14 more to go!

This year so far I was able to cross two states off my "States to see List" Louisiana and Missouri.

Louisiana was a compromise since Michael had already been there twice and really didn't want to go back. The compromise was we took a train there since Michael loves trains. It actually worked out OK for me, since I seemed to had caught some kid of bug and slept probably 80% of the train ride. (Below Michael happy to be on the train, and a border stop in Texas)

Actually Michael changed his opinion of Louisiana and we had a fun time there visiting Cemeteries, Plantations, and taking swamp tours. Below, picture from the cemetery tour, they have to bury their dead above ground, the place where Katrina came over the bank, and Laura's Plantation that was built without any nails!

St Louis was just OK-probably because I had to site see on my own since Michael was there for work. I of course took in the arch, and crossed underneath it so I can say I now have officially crossed the gateway to the west. I also took in the Anheuser-Busch brewery tour and saw the clydalles, dalmatians and sampled the free beer.

The Arch

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A View from Above there is a little pod car that lets you ride up the arch in the inside.

First pic of the court house where the Dred Scott case took place, the second,the ballpark and if you look closely Nestle Purina is on the left and Michael is inside somewhere.

The Beer Tour and a picture of my free beer- very tasty!

Ready to Learn Something?

Last weekend we took my parents to the annual Wisteria Vine Festival in my town. It is amazing to know just in our little town (which a few years ago was voted in the top 10 small towns of America) we have not one, but two of the biggest things! One is the Wisteria Vine (the largest living blooming plant in the world!).

Once a year the two homes that the vine is located on open the yard to view the vine. It takes over an acre of property. So how did the vine get here you may ask? Well...

Sierra Madre's vine was originally purchased in a gallon can for 75 cents in 1894. The seeds are said to have been brought to Europe by Marco Polo (also known for his fun swimming pool game) in the 13th century as prized treasures from the Orient. In 1913 extra arbors were built to support the vine so it could cover the house, and it did just that ; eventually the roof collapsed and the house was torn down in 1931. The arbors were retained, and a new house was built 200 feet away.

Other fascinating facts about the vine include but are not limited to:

1.5 million luxuriant lavender blossoms

250 tons

More than one acre in size

500 foot branches

40 blossoms per sq. foot

Growth rate (per various experts) from 24" in 24 hours to 26" in 48 hours

Named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest blossoming plant in the world

The vine has been named one of the seven horticultural wonders of the world, along with the redwood forest in Sequoia National Park, Brazil's tropical jungle in the Amazon Valley, Mexico's Xochimilco floating gardens, India's gardens of the Taj Mahal, Japan's Yokohama rock gardens, and the gardens of Buckingham Palace

In 1918, 12,000 people attended the first public Wistaria Festival. In the 1930s, a 6-week Wistaria event took place, with more than 100,000 people making the trip to see the vine.

In the 1940s and again in the 1960s, at considerable expense, the vine required horticultural restoration, dry ice packs, three foot hypodermic needles with Vitamin B, hormone shots and more.

Through the years the vine has had many nicknames, among them Glorified Bean, Jack's Beanstalk, Queen of the San Gabriels, Lavender Lady, Sierra Madre's Treasure, and the Monster.

We had a fun day, after visiting the vine, we went down to the park for some snacks, then walked down the main drag that was filled with vendors, and had lunch at Lucky Baldwins (one of the early town's folk)

Although we learned all of this on the tour, I needed a bit of help remembering so fun facts were provided by the Sierra Madre Wistaria web site

Hey Let's go to the Cemetery!

Michael is known for his list of "Fun" stuff to do list. But last week when it rained, cancelling our camping trip to Anza-Borrego, Michael's Plan B list seemed less than desirable to his friend Jeff and myself. We all agreed to go to the Getty Villa, but since we could not get reservations until 2pm, Michael wanted to do something before hand. His suggestion was a trip to Forrest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, CA.

But I have to admit by the end of the Cemetery tour, it was an interesting place to go. I particularly love the Last Window Supper Window.

We were not allowed to take pictures, so I copied the pictures from the following website, it will also tell you more about the building of the window- pretty cool stuff! http://www.forestlawn.com/About-Forest-Lawn/Glendale-The-Last-Supper-Window-Memorial-Terrace.asp

Then it was off to the Getty Villa in Malibu. Mr Getty was quite a visionary in the collection of arts for the sake of having them seen. His personal favorite was the Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses, which are housed at the Villa.

...and then I would be remiss if I didn't include how the day ended, we came home, barbecued, and then I whipped the boys in a game of Trivial Pursuit, and then watched a movie, which I feel asleep to.

The Ranch on the Hill

It might look more like a Castle and maybe that is why it was dubbed Hearst Castle, however Mr. Hearst loved the open fields and all the animals he had on his ranch. His parents (a silver miner who made a fortune, and his wife a teacher) purchased this property when he was a kid, and he loved exploring it.

This is the 2nd time I have been to Hearst Castle, and I love going to see all the amazing architecture, and period pieces inside the Castle, however the best view is that of the Neptune pool. It actually took 3 tries to get it to its current look, the first tries were too small.

And of course it might be too cold to swim, so there was an indoor, gold line pool too!

