Then we headed north! Our destination –
We saw some fabulous sites! But it was super duper crazy cold!!!
We/I had a little trouble with deciding the correct time to head where. Therefore we missed our chance to hit up Trader Joes! ARG!!!
The sea lions were super great! Barking and talking to allof us on the shore!
We also saw the lone cypress! Kinda weak that Pebble Beach "ownes" the image.
I think the ghost trees looked cooler, actually!
I heard a strange sound this morning. I was cruising the internet, in my cabin in the woods with no cell service when I heard a sound. At first I wasn’t really sure I had heard this sound, but then I heard it again. It was a gobble. I parted the curtains and there it was… The biggest dang turkey you have ever seen! This thing was probably almost up to my shoulder in height, if it kept it’s head up tall! It was huge! As I was attempting to get the camera he let out another gobble and the “herd” arrived. A total of 5 giant turkeys! They were cruising the front lawn for goodies. These guys moved fast too! At one point one of them hoped up onto the BMW 7 series of the neighboring cabin – the owners were less than thrilled about that. I was chuckling! I tried to get hubby to wake up and see the giant fellas but sleeping was of more interest to him at the time!
Later, hubby and I headed off to explore the
We headed south and stopped at a couple vista points to enjoy the coast! I love how it just drops off and the cool breeze come up!
We found the
Then it was off to our hike! And it was a hike. They were not kidding when they listed it as strenuous! I’m sure hubby was less than thrilled as we kept going up, and up, and up and up! We went thru a multitude of climate in our hike! Lush redwoods, wild flowers (lots of bees – ick), dry desert, oak groves… It was very neat! We finally found the top and then had to go up a smidge more for the look out! It was really amazing to be even higher about highway 1 and the coast!
It was a pretty good loop, although the second half brought us by 2 pretty big bee’s nests! ARG! They just love those dead and rotting trees!
Hubby kept telling me to remember that the bees were just doing their job! They each had a job to do (ala Bee Movie)
I was less than amused!
We finally finished our 4.5 mile hike and stopped by the Big Sur River Inn for the burrito bar! You pick your parts and they produce this giant, heavy, tube of goodness! I went with carnitas, white rice,
Yummy!
We then stopped by our cabin for a nap! 2.5 hours later… we awoke around 5pm!
Since there was still day light we headed over to
We both had a smidge of work to do so thankfully the wifi has been keeping us supplied!
It’s early to bed and tomorrow we do 17 mile drive before we fly home!
The wedding was a success! Laura and Mike are now married!
We are hiked out to the perfect cliff with the perfect yellow flowers!
Mom and Auntie picked the wild flowers to be Laura’s bouquet!
The minister was great! He had a really great ceremony with some very touching words!
Laura wrote her vows on the way there in the car, Michael winged it! It was really cute!
The parent’s were thrilled! The bride and groom were thrilled! Kisses and presentations were done! Pictures were taken!
We all returned to the lodge where champagne flowed! People were silly! We did a slide show of everyone’s photos! As Lauara said – who wants to see what we just did 5 minutes ago?
It was a wonderful group of people that they gathered to help them share in their day!
Friends from all parts of their lives!
Everyone had a good amount of libations! Hopefully hubby will be able to hike today!
P.S. - The "something blue" ended up being a pencil top eraser with a little note hubby and i tucked in there and with a blue sewing thread pushed thru so that she could tie it wherever! She chose her undies! She showed off the something blue! Being as far from civilization i think we did good on our task!
And the shoes worked great! Hubby liked the outfit better with the sneakers than the heels!
We arrived into
Should be at least 2 per terminal, per wing! I digress – so we grabbed our caffeinated beverages and head to the bus to Hertz… Alas there is a very small sign that says no food or beverage on the bus? WHAT? I just paid a good chunk of my arm for this coffee and you want me to either chug it or toss is? Hell NO!!! But lucky for me, I was thinking… I had an empty water bottle in my backpack! Yeah me! So I transferred my piping hot, tasty caffeinated beverage into my sealed container and tossed it into my bag! HAH! Now I understand keeping things clean, but please, no other city does this and for god’s sake put a sign somewhere closer, or alert people when they book a rental car? Hun? Is that so hard?
