Vacation photos.

Here are pictures from our vacation in California. Seth and I drove the 101 down to visit friends who live in LA (Rancho Cucamonga specifically, but it all seems to run together down there. My picture taking was a little sporadic. Many more pictures were taken of the trip down than the trip up and some activities escaped picture taking completely. For instance, on Friday we went to the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum, and due to the extremely fragile nature of the scrolls (yes, the real things were on display) no cameras or cell phones were allowed in the room. So much as I would like to share the experience of viewing 2000 year old relics that confirm the Old Testament Scriptures (note, these are not the Gnostic gospels. Those were found in Egypt, not by the Dead Sea. The exhibit said so.), I have no pictures of it.

However I did get pictures of historic 101, literally. The road was so curvy that I had to take a picture because I knew I would be telling my kids about it some day. Seth laughed at me for watching the road through our viewfinder, hoping to find a section of road that showed just how curvy the road was (actually, I got a little sick in the process. Have you ever had the whole world rushing up at you?), but I think it was worth it.

We drove down through Oregon on the first day and stopped at Depoe Bay for dinner around 7:00 (late start, Seth had to work until noon). We ate at the Sea Hag and took a walk to the smallest harbor in the U.S (or maybe the world, I don't remember). This is a picture ou Seth outside said harbor. It really is tiny. I kept looking for the rest of it, but there wasn't any more.

We also stopped at Historic Hughes house in Port Orford, OR, just above the OR/CA border. This house was built in 1898 by Irish immigrants who had quite the dairy and shipping industry around the turn of the century (Alicia, you might be related.) The size of the house was impressive for the day, not to mention the fact that most of the windows, stoves, ceilings, etc were original, and that three generations lived in it at once. I got a teapot there, and Seth made me get the matching cup and saucer as well.

We crossed the California border about halfway through our second day and camped among the majestic redwoods. The whole drive was nothing but redwoods, spectacular ocean views, and your odd seaside community. By odd seaside community, I mean both picturesque little towns that pass so quickly you can't get a good picture of them and monotonous little "developed communities" for people who want oceanside property and don't care whether it's pretty or not. We stopped at the Chandelier drive through tree (below) and just barely made it through. I think cars have gotten bigger since they cut that whole in the tree. But the tree itself is awesomely huge. If you look very closely at the picture, you can see the person in the white sweatshirt at the bottom of it. That's how big it is.

When we got to Carol and Alan's ( I didn't think to take pictures of their house), we took a much needed break for an afternoon. Then we decided to take in Southern California. Now, note to would-be tourists. Everything in Pasadena is closed on Tuesday: the museums, the special events, everything. Most of their tourist attractions open on Wednesday. We still had an enjoyable time wandering around and taking pictures of the picturesque old buildings.

This is us trying to find our way around with an internet self-guided tour.

City hall.

There are a lot of churches in Pasadena.

One of the aforementioned closed museums.

We finished up Tuesday with a couple games of bowling in which I scored my highest score ever: 83. I seemed to jinx everyone else though because Alan says that he hasn't bowled that poorly (120+) in years. Still, we had a lot of fun, as evidenced by Seth's expression to the right.

Wednesday, we went to Laguna Beach (yes, The Laguna Beach) and jumped in the waves and built sandcastles and did all the things that people who haven't been to the beach in a long time do. We didn't get any pictures of wave jumping because we were all in the water. But here are our sandcastle pictures. (The good thing about being the designated picture taker is that noone gets a picture of you sunbathing).

Thursday, we hung around the house and did stuff that we'd been wanting to do for a while, like bake cookies, or play hours of computer games. I really should have gotten a picture of the guys, each on opposite couches with their laptops, completely absorbed, but I was rather sticky, and the eggs wouldn't stay beaten (very important for Carol's cake recipe). We rounded off the afternoon with Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (good movie, good ending). And Friday, we went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. We were going to take in the zoo as well, but we ran out of time.

I only took two pictures on the way up the I-5 (we had a deadline getting back. Don't ever take the 101 if you have a deadline. You won't get there on time.) This is Mt. Shasta, and it sits in some of the most beautiful country I have seen. On the right is Lake Shasta, which seems to go forever because it goes in five different directions at once.

We made it home around 6:30 on Sunday evening, and boy, were we tired. Seth had a sunburn (he's still peeling), and I am a lot more freckled than I was (yea, sunscreen). I was the only one who didn't get burned. It was a good vacation.