When done touring for the day we went back to the place we were staying Morrow Bay, very easy to find by its huge landmark Morrow Rock. We had fun on the nearby beach chasing the birds.

Then we made it back to the hotel, where we must of surprised a valentine celebrating couple- We had a hot tub on our patio, and when we went out to turn it on, to our surprise we saw wet footprints and a 1/2 of bottle of wine sitting next to the Hot Tub. I had to laugh- I had to admire their panache, in my younger days I must admit I did some pool hopping myself (my cousin once fell into the powdered chlorine bin --but I digress) but then again a sigh came too, thinking hmmm am I getting old, since maybe my hopping days are over?

I Love My Job!

So yesterday in my AP Calculus classes (2nd and 3rd period of the day), we did a fairly hard problem. It surprised me that in both classes after we got done the problem both classes clapped! Of course I was feeling pretty good about the class and myself, just coming alive for the love of math...

A couple kids stayed after class to ask questions, but the one question I loved the most was a girl who pondered much more than Calculus in the class. Her question was simple, "How do I get those rings of color in my hair?- they are really cool" Now not only am I disappointed that I didn't reach all the kids with that amazing problem, I find out I have a bad hair dye problem"

and Kristen & Linda you thought you had hair troubles!

(all pictures from google image)

Bye Bye Dairy Queen

I decided every time I do a new banner heading I will place the old one in my blog. Who knows maybe someday, someone will come up with an easy way to make blog posts into a book. Of course mine would be a best seller :) (just kidding in case my humor did not translate well)

...but anyway, it is funny that some people think Michael and I take all these great adventures, because here we were in North Carolina, and we were all excited to be at the Dairy Queen (we actually have one picture of the sundae maker laughing at us). But in our defense there are no Dairy Queens by us, but I guess that could be a good thing for our waist line.

The new picture was taken when we visited Hearst Castle on our way up to SF. Story still to come.

The FB photo's story continues: The Bike Ride

So when we decided on San Fran for our 4 day weekend it was my job to figure out what we would do. So I picked out 3 things, unfortunately 2 of them involved a about an hour drive to get there and the 3rd only took about 15-30 minutes. So it was back to the drawing board.

Having been to SF before on two occasions, we had already seen Alcatraz, China Town, The Trolley and the cable cars (there is a difference!), Ghiradelli (aka chocolate) square. I did find a walking tour of the Victorian houses, however it started at 11:00 and was only 2hrs so that killed the whole day.

Finally Bingo! We saw bike the bridge. Well it would be about an hour to 2 hour trip from where you pick up the bikes, cross the bridge, and take the ferry home- but that was the standard trip- so pf cource we couldn't just settle for that - no, we had to plan for a whole day of biking.




So we decided we would go to the Presido (the one thing on my original list-pictured above), then to the Golden Gate Park, and then by Seal Beach, cross the Bridge then go to Sosolido to catch a ferry. On the map (which was actually attached to the bike) it did not look like that far of a trip. But then again the bike company didn't really promote that trip... and know we know why!

1. The map stinks!!! It left out many roads so a frequent site was us stopped and looking at the map. (Actually a nice lady who lived in SF felt so sorry for us she went into her house and got us a better map)

pic of us in Golden Gate State Park at the observatory (this is a great park!)

2. Not sure how this works out geographically but the trip was about 70% up hill! And let me tell you those hills of SF are steep! (OK so I walked some of the hills instead of biking)

3. The map was not drawn to scale, so we actually did about 25+ miles. Did I mention it was up hill? It took us from 10 am to 6 pm to complete our trip.

But then we had a nice hearts day dinner right on the bay to unwind. Amazingly I was not sore the next day-but the opposite, I was energized. Michael and I talked about doing another tri in our future. In fact this past weekend on Saturday we went for a 15 mile bike ride (only took us 1.3 hours due to the fact of not being so hilly, and not getting lost and looking at a map every 15 minutes) and we went swimming on Sunday.

The Story Behind the Face Book Pictures: The Bridge

I must have a facination with bridges. I remember taking the wrong road in Pittsburgh when crossing one of the bridges at night for the first time. All the bridges looked so pretty lighted up, I was just marveling at them. (Pittsburgh bridges). Then two years ago we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and had a great time. I took such great pictures (if I do say so myself) of the lines in the bridge that I had my top 4 framed in a collage that is hanging in our living room. (Brooklyn Bridge pics need to scrool down some to see them)

So when debating what to do in San Franscico this past weekend, when Michael found out we could rent bikes and ride across the Golden Gate bridge I was in. (It was quite a ride to get there: the story of the 20+ bike ride going up lots of hills will be saved for another blog).

The fun fact of the Golden Gate bridge, is that there is a port-a-pottie about half way, and they painted the outside to match the bridge. Now that is dedication to the "Golden" part. We had lots of fun going across the bridge, stopping to watch surfers, see the SF skyline, see Alcatraz, and make resolutions to someday sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, while watching all the sail boats in the bay.

I took lots of pictures of the bridge, so it was hard to narrow down my top 5 (but I did it Linda!)

and I have scattered them through my bridge blog for your enjoyment! :)