We hop onto 101 south and jump off at
We did a little shopping, looked at the ocean, checked out the Aquarium… I don’t really like aquariums, but hubby does, so I figured, why not… Well the prices have gone up since the last time I was there and thought they were too high! $25 a person!! WOAH!! Do you get a private session with a sea lion?
So we meandered a bit more and then headed south to catch up with the bride!
We arrived at our “cabin” and were amused! I can hear the traffic on Hway 1 from my perch in my cabin, typing away on my free wifi! Definitely a cute place, but nothing spectacular! Compared to the prices at the “Lodge” that the family stayed at, I’m ok with our $100 cabin in the woods!
Next was a hike to see the possible wedding locals! They decided against in the woods cause there are too many people and it requires a permit! So we’ll be near some great cliffs and yellow flowers (the brides favorite). Should be a great time!
“Rehearsal” dinner was the Rocky Point Restaurant.
I’ve seen this place multiple times when driving thru Big Sur on my way to San Fran and
Bride and Groom are hanging at the camp site by the river with their friends that are also camping. It was just too traumatic to try and get our camping gear here, so we went for the cabin in the woods. It should be a really fun day! Most people are switching their outfits to jeans, but I didn’t think of bringing alternate outfits, so I’ll be in my dress, wish me luck on avoiding the poison oak that is all along the path! ;)
My other job, which the Aunt of the bride assigned me, was to find the bride “something blue”. (my own fault i asked if she had her something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue) Ugh! We are in the middle of nowhere… Any stores are a multitude of miles away. I know the bride would appreciate a small blue piece of paper with a smiley on it, but not so sure the family will think it’s as cute as I do… We’ll see what we can find at breakfast at the gift shop!
Wedding in the woods!
My friend laura (she's the one that created the "Cheese" that hangs in my house) is getting married up in
Great excuse for a new dress! I chose this one:
The fun part is it is a teeny tiny gathering. And it’s inthe woods… So now I needed the perfectshoes for the dress.
Hmmm… So nothing with a heel,
something that didn’t let dirt get on my feet,
something was that super cute!
Something that can be "hiked" in
I ended up with these little numbers!
All it all it should be a really great weekend! We got our tickets via frequent flier miles, so we arrive Friday and home Monday. So we have a little extra time to find some hiking trails and enjoy the scenery!
I got us a cute cabin in the woods – with wifi! So it should be a really great time!
But I had to show off the dress and the shoes!
13 Weird Things about (plus some extras)
13 Best Things about
Traveling back in time…
Is terrible!
The flight back to state side takes forever! You leave at noon, and get home at 8pm… but there is a whole lot of day time between those 2 activities!
We arrived at the airport with time to spare. The printing of the boarding pass was fabulous! Saved us quite a bit of time in line!
We bought some snacks and European chocolate, nothing at the gift store was worth the 3% hit on the credit card – although the pepper grinder with hot peppers in there was a cool idea – I might have to do that myself!
The security process in is a joke. This is
The next “security” is when we board. They take everyone’s bag and hand search. Which was really a joke. Fully unclear and they almost poked my eye out!
We got on board and then sat. Then the pilot come on and said that someone had attempted to board without their passport. WTF? How did you get from main security to the gate without it? The most important document known to man these days and you lose it in under a mile? So what does that mean to me, this person’s stupidity? It means I might miss my connection cause they have find this dimwits luggage and remove it from the plane… Grrrrrr! They have him a little while to go retrace his steps and attempt to find it. Say what? I’ve been left at the gate 10 minutes before flight time and this fella gets buy to go find his dang documents? Man is life not fair some days.
He eventually comes back and can’t find it, so then they start the luggage search process… And you know what else this means? IT means we lose our take off and landing window and do you know what that means? I means we have to wait another 25 minutes before we can take off! HOLY GUACAMOLE! If I could have gotten my hands on that stupid little poop….
It all worked out. We landed with enough time to go thru Heathrow Security – BTW – did you know that they do not require you to remove your laptop from your bag? Why? Do they have better xrays than in the states? Seems kinda weird to me!
Our flight to
Speed walking time! We made it, and we kept the middle seat between us free. We watched the last Pirates of the Caribean movie on Hubby’s I-Touch, read, napped, attempted to eat some seriously crazy food – cheese, tomato, and red pickle relish… ewwwwwwww!
