San Francisco - 2005
12/5/2005 to 12/29/2005
Click Photo Album for additional photos from this trip.
Click here for a printable version of this document (a large .pdf file).
Click here for a simple printable version without pictures.
Several months ago, we decided that it would be nice to spend the Christmas concert season in San Francisco. At that time, we started checking the concert schedules of the various choral groups in the Bay Area, to see how many we could attend in a week or so. It turns out that during the ten day period Dec. 9 to 18 we should be able to attend concerts by 8 different choirs of good quality. The trip out and back in our motorhome will be rather rushed. Helen has an important meeting to attend in Denver the morning of Dec 5. So we couldn't get on the road until early afternoon that day. We have guests arriving in Denver Dec 25, so we'll also have to hurry back.
Monday, 12/5: We rather nervously got underway at 1 pm after checking road and weather conditions. It's been snowing in the mountains for several days. Today, a small but intense winter storm is moving south through Wyoming, preceded by very high wind. The weather station at our house has been recording 65 mph gusts, and the forecasts are for 90 mph gusts at higher elevations west of us.
Helen got back from her meeting around noon and reported that a large truck/semi-trailer had apparently blown over and was laying on its side in the ditch on US-6, less than a mile from our house, but that the wind seemed to be much less in central Denver, away from the foothills. All the passes through the central Rockies are either closed or require chains (which we don't have). This leaves only two routes open. We can head south, down to I-40, adding hundreds of miles to the trip; or we can head north to I-80 in Wyoming. This latter route has no high passes, and the Interstate is reported as mostly clear and dry with only a few icy spots. But currently, the winds are fierce, and I-25 and I-80 in Wyoming are closed to trailers and high-profile vehicles (which we presume means us - our motorhome is almost 12 feet high.) But the storm front is moving south. We decide to gamble that by the time we get to the Wyoming border the winds will have moderated and the restrictions lifted. If not, we'll probably spend the night at the border.
Leaving home, we took small streets that are somewhat protected from the wind, going a few miles east to I-70. The winds indeed seemed to diminish as we moved away from the mountain slopes. By the time we turned north from I-76 onto I-25, putting us broadside to the west to northwest winds, we were 20 miles out into the prairie and the wind gusts were quite manageable. The electronic billboards every 20 miles or so along the highway continued to give high-wind warnings and continued to say no high-profile vehicles could enter Wyoming. At Fort Collins, Colorado, we chose to angle west on US-287 to Laramie, Wyoming - not expressway, but a shortcut in total miles and staying on the Colorado side of the border for much of the way, delaying our entry into Wyoming. This took us closer to the mountains, and the wind was stronger and gustier, but didn't seem dangerous. The last electronic sign before the border had modified the restriction to "no semis", which seemed to allow us to go on. The border crossing was uneventful - nobody was there enforcing the restrictions (if there still were any restrictions). We turned west on I-80 at Laramie.
This is unfamiliar territory for us. We came across the country on I-80 in 1971 when we moved from Rochester, NY, to Palo Alto, CA, and don't remember much about the trip. We're doing an end run around the Rocky Mountains. West of Laramie, we climb gradually onto a high plateau, up to about 7600 feet elevation. It's high grassy prairie - cattle grazing land - with occasional corn or wheat fields where irrigation water is available. At this elevation, there's a bit of blowing snow, and the less-used left lane has a few icy patches. And we begin to see permanent signs warning that high winds are likely. The transcontinental winds also do an end run around the Rocky Mountains, giving a Bernoulli Effect intensification through this area.
We also begin to see big trucks on their side in the ditch, probably half a dozen of them in the next 50 miles. It must be an "interesting" experience for a driver to feel the wind pick up his huge tractor-semitrailer rig and throw it over on its side. Fortunately, the forecast was accurate and by the time we got there the wind had diminished from dangerous to just annoying. It's still strong, and mostly a headwind now, so I expect our fuel mileage for the day will be abysmal.
At 5:30 p.m., it's already dark. We pulled into a rest area about 20 miles east of Rawlins, Wyoming, about half full of big trucks, and settled in for a cold night. When we stopped, the temperature was 18 degrees and the wind was still howling around the corners of the rig. The interior seems quite drafty. The furnace is using propane at a furious rate. It's a noisy night as more trucks pull in around us, with many of them leaving their engines running all night.
Tuesday, 12/6: We used 150 amp-hours of electricity from the batteries overnight and during breakfast preparation! Most of this power usage was due to the furnace fan running frequently, with some for the coffee maker and interior lights. But even the refrigerator draws more power when it's cold - there's electrical heating tape wrapped around the plumbing for the ice maker to keep it from freezing. I fired up the generator for about an hour, partially recharging the batteries. We'll get additional charging from the engine alternator and the solar panels as we drive today. We got underway at daylight, about 7 AM. Helen didn't want to drive in the dark, so as not to miss any of the scenery.
