Goodbyes :-(

Goodbyes, aka "God, we are going to miss these people, and lots of others we may not get to visit before we go."

Here are some pics of us paying some of our dear friends a visit before we go.

Evil twins, or me with the HGIC (Head Geek In Charge) - wearing appropriate headgear for our moving destinations


Shawn and Ed




Ed with offspring, aka "cute objects in viewfinder are much more dangerous than they appear." LOL j/k


Sean and Christine




Frances with offspring and vicious attack bunny.

Preparing to leave for Oregon

We are, at long last, in the last stages of packing and preparing to leave Southern California. We have a couple more people to visit, and I'm waiting for my back (which gave out on me a few days ago) to heal some more before attempting to pack our stuff into the cars. We expect to leave in the next few days. We have applied for Canadian immigration for Nickie, and will most likely settle in the Portland, Oregon area while we await a response. Pictures to come upon our departure, of course.

Next, assuming Nickie gets approved, the plan is to immigrate and purchase an RV (as opposed to trying to import one, and all the associated hassles and fees), then start our full-time RVing. At that point, this blog will fully serve the purpose its web address implies. It'll be the easiest way to find out where we are at any given time. {grin}

Los Angeles, CA - Chinese New Year

We live very close to Chinatown in Los Angeles, and could not resist joining in the festivities in celebrating this Golden Year of the Boar. It was a strange experience for me as I have been connecting with my Chinese heritage, a culture and language that up until recent months, I've known almost nothing about. The celebration was big, bold, beautiful, and fantastic!!

By the way, is it good luck to get your toe licked by a boar in the Year of the Boar?


This is part of a Chinese acrobatics show on one of the entertainment stages at the festival. You may need to click this pic to see it, but this woman is balancing 3 eggs stacked on top of a stick, on the bridge of her nose. No, I'm not kidding. You have to see it to believe it.


I believe that's 21 champagne glasses, on a tray balanced on her forehead, while spinning 2 rings on each arm and a hula hoop around her waist. Told ya, you have to see this to believe it.


Another part of the Chinese acrobatics. This man is repeatedly balancing a teapot on a stick between his teeth, throwing it up in the air, and catching it again... on the end of its spout. And its side. And the bottom. Another "no way" moment.





The same man, putting stacks of porcelain dishes on his feet, tossing them into the air, and catching them in a growing stack balanced on the top of his head. Then putting a curly wire in his mouth and catching some more of them on the wire. Did I mention he's doing all this while riding a unicycle?




A flock of seagulls began circling around the moon, still visible as we waited for the parade to begin at 2:00 p.m. It was a striking scene and I just had to capture it.


There were many beautiful dragons like this throughout the 3+ hour long parade.


A couple more gorgeous pics I managed to take before the camera batteries died.

Last entry - for now...

I found one holdout memory card that had photos from early parts of our trip, including Montreal and others.

EDIT: Some pics of us with our friend Francesco in Montréal have been posted under 10/25.
EDIT: Some pics of our neighborhood, and brief commentary, have been posted under 10/11 for comparison.
EDIT: The pic below is the path we took across North America.

Out of order pics being posted

Usually during this trip, I've composed and organized my posts and drafted a loose itinerary for the next destination while on the train or bus to get there. But once we began the west coast leg of our trip, starting in Vancouver, we began renting cars and much of my time has been dedicated to driving. As a result, I've fallen a few days behind in my posts. I'm in the process of going back and posting them on the correct dates in the order they were taken, rather than mixing them up. As a result, over the next couple of days or so you'll see new posts appearing under dates as old as 11/3 (Vancouver, B.C.), but at least they'll be in order. Sorry! Such is the nature of breakneck travel, a lost camera, intermittent cellular reception, and a bad memory. :)

Also, the system was set to archive posts each month. But given the sheer number of pictures we've been posting, that made for a pitifully long load time for each page of posts. To help make things more manageable, I've set it to archive every day. That way, the pages load faster and the index of dates on the right hand column becomes more useful.

Heading home

Heading toward home, I think fondly of the places we’ve been. We’ve seen glaciers, sand dunes, waterfalls, jagged peaks, prairies, rivers, beaches, rainforests, and rolling hills. We’ve walked in the snow, kissed on the sidewalks in San Francisco, ridden in a skypod, watched the foliage turn, enjoyed romantic meals together, crossed a suspension footbridge, hugged a redwood tree, and gazed through a glass floor at the city below.

We’ve seen elk, deer, mountain sheep, coyotes, bald eagles, Canadian geese, hawks, ravens, magpies, a white peacock, pelicans, dolphins, rabbits, chipmunks, and black squirrels, all in the wild. We also saw farms with llamas and ostriches. At the aquarium we watched sharks, bat rays, sea otters, and a number of sea birds, including puffins and others that dive for food.

We’ve watched the foliage change across the continent, and back again. The east coast's brilliant crimsons and fiery oranges gradually give way to shocking yellow... this fades to be replaced by green pines striped with dramatic white cedars. The tan and brown skeletons of other trees take over from there. Finally, even the hardiest trees surrender and the landscape is dominated by grasses and plains. Then as you approach the mountains, the process begins in reverse. Of all of these, first prize goes to the maples, found especially in Canada, who have apparently decided to specialize in scarlet. Every stunning shade of red imaginable is represented on their boughs, and they sparkle like rubies in every forest and town. Second place goes to a type of tree we saw only in and around Santa Rosa, California. Rather than sticking with one color, they’ve chosen to represent the entire continent in each tree. Topped with a vivid red, the shades gradually change through the brightest oranges, yellows, and greens before their full branches yield to the brown trunk. This makes for an opalescent rainbow effect that is, like the maples, a sight to behold.

It’s been a spectacular journey! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

I'll load our pictures to an online photo album for easy viewing, and post the web address here.

Nickie has some thoughts she would like to share about our trip. Keep an eye out for this, coming soon. Her writing is exquisite, regardless of what she may tell you!

Too much development

While traveling south through northern and central California, in areas where we haven’t been for many (16-30) years, we noticed that huge amounts of development had taken place. What was once beautiful open hillside or stretches of sandy beach or a serene lookout point has been obliterated by a jumble of tightly packed houses and condos.

One day, when every place of beauty has been covered over with houses to such an extent that the original reasons for moving there are long gone, and the only such places we can turn to are in crowded, heavily trampled national parks dotted with litter, we will regret reproducing like wildfire without regard for the limitations of the planet and then selling every conceivable inch of its most beautiful places to the highest bidder.

Solvang, California

Just passing through but I couldn't resist commenting. Solvang is "the Danish capital of America." Danish architecture, complete with windmills, is adorned with decorative lights year round. Doubly so near Christmastime. They have Danish cuisine, crafts, and cultural events. It's such a lovely quaint little town, it's worth coming back again and again.