We landed, the baggage all arrived and quickly, no stopping at customs, and out to our waiting towncar! Did you know that SuperShuttle had a branch called ExecCar? Same as a limo but cheaper and the tip is included when you book on line! Sweet!
We made it home in one piece, the bubbahs were excited to see us, and the mail was stacked 10 feet tall!
It was nice to be home, eating frozen “real” pizza, sleeping in our king size bed with our fluffy pillows… Ahhhhhh….
Day 16 –
We got sleep in a little, after the early morning business the day before, that was nice!
We headed to breakfast and it was very crowded! It seemed weird, the vibe was not friendly from the other guests which was weird! We ate up and headed out!
It was going to be a long walking day!
We started with the Arc of Peace – looked thru the windows!Then down to walk by the
Back up for the Castle S’ant Angelo which was a very coolplace. Originally the crypt of another fella in typical Roman fashion theysimply built on top of what was there and modified it for their purposes! Itended up being the last refuge for the popes if anything happened to
We left there and headed to the “wedding cake” the
After that we skirted to Forum and headed back for a nap!
After we got our rest we walked back down Via Curso to the
We eventually made our way back to the hotel for aCappuccino and bed!
The trip was over… Time to head back. 16 days is long, so we were pretty happy to be getting back to our own bed, our own food and English!
Thursday April 17th - Rome
We started our day at the butt crack of dawn!! Time to go on our tour of the Vatican! We got picked up and then dropped off at another bus, then picked up and dropped off by the Vatican Museum! We only got to see some statues, tapestries, and maps. I got some good ideas for handles and covered jars for my pottery, tapestries bore me, but the maps - made with plaster were very cool!!
Next was the Sistine Chapel. The painting was amazing but i always thought it was bigger! We spent about 15 minutes there, we used our binoculars to get a close up view, which was neat! (That was a neat thing that Rick Steve’s book suggested). We learned that Michael Angelo had put his face on the “skin” of St Bartoleme. And that he put the Bishop that had dissed his painting of the Judgement as the fella in hell and when the Bishop went crying to the pope the pope said, sorry, my ability is from Jesus up, down below is out of my control! He He!!! That was a good story!
After the Sistine Chapel our tour "snuck" out the side door and into St Peter’s Basilica! What an amazing church! The coolest part was that any of the “paintings” were not paintings but mosaics! Wowser!! We didn’t get to go to the top of the dome or into the crypt - grrr...
Had we known we were leaving the area and just getting stuck in a gift shop we would have stayed behind - live and learn!
Our guide was very nice and informative but i’d recommend finding another way to see the Vatican or do more diligence on what you are going to go see.
We skipped the free hour at the gift shop and took the Metro back to the hotel and back to bed!
We arose around 2 and headed out for some more site seeing!
The Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Colonna, Multiple Egyptian Obelisks, and the Cappuccin Crypt
The city was swamped! kids every where! we learned later that this is the time of year that schools in europe “educate” the youth by traveling to other countries. If you don’t like American youth and their attitudes, you wont like this time if year near the big european sites! Moving on...
The Crypt was creepy... There were multiple small rooms decorated with bones. Spine bones, legs bones, should blades, pelvises, finger bones.. pretty much any part of a skeleton was done artistically all over the walls and ceilings...
We returned to the hotel for a shower and a glass of wine. We were having dinner with one of the gentlemen that helped get 360 to Europe - Raffael and his wife.
The picked us up and brought us to one of their old haunts by Campo di Flori. Our reservation was valid but the table was not yet free, so over for some drinks. We enjoyed some sparkling white wine and finger foods for the alloted 20 minute. Then back to the restaurant with still a 5 minute wait. Then we waited inside, the wife indicated that you reservation was as good as someone else that looked better or that they knew walking in the door. We chuckled!
Eventually we sat and had a great meal - Spaghetti Carbonara for me, Hubby had a different kind of Cabonara with red sauce that is typical Romanesc. Second course I went with the recommended veal saltimbanco and hubby did his Carpaccio! They picked a great white wine from the Alps region and desert was strawberries romanesco for me and tirameso for hubby! We were stuffed!