We had a long day of driving across the rest of Wyoming, all of Utah, and part of Nevada, pulling into an RV Park in Elko, Nevada, just after dark at 5:25 pm Pacific time. We covered 568 miles - unusually long for us. It snowed off and on until we were past Great Salt Lake. The road was a bit slippery in a few spots, and had been sanded and salted heavily in other places. The temperature started out in the low 20's and didn't rise much until we were well to the west of Salt Lake City. Slush was freezing on the windshield, except where the wipers were successfully keeping it away. In mid-morning, we discovered that we had no water pressure in either kitchen or bathroom - something was frozen.
About 30 miles northeast of Salt Lake City, conditions were deteriorating and I pulled into a roadside Visitor's Center to check on conditions. The little old lady in the Visitor's Center said that I-80 had been closed earlier, but that she hadn't been able to get an update for quite a while. A trucker in the parking lot said that information on the CB was that I-80 was open but required chains, and that I-84 was in reasonable shape, and had no steep hills. He suggested that we take I-84 west to I-15 and then down to I-80, and that this route was only 12 miles further than staying on 80 (it looked quite a bit longer on the map). I've really got to get a CB installed in the motorhome, particularly if we're going to continue traveling northern roads in the winter.
It turned out to be good advice and we got around Salt Lake City uneventfully. West of Great Salt Lake, the snow stopped, the the roads were dry, and the temperature rose gradually to 37. The temperature began dropping again as we started gaining altitude in Nevada. Sometime during the afternoon, our water thawed out and started working again.
We had seen signs along the road advertising that Elko Nevada had several RV Parks that were open year-round, so we continued driving until we arrived there just after dark, stopping at Double Dice RV Park just on the east edge of the city. This place was expensive ($27), but with the possibility of our water system freezing up again, I wanted access to bathrooms and a source of drinking and cooking water. As it turned out, our water didn't freeze, in spite of the temperature dropping into the low 20's. So the RV Park was mostly a waste of money, since I didn't hook up anything but electricity. It was too cold to use external water, we didn't need to dump our sewage, and the electricity was used rather lightly, since I needed to run the propane furnace to keep the underbody plumbing warm and thus didn't use the electric heat pump at all.
Wednesday, 12/7: Again underway at about 7:15 AM. This part of Nevada has very interesting topography - quite different than our usual image of flat Nevada desert. There are lots of mountains, but this is "basin and range" country, where the mountains rise in small clumps. Tall clusters of mountains capped with brilliantly white fresh snow are separated by broad, shallow basins, often with salt-crusted dry lakes at the low points of the basins.
Battle Mountain, I-80 in
Nevada
(Click the photo or the above link for a larger
image.)
For much of the morning, we roughly followed the Humboldt River southwest. But the river wanders widely, taking a very circuitous route to avoid the scattered mountains. The highway took a much straighter route, often climbing over high ridges while the river (and the railroad) took a much longer route to avoid the high land. The river continued across most of Nevada, perhaps 200 miles as the crow flies, never getting significantly bigger, and finally ended ignominously in a broad shallow lake with no outlet. The total elevation drop from beginning to end was only about 200 feet.
We filled up with diesel fuel in Reno, which proved to be a mistake. It had been 20 cents a gallon cheaper further east in Nevada, and, surprisingly, was also a bit cheaper in California. We had originally planned to spend the night near Reno. But we're moving faster and further than expected, and it's only 1 pm, so we decide to continue on. We've been worried about road closures or chain restrictions on Donner Pass in the Sierras, and we'll take the opportunity to get over Donner Pass before the next snowstorm closes it or forces chain restrictions.
From Reno, I-80 climbs steeply up Truckee Canyon, and we're soon passing the exits for Lake Tahoe, where it starts snowing. But the pass is only a few miles further, and we're quickly on our way down the other side. The snow turned to rain as we descended. We were lucky again. The snow continued all day at the high elevations, and had we arrived an hour or two later, we probably couldn't have gotten over the pass. The drive down to Sacramento was wet but uneventful. We are often moving in convoy with the same trucks that we've seen off and on for hundreds of miles. They are usually traveling faster on the flat sections, and we pass them on the mountain climbs. One trucker who we had passed a day or two ago pulled in next to us while we were re-fueling in Reno. He had also come from Colorado. He had a wide load and was not allowed to travel at night, so he was traveling about the same number of miles per day as we were. I asked him about his flat-but-wide load. It was an interior bulkhead for one of the large NASA rocket boosters.
There had been almost nothing green in Nevada until we reached the foothills of the Sierras. Most of Wyoming and Nevada was sparsely dotted with some leafless low bush - maybe a deciduous sage? Some areas were so barren as to have no dried grass, not even good for cattle grazing. Graffiti consisted of small rocks arranged on the salt-crusted dirt just outside the roadway to spell names and symbols. Near the border with California we began seeing grasses and the pinyon-juniper ecosystem. We were climbing steeply before we saw large pines. Within a few miles after crossing Donner Pass, we began to notice evergreen shrubs and groundcovers.
