waiting. What was the purpose of the line that I waited over an hour for? It was to get a few trinkets, and to take pictures with the three cars, then go home. I was very disappointed.
Also, there was a "grandma" who was not doing a good job of controlling her little 3-year-old-grandson. He was running ALL over the place and not listening to his grandmother when she was asking/telling him to stay with her. I was very annoyed with this. It was obvious that he was doing this running around and disobeying her because he had NO Consequences for his actions. I know that I have no dependents with me, but I would hope that I would have my little one know what is expected and what would happen if he/she did not listen- in this case- go home without seeing the event. I was about ready to talk to this child on my own and slap him around a bit (totally a joke).

Back to the event- I got a cool McQueen Tattoo, a decoder card, a McQueen keychain, and of course the pictures with the Characters. The cool thing about the pictures is that I was given a credit-type card that had a barcode, and a passcode and when they took the picture they scanned the barcode so I can go online and put in my passcode and get pictures and download them. Pretty snazzy. But, was it worth the wait in a huge line just for a few pictures? No, I will answer that emphatically, NO!! Was it worth planning a trip to Cali around it this event? Again, NO! As my cousin said when she heard my story- At least I didn't have to drive to San Francisco to see it (because that was originally where it was planned to be.) It was but a few quick detours to get from where I was already at a Bday party to the Tech museum where it was located.

Eventually, sadly, the lady in front of my with the obnoxious little three-year-old got to the front of the line where they were about to take pictures and the boy was so DONE that they waited ALL that time, and right before it was their turn, they must have left, because we could not find her. What a let-down it must have been for them to wait all that time and not actually get to the final event.  But, on the other hand, if it was my and my child was acting like that, we would not have gotten that far, we would have left about half an hour to 45 min. earlier because of the attitude and disregard for instructions.

BUT, after all that, I am STILL looking forward to Pixar- Cars 2. So excited to see my Friends Lightning, Mater, and meet some new friends.

More on my trip with pics in the future posts.

"Christian" -vs- Pastafanarian

Isn't it sad how some "Christian" representatives can ruin things for us. When some people think of Christians, they may think of unforgiving, gay-hating, restrictive, uptight, conservative, closed-minded, droids who want to condemn them. They perhaps might think about a man recently featured in KTVZ (Local News Station in Central Oregon) who said on camera
"But the bottom line is that God is the one that's going to get revenge -- we aren't."

This was an on-camera interview after some vandalism at two local churches. I was annoyed by this because talking of revenge is NOT a way of spreading the LOVE of God. The interview was taken after some vandals went to the Christian Life Center and Westside Church and tagged the churches with crude sayings and talk of the FSM- Flying Spaghetti Monster and Pastafarianism-the parody religion of atheism.
But even with inappropriate behavior such as tagging and vandalism, should any of us "Christians" go on an interview and say that God will get revenge? What should our response be? Should we be angry? Upset? Forgiving?

I know one thing- the comments on that website posting were not very positive of my beleifs. Many were upset, (like me) about the Revenge comment. Others just thought it was funny as heck to have FSM.

Another post a day or so later was one of a more positive note. The expected cost of repairs was around $30,000. A member of the Pastafanarianism non-"Religion" heard about this act that happened and set up a fund to help with the cost of repairs. This is very cool, I think. This member wanted to show that not all people of their "Religion" were extreme like that. In light of that story as well as the story from my own beliefs, I was more proud of the later story. To me, it is sad that the Pastafanarian showed more compassion than someone who should have Everlasting Joy from the Giver of Life!

Tamolich (Bucket) Pool

I got the chance to go on another hike today. Pixar has such a blast when I am able to let him off his leash and he can run free.

I was debating whether I should stay fairly local or go around the mountains to do my hike and I am glad I took the extra time to go to Highway 126 toward Eugene and the McKenzie River Trail to Tamolich Pool. It was totally worth it to take the hour drive to get there to hike this great trail.

It starts out in Old Growth Forrest and the trail is very simple to follow; it's well-marked. This part of the trip was one of my favorites because in Old Growth Forrests the trees are huge and shade you well. It started out higher but soon went close to the level of the raging McKenzie River. Most of the way, you can see the river through the trees. There was many downed trees along this starting path but all were cleared out of our path. This trail was very twisted. I found it hard to keep my eye on Pixar because he would get ahead of me and the trail would twist so i could not see him.

About halfway there (after 1.1 miles) the trail starts to climb a bit, not a lot, but it becomes more difficult to keep a good footing because of lots of little rocks and roots in the way to trip on. I especially had a hard time because Pixar was pulling on his leash, when he was on it, and kept pulling me down the valleys of the trail and it was hard to keep my pacing and my footing with him pulling my down the hills to go faster.

After another mile or so, you get to the Tamolich Pool, way above the level of the water. This makes for a nice picture, but not nice if you were thinking you might be able to go to the water's edge and dip your feet in or whatnot. One thing that is AMAZING about the Tamolich Pool is the water clarity. It was the bluest I have ever seen, (Granted, I have not been to Hawaii, and I have heard they have amazing blue water) and you can see every single rock in the bottom. I would have loved to dive into the pool from my position at the top of my lookout.

It was a great hike, at 4.2 miles round-trip and only 200 feet elevation gain, it is a great easy hike. I highly recommend the hike to you.

Gotta Hike

This morning I knew that since I did not have a substitute job I HAD to go for a hike and take advantage of this gorgeous day that God gave us.

I looked through my hike book and knew that I did not want to drive too far for it, and also not go on a hugely strenuous hike. No South Sister hiking for me. I found Benham Falls to be perfect.




Pixar and I got stuff ready and headed out around 9ish to head toward Lava Butte and Benham. It was a great day for this.  We started at the Picnic area and walked to the Veiwing Area. After that we started down to the Slouth hiking trail. There was no one in our way the whole way out to where we stopped. We saw no other hiker/bikers. But, then on the way back we saw a few parties heading the other way.

Pixar did really well with this hike. He pulled like crazy because of being so excited at first, but after we got to where no one was, I let him free and he ran and ran and ran. He would occasionally look back to make sure that I was still on the trail, especially at trail splits. He might go off on the wrong trail and then look back and make sure he was still going the right way. It was so cute.


At one point I knew he would look back and so I froze and hid from him and he was looking around for me for a bit, then I started walking again, he saw me and ran to where I was. Its fun to trick my pup.

Afterwards, he was tired. When we got back to the car, there were many groups just getting out and getting ready for their hike. I was glad that I went nice and early. Close to the start of the hike is a device that is a person-cable-tether-device that goes from one side of the river to the other. It is marked clearly "Please, keep off" but as I was driving out, there were some high schoolers on the device. It makes me upset when people don't follow directions/rules.


I thought about what I would do if I was hiking with youngsters. What would they think? What would I say? I might stop and ask the kids I was with if they could read the sign and when they read- "Please keep off" I would discuss with them loud enough that we need to follow directions/rules and stay off things like that.
Also, I found that many people do not pay the fee to park there. I enjoy getting the one-year pass that covers me, but others just park and start walking. That makes me upset as well.


I hope that if you go to a hiking trail that asks you to pay a fee to use the trail that you do.