We walked over to the Plazza Navona for a coffee nightcap!
It was a great night!
Tuesday April 15th - Last full day in Florence
We slept in, some more than others! It started like every other day - blue skies - but that was simply a tease! More rain!
We headed to Ponte Vecchio - gotta see the old butcher shops and the “new” jewelry shops! Great views, and we saw where we wanted to have lunch! After crossing the bridge it was Pitti Palace - Bolobli Garden time! It was sprinkling on our walk there...
We waited to go thru the metal detector... Then 10 acres of gardens! As we exited into the garden it started to rain harder... Not too much fun cruising thru a garden with your hood up and the your peripheral vision limited! The main alley way up the hill was pretty cool though. We saw some cool sculptures and the porcelain museum. Probably only interesting to me since i do pottery!
After the Garden we headed down by the river and over to Fake David #2 - the one is green! :)
It was up a substantial staircase, but nothing like the Duomo or the Tower of Pisa!!
Very good views from the top! Then we continued up to the Chiesa di Sa Miniro al monte.
I love the story,
version 1 when he was killed he flew to the top of this hill or
version 2 - the better version, he carried his head under his arm and walked up to the top of the hill.
I mean really, gotta stop by and check it out. Again, great views, church was free and the Priest and some others were chanting. Really great sound! Not sure if it was funeral or just blessing the holy water but it was neat!
We headed back off the hill and I was determined to find the Bardini Gardens - the allusive things! Florence is lucky the romans got here first and gave them the grid pattern for streets, made things a lot easier for me this time!
We had just started up the hill to explore when guess what - it started raining! Sigh!
So we gave up and headed for that sandwich shop! Great focaccia squished sandwiches - salami and cheese! And we were out of the rain!
I think all the grease is killing my complexion, but dang is it yummy!
We waited out the storm, and when it was a little lighter of rain drops we made a run for the hotel and the Gelateria near by!
Nap time! Then snacks in the bar and bed time!
Monday April 14th - First full day in Florence!
We had a very nice breakfast here! Then it was time to huff it!
We headed to the Duomo and to the stairs! We went up, and up and up! The dome within the dome architecture was really amazing and the paintings on the ceiling were disturbing, fascinating and amazing as well! The view was amazing! We could see all the locations we had seen the evening before, the hillsides, and the places we wanted to go see! Going back down made you a little dizzy, but it was really amazing! We ran across a group of American kids - ugh! Loud, annoying, typical! By the time we got back down my legs were all gooey! We walked around a saw the Capinilla and the Basilica Doors. We might try the Capanilla later tomorrow - but hubby didn’t want to do another set of 400 stairs right after the dome! Woose! ;)
We headed to Pisa for the afternoon! On the train we enjoyed a British family of 5 where mom attempted to keep control and Dad took a nap. Ugh!! They were the only ones making sound on the train. Ugh!! And me without my ipod. We were very happy to reach Pisa! We huffed it down to the Duomo area, we got tickets to climb the tower at 3:20, so we had time to burn. We walked around, took pictures of all the pieces, did the holding up the tower pictures, and had cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe!
When it was our turn for the stair climb, the weather had turned, the clouds had come in and the wind was whipping around! Our luck of poor family behavior continued - an Irish father with 3 kids were pushing us up the entire tower. Screaming within a marble tower is less than appealing. Gotta love great parental control. Besides the terrible children, the trip up was crazy! You could feel the lean and see the wearing in the steps at different angles. It was crazy! We made it to the top and then to the tippy top - the belfry. I was feeling less than secure at the top! :( My grip on the handrail was pretty white knuckled! The view was indeed amazing, and you almost felt as if the clouds were on your shoulders! Hubby made sure i made it down the stairs - there was no hand rails at that point!
We took a different route back to the train station, and ran into a rain storm!
Seems to be our weather this trip!
We had sandwiches for dinner - i went with a meat and mushroom type thingy, hubby did sausage pizza! We then popped into the hotel bar for some wine and a couple appetizers! I love me the green olives! There were also some marinated caper pods - mmmm - looked like okra inside! We had a relaxing evening in front of some english TV, listening to the rain!
Tomorrow is Pitti Palace, Boboli Gardens and Fake David #2!!