We had been planning to stop near Sacramento, but RV Parks close to Sacramento are scarce. While poking around on our computer maps, we noticed a State Recreation Area campground on Folsom Lake, and decided to stop there, half an hour before Sacramento. It rained continuously all the way there, and was still chilly - about 45 degrees. We felt fortunate to find an empty pull-through site in the campground (the one and only pull-through site) where we could just pull in, park, and wait for the rain to stop with no need to leave the motorhome at all (except once, to walk back up to the self-registration kiosk during a lull in the rain).
We're been pushing hard and covering lots of miles, trying to give ourselves as much time as possible to absorb possible weather delays. We've been fortunate, are now past the last winter obstacle, and are a day ahead of schedule, so we'll spend two nights here.
Thursday, 12/8: We spent the afternoon at the Crocker Museum in downtown Sacramento. We were surprised at the number of lesser known artists with styles very similar to the better known artists. This museum has excellent notes beside each painting, contributing a lot to our enjoyment. Later, we walked around the State Capitol area ogling the lush plantings, green, green grass, stately palms, live-oaks, Monterey cypress, camelias, and other evergreens. The stark white ornate Capitol building gleamed in the afternoon sun. A political demonstration was underway on the Capitol steps, complete with loudspeakers, TV cameramen and black suited crowd control agents. It attracted only a small crowd, but probably had big TV coverage on the 5 o' clock news. On the way back to the campground, we noticed a Cattleman's Restaurant and realized that we were in the mood for a steak dinner. This seems to be a national chain, but is the first one we've encountered. Very nice as chain steakhouses go.
A sign at the campground registration booth says there is a commercial WiFi system here. I didn't notice this until the second day, made one quick try to connect, without success, and didn't spend any time trying to figure out why. We've got plenty of free minutes on our cellphone, and all I needed to do was download EMail.
Friday, 12/9: We arrived at San Francisco RV Park in early afternoon. We've got a site right on the ocean. Our big front picture window is about 10 feet from the high sheer cliff which drops to a narrow beach. Fairly large waves are crashing loudly against the cliff just below us, drowning all sounds of civilization. The cliff has been severely undercut by the waves, so we don't dare walk to the edge. But there's a path down to the beach through a break in the cliff just south of the campground, so we can go for a walk at low tide, if the waves aren't too high.
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
View South From our Campsite:
Pacifica Pier
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
The park has a commercial Wi-Fi system (Tengo), at $4.00 per
day, which I consider outrageous, or $15/week which is almost
reasonable. They offered 24 hours for free, so I'll try it out
for a while before deciding whether to sign up for a week.
In the evening, we drove to Santa Clara Mission for a concert by The Choral Project, a 45-voice San Jose group that we heard when we were here about five years ago. The mission has been beautifully restored, providing a lovely setting. And the Choral Project presented a great concert - often electrifying the audience with performances that were both technically skilled and exciting. They are a relatively young organization, founded in 1996, but have already received many awards and international recogntion. For this concert, they joined with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, also an excellent ensemble. The first half of the concert was two large works - the Bach Motet #1 "Singet dem Herrn", which they danced through at a tempo that would have destroyed most choirs, and the Arvo Part "Te Deum". The second half was a eclectic mix of shorter works, mostly unfamiliar to us (some of them relatively new arrangements of traditional folk carols).
Saturday, 12/10: We again did the 50-mile drive to San Jose to visit our niece Linda and her husband Brian at their San Jose home. Niece Sharon, Linda's sister, was also there visiting. One year old grand niece, Anika, entertained us all. We had a great lunch (prepared by Sharon) and spent much of the afternoon visiting. In late afternoon, we bade farewell and drove to Transfiguration Episcopal Church in San Mateo for a concert by the Masterworks Chorale, a San Mateo College-based community choir. This 67-voice group performed an interesting and enjoyable program of mostly short familiar Christmas pieces, but was somewhat disappointing from a technical point of view.
Sunday, 12/11: We hung around the RV park during the morning, enjoying the views and the crashing waves and catching up on EMail and chores. Then we drove to San Jose yet again, to visit the Japanese Garden at Kelley Park.
Egret Posing
in Japanese Garden
Kelley Park, San Jose
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
After that, we moved on to Los Gatos for a 4 pm concert by
Schola Cantorem. Helen and Dave both sang with this group in
1972-1974. It's large, currently about 125 singers. The concert
was at Los Gatos United Methodist Church - an attractive
contemporary building. The sanctuary is wide and relatively
shallow, giving a very intimate feel to the concert. The
performance was technically excellent, but seemed a bit flat
and unexciting. The programming was part of the problem. For
example, they performed six old and relatively uninteresting
Shaw/Parker arrangements of traditional carols.
Betelehemu by Via Loatunji and Wendell Whalum (arr.
Barrington Brooks) should have been exciting, but was a staid
academic reading of the notes. We heard a very exciting
performance of this work last week in Denver by the Alpine
Chorale.
