AreWeThereYet2K15

Yesterday, with Sarah at the wheel, we left Hearst Castle and San Simeon, late in the afternoon and drove to Big Sur along Highway 1. This is the scenic road that follows the coastline of the Pacific Ocean all the way from Orange County in the south to Mendocino County in the north. For significant portions of our drive, the road was quite narrow and twisty, with just one lane in either direction. I was thankful we were heading north, as the inside lane seemed marginally safer than the outside lane. Notwithstanding the many anxiety-provoking hairpin turns, Highway 1 certainly deserves its reputation as one of America’s great drives. The views of the Pacific Ocean from the highway were amazing. Our destination was a property called “Treebones Resort” which is nestled against the Los Padres National Forest about 60 miles south of Carmel-by-the-Sea. It was created by a former SVP of Design at Mattel Toys and his family. I had reserved one of their sixteen yurts for Mariah, Sarah, and me to spend the night. (Yes, a yurt.) Our yurt was a dome-topped, round structure, with fabric-draped wood lattice walls that were covered with sturdy white vinyl. It was set on a platform, perched on a bluff, and outfitted with varnished pine floors, a skylight for stargazing, two queen beds and a futon with plush bedding, a little sink, a few electric light fixtures, French doors, and a porch for […]

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We returned our rental car yesterday with 9,062 Van Sciver miles on the odometer. When we add the 379 miles we put on on our Suburban before picking up the rental in Philly – Mariah and I have traveled 9,441 miles together on this trip, so far. We will be cruising in Sarah’s car for the final leg of our trip. We didn’t take a direct route between coasts, but we sure chose an interesting one.  Since entering the Golden State of California, I have been amazed by their mess of a highway system. In particular, Los Angeles and the nearby towns are connected by an insanely complicated system of highways. It is utter madness. My theory is that they hired a brilliant city planner who developed a practical and clean set of highway plans to move the necessary volume of cars from place to place. Then, an unbelievable series of bizarre events occurred. As a result, the team of engineers responsible for constructing the roadways accidentally built the highway system based on the flip side of the approved plans. Inadvertently, they followed the random scribbles of their brilliant city planner’s three year old child that had been scrawled in purple crayon on the back side of his approved plans. There is no other possible explanation for this chaos. Yesterday, we took a day trip into Hollywood and walked along a section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is […]

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Mariah, Sarah, and I visited the San Diego Zoo today because in San Diego all visitors are pressured to go to their zoo. On a perfect day, I am the wrong person with whom to go to a zoo. I mentioned this in a mid-June blog post when Mariah and I went to the Atlanta Corporate Recognition Park (or as it is facetiously called by the locals “The Atlanta Aquarium”).  I find animals in captivity to be deeply disturbing. Nonetheless, today was my second time submitting to the San Diego Zoo’s not so subtle pressure. I succumbed more than a decade ago when Harry and I foolishly thought that visiting the zoo with all four of our daughters on a blistering hot Father’s Day was an inspired plan. A wise person learns from other’s mistakes; a fool from his own. You read it here: On Fathers Day stay away from places that target market to non-custodial dads.  Today in drought-stricken California, shortly after we arrived, it rained and rained and rained some more at the San Diego Zoo. Tropical Storm Dolores had arrived. At first, everyone thought it was novel and exciting. People stuck their tongues out and tried to taste the rain. That phase lasted for about five minutes. Tops. Then everyone realized that they were getting soaked. Many purchased clear ponchos and danced about in the rain. That phase lasted another five minutes. Or less. At this point […]

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We were greeted by a police officer and cruiser yesterday morning when we tried to check out of our hotel. Evidently, one of our hotel neighbors used a fraudulent ID and credit card when they registered. This jerk then spent the night before stealing the television from his room on his way out. Our check-out was delayed significantly as the desk staff tried to address this situation. As a result, I am feeling FAR less guilty about occasionally taking the little shampoos and soaps I have not used during my hotel stays for later use. On our way to San Diego, we drove by the area where the fire had crossed the interstate. Several lanes were closed and traffic was backed up, because of the ongoing clean-up efforts. It was unsettling to see the vast blackened areas on both sides of the highway. The area smelled of the strong chemicals that were used to suppress the flames. Harry sent me a link to some of the news coverage of the fire. It is quite disconcerting to realize how close we were to driving through the area ourselves. Thankfully, no one was injured. Here is the link:  http://www.aol.com/article/2015/07/18/terror-on-interstate-15-as-people-abandon-cars-flee-fire/21211002/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D-203462047  Shortly after we finally were able to check out of the hotel, our phones buzzed again with another emergency warning. This time we were being cautioned about flash floods. Within minutes the skies opened and it poured. Drenching sheets of rain accompanied us […]

