Some of you know by now, we made it to Tacoma, WA for Thanksgiving at my sister's house where all the family were meeting for the Thanksgiving meal. Did we ever surprise some of them. There was nothing quite like seeing the sign "Welcome to Washington" only thing to

make it any better would have been to have sunshine in the background instead of rain clouds, but then again, it's fall/winter in the northwest.

It's really nice to be home and sleeping in our own beds. The last two nights have been heaven.

We will now begin the process of getting the trip all together and the story written to get the book published. I'm still off for another week so hope to get most of it done before heading back to the park.

Speaking of the park, it really has been an eye opener to see how other parks perform the duties of dealing with the public. After all, the public is why the parks are there. There's always something we can learn from each other, all we have to do is to ask and or watch.

After our visit with Ralph and family (his mom Jean was visiting) we made it to Eureka, CA and had a wonderful dinner at the Marina Cafe. Our weather has been pretty good considering it is now November the the forecast is rain. I'm amazed at the number of hitchhikers along Hwy 101.

The signs all say to watch for those on bicycles but nothing about the hitchhikers. We haven't seen to many bicyclers thought.

This morning we will head north into Oregon where we haven't been since August. Oh no, the 4 months is coming to an end. What will we do? I must say thank you to everyone who has graciously opened their doors and allowed us to stay with them.

Spending time in San Francisco was wonderful. We enjoyed Japan Town and the people who live there and then went over to Fillmore area which is the big Jazz center of San Fran.

If we had more time, I expect we would have covered miles and miles walking. Just wish it would show on my body. NO luck there.

Thought these flags that are cut out were quite interesting and thought the picture was pretty good. Visiting with the Bell's and then heading north tomorrow.

We made it to San Francisco via Hwy 1 along the coast. What a beautiful drive and the traffic was nothing. Today is started to rain, so we had to put on pants.

I told Joe it will help to get acclimated by having the weather a bit cooler and a little rain just reminds us of home.


We'll be here for a few more days visiting with Ralph Bell and his family before getting back out on the coast and traveling north. The weather seems to be colder up north and snow all the way to the northern California coast. Hope by Tuesday when we head north, it will be clearing up and we can make our stop at the Heacocks as planned as they are in Eastern Oregon and it's not looking really good at this point. If snow continues --- well --- guess we'll just have to hunker down until the roads clear to get 4DATUDE back home. She hates snow.

SMART CAR WILL TRAVEL

Our travels today took us by the LAX airport but I will say that traveling off of the interstate allows us to see such wonderful things like this lab who was watching where his owner was driving. We've had so many questions from everyone on how in the world do we pack all the items we have into the car, so thought I'd share with everyone. Larry wanted us to pull the car into his garage and wow';';'; his Harley looks bigger than our smart car in length== funny D:

We made it up highway 1 from Del Mar, CA and enjoyed seeing how many California people work and play. We both said that to live in California you must enjoy being with people because there's a lot of people in California. We never got out of development all along the coastline except at Camp Pendleton and stopped in Beullton, CA for the night at the Windmill Days One. Heard from or friends north of San Francisco and will be spending a few days with them next week.

As we head north, we both realize how much we have seen and what a wonderful time we have had and yet, we still have a few more weeks before having to get back to Eatonville.

SMART CAR WILL TRAVEL

SMART CAR WILL TRAVEL

We visited the San Diego, CA Mercedes dealership today to check out the new Smart Cars and really are happy that we have the German built Smart car. After taco Tuesday at Cut N Core, we headed to Torrey Pines Beach for some wonderful beach walking and really enjoyed the sunshine and warmth. Picking up some rocks along the way, we headed south towards La Jolla not realizing we would come across "black beach". As we walked, I said, "is that guy naked?" Janice and Joe were walking not paying any attention to people walking towards us and then all of a sudden, I said " that guy has a different kind of swim suit on" It has hair???????? Oh NO -- We were within the nude beach ... close your eyes. I seen a lot more than I wanted to. Of course, I wasn't looking too close or else I would have seen a big.... kahuna...???

Celebrating Larry's birthday ==
Here he is blowing out the candle on Red Velvet Cupcakes with white frosting. Afterwards, we had Shrimp scampi for dinner.


The weather is wonderful, sunny and warm. Our plan today is to get in some beach walking and to enjoy a "birthday" lunch at Larry's work.