Just before leaving the motorhome to drive to the concert, we got a cell phone call from Win Taylor, the lady who is watering our house plants. During a period of sub-zero temperatures, the coldest weather since we moved to Golden, a water pipe in the ceiling above our relatively unheated guest rooms froze and burst, flooding that end of the house with water. It apparently sprayed water through the the attic at many gallons per minute for about three days before she arrived to discover it. She got our neighbor to turn off the water, contacted our insurance people, and then called a water restoration company to start the process of drying things out. There's not much else to do until it's dry, so we'll just try to forget about it and continue with our intinerary.
Monday, 12/12: More news from home: High winds in Golden, up to 95 mph as well as temperatures down to -15 deg. We have a couple of sections of fence blown down, and a yard full of trash and lumber blown in from the home construction projects across the street. But that's minor compared to other problems around town, including large trees down across streets and power lines. One of the houses under construction accross the street from us was at a very vulnerable phase - partially framed and not yet well braced, and was mostly disassembled by the wind, scattering lumber, roof trusses, and sheets of plywood all over the neighborhood.
We spent 3 hours in the afternoon walking around Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park. There's an unbelievable variety of plants from all over the world, and most are labeled.
Dave with Tree Dahlia
Strybing Arboretum
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
In the evening, we had a nice dinner at Nona's Kitchen, a
small neighborhood restaurant a few miles south of us on CA-1
in Pacifica.
Tuesday, 12/13: Dave relaxed at the RV Park, and took a long afternoon walk south along the beach at low tide. There isn't any beach at high tide, and even at low tide I occasionally, to avoid getting wet, had to scramble up on the piles of huge rocks dumped along the base of the cliffs to slow their erosion.
Helen went to the new Asian Art Museum. The museum displayed some painted scrolls, but the main show for me (Helen) was the venerable bowls, pots, incense burners, etc. of luscious jades, bronzes, and glazed pottery. The gift shop had more modern, but just as attractive things, all out of my price range! I exited the museum at dusk right into a uniquely San Francisco scene: Aging gentle street hippies, a bongo drummer on the sidewalk, bicycle bells ringing, a street sweeper vacuuming the sidewalk with a small walk-behind version of the municipal street sweeper truck, splashing fountains in the full moon, a lit up Civic Center, modern glass buildings and Victorian store fronts, all overlaid with Christmas lights. Lots of character old men, but no character old ladies (unless they were in drag).
In the evening, we ate at the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco. They had an interesing menu, large wine list, attractive decor, and very professional waiters. Although the menu had several unusual meat items, e. g. rabbit, most of the other items were relatively familiar - well prepared but well within the mainstream of American/European cuisine.
Wednesday, 12/14: The first stop today was the DeYoung Museum at Golden Gate Park. The DeYoung is in a brand new building which just opened a couple of months ago. The original building was seriously damaged in the 2000 earthquake and was deemed unrepairable. The main part of the new building is interesting but relatively conventional architecture, featuring lots of big windows opening on odd-shaped, nicely landscaped spaces between the wings. An attached nine-story tower houses offices and research space, and looks a bit wierd in that it is entirely shrouded in metal mesh which apparently serves to protect the windows from direct sunlight (although it's on all four sides.) The top floor is a public observation deck, with great views around the area. The museum collection had a lot to interest us. In particular, they were displaying an extensive collection of relatively unfamiliar works by various Hudson River School artists.
We walked from the DeYoung to the Conservatory of Flowers. This old Victorian conservatory has lots of nice stuff, and the featured exhibit was an extensive orchid collection which included many unusual varieties.
In the evening, we attended a Messiah performance at Mission Dolores Basilica by the American Bach Soloists. They use "historically informed" performance practice on early instruments (although many of the instruments are modern copies of baroque instruments, one oboe and some of the string instruments were actually several hundred years old). This is an outstanding professional group, and the performance was exciting. The extreme ornamentations interpolated into the score by the vocal soloists were a bit overdone to our taste, but that's because we grew up with a much more restrained "modern" interpretation. The bass soloist was Bill Sharp, whom we knew in Rochester in his younger and less famous days.
Thursday, 12/15: In late afternoon, we drove down the coast to Half Moon Bay, just to explore the town a bit and enjoy the scenery along the way. We had originally intended to have dinner at The Distillery in Moss Beach - about halfway between Half Moon Bay and Pacifica. When we called for reservations, we discovered they've closed for a couple of weeks and won't re-open until after we've left town. Too bad - they get great reviews. So we ate at Ristorante Mare in the southern edge of Pacifica. This is a neighborhood restaurant with an interesting and well-prepared selection of northern Italian cuisine, a good wine list, and moderate prices. We enjoyed the meal and will make a note to eat there again next time we're in the area.