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On Friday night, Mariah and Harry walked up and down the Las Vegas strip together for a while which gave Mariah a fairly good sense of the nightlife scene in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Sarah and I took a cab away from the center of things to a James Beard Foundation awarded Thai restaurant filled to the brim with young local residents. It was a satisfying evening for all.   The Bellagio boasts a Dale Chihuly glass lobby ceiling (titled: Flori di Como) that contains more than 2,000 individually hand-blown glass flower sculptures. It is massive. Though the individual flowers were beyond beautiful, when crowded together much of the the beauty was lost. I feel about that lobby ceiling, as I feel about the Bellagio as a whole, and the entire city of Las Vegas. It is too big, too noisy, too gaudy, too in your face, too messy, too vulgar, too crowded, too ostentatious, too pushy, too unhealthy, too cheap, too artificial, too pathetic, too desperate and too everything else.  Las Vegas is so not my cup of tea.  Paradoxically, Mariah, Sarah and I planned to have afternoon tea together at the Petrossian Lounge in the Bellagio yesterday afternoon. We read about their high tea service months ago. It was advertised as an ideal family friendly activity. It turns out, however, that a newish Nevada State law prohibits anyone under the age of 21 to enter a bar, even if that […]

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Last night Mariah, Harry and I spent the night in Nevada at a classic, independent hotel just a few miles from the Hoover Dam that time forgot. We slept late and toured the Dam midday. As everyone says, it truly is an engineering marvel. It is difficult to imagine today, but they actually completed the project ahead of schedule and under budget. The magnitude of the project was staggering. Concluding in 1936, more than 5,000 men worked around the clock 363 days a year for five years to build the dam. Like Mount Rushmore, it could have never been created in today’s political and social climate because of the environmental impact, the risk to life and limb incurred by the laborers who built it and the cost. It is something to behold. After the tour, we rented a 22 Foot Bennington Pontoon boat and Harry drove us around Lake Mead. It was really neat to see the Dam from the lake side after having just viewed it from the opposite perspective. Lake Mead’s water level is down more than forty feet, exposing large discolored areas of the vertical rock walls that are usually submerged. The differentiation in the color of the newly exposed rock is obvious in the photographs that follow. Our unimpressive Hertz GPS determined that the marina where we had parked our car was smack in the middle of the lake. In this rare instance, the GPS had […]

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Last night we had dinner, or rather, we dined at El Tovar. El Tovar is to the Grand Canyon what The Old Faithful Inn is to Yellowstone Park. Storied, historic, imposing, gorgeous in a “lots of oversized dark wood” way, and a real indulgence. Their lobby is adorned with mounted trophy elk, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, moose and buffalo. Harry looked at home there. Our dinner was delicious and the surroundings were a blast.   This morning Mariah, Harry and I left our hotel slathered in sunscreen, prepared to tour the Grand Canyon and enjoy a bit of hiking away from the crowds. Months ago, I reserved a guide with a highly rated local company. They promised to supply all of our needed equipment, water, snacks, a light lunch and lots of information about what we would be seeing while we were together. The highlight of our day would be a one hour hike on a lightly utilized trail customized to their client’s skill level. I reserved what they described as their least challenging hike, a one hour beginner’s hike.        Of course, the Grand Canyon is majestic, stunning and awe-inspiring. It is wider, longer, deeper, and more of everything in person than the best photographs depict or the most descriptive writing conveys. Mariah will post her favorite subset of her photographs of the Canyon as soon as she conquers the technological glitches that have been plaguing her […]

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After emerging from Kokopelli’s cave, we drove to Sedona, Arizona. Along the way, the landscape changed from open fields to dense National Forests to expansive vistas with imposing red rock formations. (I cannot get over the sight of thousands of acres of lush, dense National Forests all over the place.) Sedona reminded me of Vail. Both areas are at the epicenter of astounding natural beauty. Like Vail, Sedona is prosperous, thriving and overflowing with high end retail, restaurants and service providers catering to the affluent. Though we regrettably only stayed in Sedona overnight, we slept at a lovely bed and breakfast in a beautiful room that was practically on top of their iconic rock formations. Photographs from our bedroom window are attached below. It was an impossibly beautiful view.  We left Sedona to drive to the Hopi Cultural Center in Kykotsmovi, Arizona. Our Hertz-provided GPS was evidently unaware of the location of this sizable Native American reservation. We followed a circuitous route, almost doubling our travel time, before finally arriving. (Note to the United States Defense Department: remove the GPS units from all of the Hertz rental cars and ship them to governments hostile to the United States. The recipient nations would be lost forever).   We met our guide, Gary, who showed Mariah, Harry and me around the Hopi reservation for four hours in his somewhat worse-for-wear SUV. Gary’s mother was Hopi, his father was Navajo and he served […]

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