Friday, 12/16: The entire afternoon was spent at the U.C. Botanic Garden, in the hills on the eastern edge of the U.C. Berkeley campus. This includes 34 acres, divided into zones representing the various geographical areas of the world. It appeared that the entire world is represented except the Arctic, and the entire place is very densely planted (12,000 species). The stately timber bamboo with chartreuse trunks/culms near the Japanese Garden and the 20' Tasmanian tree fern in the Australian section were a special delight. The identification signs were the most thorough we've ever encountered; nearly everything had a label including common and botanical name and the specific location where the speciman was collected. Seeing so much diversity in one place was fascinating. The upper portions of the garden have a view across San Francisco Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge, but fog prevented our seeing it.
In the evening, we attended a concert at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church by The Women's Antique Vocal Ensemble (14 female singers), the Schola Cantorem of St. Albert's Priory (11 Dominican Friars), and Allta Sonora (a six-person ensemble of shawms, dulcians, and sackbuts - the renaissance predessors of oboe, bassoon, and trombone). All are directed by Cindy Beitman. Most of the singers were not classically trained voices, but the performance was of high quality - tonally accurate and pleasingly musical. The program was mostly from the Medieval and Renaissance periods, with a few works from later periods, and one incongruous 20th C. John Rutter work, accompanied by piano.
In anticipation that our return trip to Golden could be even colder than we experienced while coming here (the weather forecast was not promising), Dave bought some lights that we can use as heaters in the basement water compartments. I also looked for some RV antifreeze to put in the grey and black tanks - but no one here even knows what it is, since it never freezes here.
Saturday, 12/17: A cold, windy, rainy day! Not much incentive to go anywhere. We slept very uneasily last night as the wind howled, the rain beat violently against the motorhome, and the awnings over the slideouts snapped vigorously. We had not lowered our stabilizer jacks when we set up camp as the site was almost level. The rig rocked abruptly as each wind gust hit. In the middle of the night, I lowered the jacks and closed the big living room slide, which helped a lot. In the morning the wind increased and I closed the bedroom slide, to protect the awning and reduce the noise.
During a lull in the rain, I walked around part of the campground. The motorhome just to the south of us already had a broken latch mechanism on the awning over his big slide, and had retracted the slide. The next rig down had a slide awning billowing up above the rig and threatening to completely destroy itself. As I walked by, the occupant came out to walk her dog, and I pointed out the problem to her and she dashed back inside. Another slide awning further along the street already had torn fabric. Sewer hoses and other paraphalalia were blowing down the street. The high wind continued on through Saturday night, bringing constant mist.
In the evening, we bundled up in our rain gear and went to the Chanticleer concert at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco. We arrived early enough to find street parking half a block from the church, then stood in line at the will-call desk to get our General Admission tickets (I didn't get around to reserving tickets until about a week ago, and that's all that was available). Then we stood in line for about 30 minutes waiting for the hall to open, in order to be among the first of the general admission mob vying for the few relatively good seats in the non-reserved sections. We did get good seats, while those who came later wandered the aisles unhappily, making choices between bad and worse - seats hidden behind large pillars with no view of the stage, or in the distant back recesses of this very large church. This was one of at least four repeats of this concert in the Bay Area, all in large halls and all sold out.
Chanticleer is a 12-voice male choir, and one of only two full-time professional choirs in the country. They perform over 100 concerts per year, all over the world. San Francisco is their home base, and the home audiences are understandably enthusiastic about what is arguably the best choir in the world. We have nearly all of their many recordings, and go out of our way to hear them live whenever possible.
This year, they have several new members, but the sound is as good or better than ever. One of the new sopranos has an unusually beautiful mellow sound that was showcased in several solo passages. This Christmas program was wonderful but seemed a bit subdued compared to some previous concerts, with more quiet, contemplative music, fewer big upbeat show pieces, and none of the boistrous Joe Jennings gospel arrangements that have been so popular in the past.
Sunday, 12/18: Still windy and rainy. The waves are impressive, with a swell from the west and a stiff wind from the south creating very confused lumpy breaking waves as far as we can see in all directions. I'd hate to be out there in a small boat. We had planned to visit some East Bay gardens before our afternoon concert, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we hung out at home and then drove straight to the San Francisco Choral Artists concert at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Oakland. We've heard this 24-voice group several times over the past eight years, have their recordings, and have always enjoyed their choice of programs and their skilled performance. Tonight was no exception as they gave excellent renditions of everything from medieval chant to two world premieres: a brand new composition by Maia Aprahamian (who is their current composer-in-residence and was in the audience) and another by Jerry Mueller.
This is the last of our planned concerts, and we'll leave San Francisco tomorrow. We had planned to go straight home, but the storm we've had here is also dumping snow in the Sierras, and the passes are either closed or require chains - which we don't have. The weather in the Rockies is also bad, and there's a high probability we'd get delayed by chain restrictions there too. Back to the drawing boards. After investigating several routes, we decided to do an end run around the southern end of the mountains. We'll head south and then take I-40 east to Sante Fe before turning north. This avoids the high passes. There are potential problems at the high-altitude areas near Flagstaff and east of Sante Fe, but the probability of getting through without delay is much higher than for the more northern routes.
Our son and daughter have cancelled their plans to come to Denver for Christmas, because of the water damage to our house, so yet another change of route: as long as we're going south anyway, we might as well go on down to San Diego and see Dan for a few days. Perhaps Leata will be able to reschedule her flights and join us there.
Monday, 12/19: The change of plans delayed our departure, and we didn't get on the road until after 11 AM. On the assumption that Leata won't show up at Dan's for a few days, we'll plan not to get there for a few days, doing some other things along the way. Helen found some botanic gardens and museums we haven't visited near Pasadena so that will be today's destination. We searched the campground directory and found a nice-sounding RV Park fairly near our goal, at San Dimas, east of Pasadena.
The drive was along familiar roads, - down I-280 to US-101 in San Jose, then south to SR 152, which we took east across Pacheco Pass to I-5. We always enjoy looking at the extensive array of huge wind turbines on the pass. Then down I-5 for hours and hours, in heavy traffic. It took much longer than we expected, and it got dark just as we started over the Grapevine into the Los Angeles Metro Area. We were late enough to miss the worst of the rush hour, but traffic was still heavy, partly due to Christmas shopping - but rarely slowed below the 62 mph which we found was the average speed of the big trucks (55 mph posted truck and RV speed limit throughout California).
We picked our way through the dark into our campsite about 9 p.m. The park office had closed earlier, but we had called, told them we'd be late, and received our campsite number and some rudimentary directions to navigate through the huge park. We're at East Shore RV Resort, in the middle of Bonelli Regional County Park, a 2-mile-wide largely wild area surrounding the half-mile-wide Puddingstone Reservoir in San Dimas, a Los Angeles suburb. This is an oasis of peace and quiet in a madhouse metro area.
Tuesday, 12/20: It was interesting to get up and see where we were, after arriving in the dark last night. Our campsite is on the edge of a high bluff with the reservoir spread out below us, with great views of the high mountains of Angeles and San Bernadino National Forests to the north, and southwest to the smog bank hanging over Los Angeles and its western suburbs.
East Shore RV Resort
San Dimas, CA
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
We're in site C-35. We recommend the B or C loops. The lower
elevation loops feel more closed in and the sites are more
crowded together. The RV park is neatly maintained, and has
substantial areas of lush grass lawn around the RV pads, which
are mostly separated by 30 feet or so. The park has a weak
commercial WiFi system which doesn't quite reach to our
campsite (and is fairly expensive to use). I found another
weak but usable open WiFi signal, probably from, a long-term
park resident. There is a strong 1X cell phone signal.
The park WiFi system is a self-contained box with a ruggedized PC display and keyboard in the office, which can be used for $.25/minute. Sticking out of the top of the box is a little omni-directional low-gain WiFi antenna, which they claim has a useable range of 300 feet. I suspect that this is an over-optimistic estimate. Our campsite is perhaps a bit over 300 feet way, but I'm using a directional antenna with 6db gain, pointed directly at the office. I can only occasionally detect the signal, and it hasn't been strong enough to establish a working connection.
More news from home: They are taking out part of the ceiling in the second guestroom -- cannot dry the deep layer of soggy insulation above, so it will be removed. The insurance company has approved discarding and replacement of all the carpet in the rooms affected.
We relaxed around the motorhome in the morning, then while Dave caught up on miscellaneous maintenance chores, Helen went to the UC Fullerton Botanic Gardens. What a delight. The specialty was food trees of the world and included lots of rare fruit trees such as Lichee, Papaya, Loquat, Persimmon, and varieties of citrus. A marvelous delicate perfume permeated the gardens from the "The Hand of Buddha" tree. The description said this citrus tree is grown in the orient for the odor of the fruit, and not for eating. (If anyone knows where this fruit can be purchased in the USA, please let me know.). The fruit looked a bit like a grapefruit pulled partway into twisted sections and then waxed - rather like gnarled hands.
Hands of Buddha Tree
UC Fullerton Botanic Gardens
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
Finding that tree was the botanic highlight of the trip for
Helen, but the gardens had other good displays, too. The
desert collection was just beautiful. Blooming century plants,
date palms, cacti, agave, and a twenty foot pony tail palm in
bloom (known primarily as a houseplant in the US) were planted
in a dramatic garden. The 100' tall Ombu tree from African
grasslands was impressive. I will return to this garden
if/when I'm in the area again.
Wednesday, 12/21:Helen was off to more museums and gardens. The Pacific Asia Museum in downtown Pasadena has occupied Grace Nicholson's "Chinese Treasure House" since 1971. This National Historic Place is designed in the Imperial Palace Courtyard style. The courtyard is planted with bamboo and gingko, and has a traditional bridge over the pool. One of the museum rooms contained jades from the Neolithic period to the Quing dynasty, but the ceramics stole the show. And the gift shop contained a wide range of goods, both in quality and price.
Pacific Asia Museum Courtyard
Pasadena, CA
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
Next was the Huntington Library and Gardens. There wasn't
enough time left to see it all, but I did my best. I ignored
the library, but couldn't skip the American Art in the Scott
Gallery. The large Japanese Garden was jam packed full of
oriental tourists with telephones held to their ears. I
wondered if there was an audio tour, but didn't see anyplace to
get one. It seems contrary to the peaceful spirit of the
gardens to stay so connected to the world. Anyway, the gardens
had all the usual cliches, but was still refreshing and
interesting. A steep admission fee encouraged me to plan an all
day visit next time so I could see the other gardens and more
art.
Thursday, 12/22: In mid-morning, the drive down the Orange Freeway, SR 57, through the heart of the Los Angeles Metro Area, and then along I-5 to San Diego, was surprisingly easy. We're used to bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go traffic anywhere and any time in this area, but this time, the traffic was well spaced and moving rapidly. We arrived at Mission Bay RV Park in Pacific Beach in early afternoon and found it mostly empty - we had our choice of many nice sites, and after looking them over, picked a different one than we had originally reserved.
Mission Bay RV Park
Campland on the Bay RV Resort
is visible in right background
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
This place, owned by the City of San Diego, has been closed
for several years, was renamed and renovated recently, and just
re-opened a few months ago. Apparently, word has not yet spread
that it's open again. We're in site 133 and like it. Sites
108, 158, 190, are just as good, and these are also among the
least expensive sites. Site 251 is also nice, a bit bigger,
and more expensive. The "Beach View" sites are quite a bit
more expensive, but they have the back of the motorhome facing
the water, and would result in less view of the water from our
rig. A few motorhomes had pulled frontwards into these sites
facing the water, but this requires an extension cord for power
and makes the sewer hookup almost impossible.
In the evening, we had an excellent Indian dinner with our son Dan at the Star of India in Pacific Beach, just a mile from our RV Park.
Friday, 12/23: We took a long walk along the shore of Mission Bay. In late afternoon we drove up to La Jolla to meet Dan at a theater to see the new Narnia movie. We arrived early enough to wander the shopping plaza - Helen spent time in Trader Joe's and Pier 1 but didn't buy anything. After the long movie, we had a nice dinner with Dan at a nearby Greek place he had been intending to try.
Saturday 12/24:Helen went to W. Andersen's Nursery to learn the names of some of their collection of labeled common California plants. She was the last customer to leave before their early Christmas Eve closing time.
Finding dinner reservations on short notice on Christmas Eve was a bit of a challenge. But an Internet reservations service came through with early-evening reservations at Terra, a small place tucked away in Hillcrest, just north of Balboa Park, with "innovative American" cuisine. The food, the ambience, and the service was excellent, and the bill was surprisingly modest for this type of place.
Sunday 12/25: As we walk the path along Mission Bay near our RV Park, Helen keeps picking up palm fruit stalks and branches, which she or a friend might be able to use in flower arrangements. The back of the jeep is already getting filled up. At least this stuff weighs less than the rocks she used to collect.
We had an early but long and leisurely dinner with Dan at El Agave in Old Town - one of the few places that was open and had a reservation available on Christmas Day. It turned out to be a wonderful place - a bit on the expensive side but attractive decor, pleasant ambience, and great food. They had six different kinds of mole on the menu. We ordered a huge appetizer sampler assortment and enjoyed every one. Then shared a nopali salad - made from opuntia (prickly pear) cactus pads (interesting but bland). Then we each had a different mole. All were very good, but the mole poblano was the winner - very complex flavors with a subtle chocolate undertone.
We had a funny fiasco with the wine order. Our waiter said that they had just received their wine shipment and didn't yet have a printed list, then led me to the wine cellar and told me to look around and select something I liked. I did, and when I brought it out, was accosted by a very unhappy bar tender who confiscated the bottle and chewed out the waiter - the wines weren't priced yet and weren't for sale. He eventually brought the only red that was for sale - an adequate but over-priced cabernet/merlot blend from Chile.
Monday 12/26: It's time to head home. We left San Diego about 8:15 A.M., taking I-8 almost all the way to Phoenix, cutting up to I-10 on SR-85 just before Phoenix, then turning north on I-17. We've described this route in previous travelogues and won't say much about it here. We spent the night at Pioneer RV Park, on the north edge of Phoenix. It's a well-maintained mostly residential mobile home park, with a row of not-very-level closely-spaced gravel transient sites. They had commercial WiFi available at $5.95/day, but I didn't try it for that price - used our cellphone with a good 1X signal. We watched six hot air balloons launch from a field near the RV Park in the morning.
Tuesday 12/27: Again, got underway about 8:15 (and lost an hour last night as we crossed from Pacific to Mountain time). Mostly sunny day, pleasant drive up I-17 to Flagstaff and then east on I-40. We stopped at Balloon View RV Park in north Albuquerque, just before sunset at 4:45 PM. This place has a somewhat shabby collection of old RV's, mobile homes, and manufactured housing with a handful of narrow gravel RV sites for transient RVers. Paid $20 cash, with no paperwork - which I suspect went into the pocket of the employee. (Trailer Life lists a higher price, and I think registration paperwork is mandatory in most states). But this was a convenenient place to stop - a quick getaway out I-25 northbound tomorrow, and fairly close to the museum we want to visit in the morning. My computer found 6 WiFi access points from our campsite. One of these is a free and fast unidentified connection. The others were not accessible, either encryped or just wouldn't connect (probably limited to specific SSID). Strong 1X cellphone signal too, but didn't try to use it.
Wednesday 12/28: We spent a couple of hours at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. Art and History seems like an odd combination, but in fact it works well, since both their art and history are focussed strongly on local and regional material. Their historical exhibit on the European exploration and settlement of the area, starting with the Spanish Conquistidores, was well done and interesting. Have you ever seen a real arquebus or handmade chain mail? A large display of art by the Taos Group was also very interesting. And we enjoyed several pieces of contemporary outdoor sculpture that we remembered from a visit almost seven years ago.
While hitching up the jeep to the motorhome, Dave tripped over the almost invisible thin black air brake line running from motorhome to jeep, breaking the plastic hose at the connector. This delayed our departure by an hour or so, by requiring a visit to a local auto parts store to get a new compression sleeve (and compression nut, which I lost in the gravel while disassembling the connector). I bought a few spares! We finally got underway around 2 pm.
The drive up I-25 to Sante Fe was uneventful, on a sunny but cool day through interesting scenery - cattle ranches in high rolling meadows, with mountains always on the horizon. We stopped for the night at the Wal-Mart in Las Vegas, New Mexico, just after dark. This provided a convenient, quiet and peaceful night. My WiFi detected 12 access points - perhaps a new record. Only one allowed me to connect, but this one provided a fast and convenient download of the day's EMail. The cellphone had a strong 1X signal - but it's an "extended" area (using equipment of a Verizon Partner company) and would not make a data connection on either 1X or Q2N. I didn't try direct dial to my ISP, which might have worked.
Thursday 12/29/05: We got underway at sunrise, and had an uneventful drive home, arriving around 2 pm. Bright sunny day, but a strong gusty crosswind from the west made driving less pleasant than usual. Traffic was heavy through Colorado Springs and all the way from there through Denver. Highway construction around Colorado Springs causes lane diversions, narrow lanes, and concrete barriers a few inches from the traffic lane, giving a few miles of white-knuckle driving.
When we arrived home, I parked the motorhome on the street while we checked access to the driveway and unhooked the jeep. When I went back a few minutes later to bring the motorhome into the driveway, it wouldn't start - turning the ignition key yielded only a faint click. I spent an hour or so checking the obvious things, without finding any problem, then spent some time looking up moblile truck/RV maintenance companies that might come look at it. Later, I tried starting it again and it started normally, so I moved it into the driveway.
The weather forecast called for a cold night, and we won't be using the motorhome again until spring, so we spent a couple of hours going through the entire winterizing process. After this, the motorhome again started normally when I drove to our local dump station for the final emptying of the grey and black water tanks.
I've started it several times since then with no problems. It's a worrysome puzzle - it's almost impossible to diagnose and repair this kind of intermittent problem, so we'll probably have to wait for it to happen again - which may be in some remote campsite. Could this be related to our intermittent entry step problem which also has not recurred? Doesn't seem likely.
We found our house disaster to be just as reported to us over the phone. Four rooms have been emptied, with the contents stacked haphazardly in other parts of the house. The carpeting has been removed and discarded, and large sections of wall and ceiling drywall are gone. Fortunately, these rooms are storage areas and guest bedrooms, and the parts of the house we actually live in aren't much affected. The drying-out process has been successfully completed and the big fans and heaters have been removed; a cleanup crew will appear tomorrow morning to get rid of dust and insulation tracked around the house; and a reconstruction crew is scheduled to appear next week.
(Click the photo or the above
link for a larger image.)
Meanwhile, I've got to re-build 20 feet of fence blown down by
high winds while we were gone and do smaller repairs on several
other sections of fence.
January 20, 2006: An update on the house: We are still waiting for contractors to show up and begin the reconstruction. We have three sets of mattress and box springs leaning against the wall in our living room, two extra dressers and a cedar chest in our bedroom, and a bulky new toilet in the front entrance hall, waiting for Dave to get time to install it (not related to the water damage). Dave has built additional storage space in the attic over the garage for the china and family mementos that were stacked on the workshop benches to dry out. Our two-bay garage is full of other stuff cleared out of the damaged rooms, so we are parking our two cars in the driveway along with a motorhome, a truck, and a huge dumpster. Dave is using this time to install a few more outlets and re-do some of the exposed wiring in the damaged rooms, but mostly we wait for the insurance company to come to life again. The rabbits are enjoying the break in the fence, feasting on our grass.