Wednesday July 17, 2002 – Slept in a bit today and got up around 9:30 read the paper and had breakfast then I headed out with Josie to Barnes & Noble to get a copy of Poor Leo’s 2002 Computer Almanac for him to sign at the studio tomorrow. We got back and were met shortly by Mom & Dad who had also gone out and about in the morning. We all walked down to the Alcatraz tour pier where we boarded an 11:45 ferry with our pre-purchased tickets. We got to the island and first watched a brief video about its history ranging from military fort to prison and finally a national park. Our tickets also included a self-guided audio tour of the cell house. We completed that and then I was able to walk around the island and take a number of pictures of both the prison itself and views of the bay, bridges and city. Some of the pictures should come out quite interesting with the contrast of the freedom the Golden Gate Bridge gave to San Francisco with the chain link fencing of Alcatraz. I hope they turn out as well as they looked when I shot them. After returning to the wharf we took the cable car up to the Cable Car Museum where we got to see history in motion, literally as the power plant still produced power for the four remaining cable car lines in the city. We walked down and through Chinatown where we found a restaurant and stopped for dinner. Our next stop was to take the bus down to Market Street and see the Sony Metrion shopping/entertainment complex, after a walk through of that we headed back to the old Ghiradeli chocolate factory where we got some free samples and purchased some chocolate to eat later tonight. We walked back to the hotel where Anna, Mom and I continued on to Pier 39, which is a shopping and entertainment pier, in search of a San Francisco polo style shirt for me. We found one and then headed back to the hotel where the others had just started watching A View To A Kill which of course centers around Silicon Valley and San Francisco. We ate our chocolate and all had some milk during the movie. Tomorrow our only real plan is to see the Golden Gate Bridge up close and possibly walk across. Anna and I will be visiting the TechTV studios again to see broadcasts of Call For Help and The ScreenSavers then we leave San Francisco behind as we continue down California stopping for the night in Silicon Valley.

Monday July 15, 2002 – Another day and state brought another change in scenery today. We got up a bit later today and ate breakfast in one of the downtown Reno casinos and then headed out. Since we only had a few hundred miles to drive my dad drove the whole way today. We left Reno around 10:30 and were soon in California. The mountains seemed to pop up again as soon as we got into California. This time they had even more foliage and were even more beautiful than the ones we had seen the last couple days. Just after we entered California Josie started her movie Holiday in the Sun, I opted to listen to some music and contemplate life a bit while watching the beautiful scenery instead. Sacramento went by in a flash, we hardly got a look at the city which might be interesting to explore. One thing that continually strikes me is how fast these western cities fade into the country. Back home we have miles and miles of suburbs before you get to the country, but here in minutes you can go from urban to farmland or desert. About three in the afternoon we arrived at our destination of Novato, CA where we checked into our hotel and picked up a map and some information about Marin County, CA. We then headed to Muir Woods National Monument where you can walk through paths to see a costal redwood forest, I got some great pictures there and the scenery was truly breathtaking. Someone had suggested we take a more scenic route back to Novato so we took California SR 1 back up the coast for a ways, which was a very interesting ride right along the cliffs down to the Pacific Ocean (our first look at it!) with hairpin turns and people flying by. I think it made my Dad a bit nervous to be going along making all those turns with our car. Anyway the 15 minute ride to get to Muir Woods was about an hour and a half ride home but it was very scenic and we got to see a couple of reservoirs and a number of canyons. When we got back we found a great local pizza place in Novato called Mary’s Pizza Shack. We had a good dinner there and headed back to the hotel where Noah and Josie decided to go ahead and take a swim although the rest of us thought it was a bit cool outside for that. Tomorrow morning we’re going to head into San Francisco, drive around a bit and get lunch then Anna and I head to TechTV for a live ScreenSavers show which we’re both excited for.

Ben’s California Trip Travel Log Part I 7/12/2002-7/14/2002

Friday July 12, 2002 – Today we started on our annual summer family car trip. I woke up at 8:30, my usual time and started gathering up my things and finishing packing and other miscellaneous jobs around the house. We ate a small lunch around 11 and planned to head out about noon. We left just about on schedule and made pretty good time down 35 to Des Moines with my Dad driving where we turned onto I80 heading West. Just outside of the Iowa border I got a phone call from Darci at TechTV who kindly arranged for Anna and myself to get tickets to two ScreenSavers broadcasts while we’re in San Francisco. It was quite thrilling to finally get to talk to Darci after having emailed back and forth on a semi-regular basis. Our first movie, chosen by my sister Anna, was Meet Joe Black which I had not seen before. Although I’m not a fan of Brad Pitt the movie was good and I look forward to watching it again. We stopped to stretch and get gas in Western Iowa, where my Mom started driving, and continued on to Lincoln, NE where we had dinner. After dinner my brother picked Air Force One and I started driving through Nebraska. The sunset was a very interesting and beautiful thing for me to see while I was driving, clouds hung low in the sky and the bright red-orange sun traveled in and out of them creating a distinct circle of color in contrast to the stark grey sky.We called ahead and found a place to stay in Fort Kearny, NE. It’s about 10:30 local here and I think I’m going to head to bed, planning to get up at 5 and start right away, apparently the interstate is flooded and closed outside of North Platte, NE and the detour can be time consuming if it’s busy so we hope to hit that early in the day.

Saturday July 13, 2002 – We got up at five this morning and soon headed out on the road. My dad, used to getting up early in the mornings took the first driving shift. I turned on some music and watched the scenery for a while before taking a nap. This is unusual for me since I have to be pretty tired to take a nap in a car, although as I get older it gets easier to do. We stopped about nine for breakfast at McDonalds just before we got to the detour area. After eating we headed out again and soon found out the bridge had been repaired and there was no detour so we gained a bunch of time. I took another nap(!) after seeing there was no detour. We stopped just before we hit the Wyoming border and I took over driving for a while Josie watched A Walk To Remember. We stopped at a rest area briefly in Wyoming to take some pictures and stretch a bit (pictures to come later). I continued driving the 200 miles to Rawlins, WY which is located in south central Wyoming. I should note that on our previous trip through Northern Wyoming to Yellowstone I was continually struck by the beauty of this state especially traveling up through the mountains and the fertile valleys. Southern Wyoming is nothing like this, it is desert, the elevation goes up; however, not through mountains and the land is anything but fertile. Our original plan was to stop for the day in Rawlins, but since we had few delays and had started so early in the morning we decided to push on after stopping at a local grocery store and eating a picnic lunch in the park. My Dad took over driving again and took us to Rock Springs, WY where we stopped to get gas and stretch our legs out. My Mom took over driving, this makes some of us nervous as she’s not quite as comfortable driving a loaded vehicle at these freeway speeds as my Dad and I are, but she did a fine job nonetheless. I watched my first movie on the trip, Rush Hour, chosen for the references to California in the movie. Mom took us to the last town on I80 in Wyoming, Evanston where we stopped, found the local Catholic Church, went to mass and ate dinner. My dad picked up driving again and we are currently headed through Utah to Salt Lake City where we plan to spend the night before heading to Reno, NV tomorrow. The scenery changed the minute we entered Utah, it’s an amazing contrast with Wyoming, suddenly there are houses along the freeway, and green mountains as opposed to the dry sand of Southern Wyoming. It looks like we’re going to be in a hotel before sunset tonight, which is too bad because I think it would be a beautiful location to see a sunset over these great green mountains in the distance.

Sunday July 14, 2002 – I got up a little earlier today than some of us and I went to go hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir do their Sunday broadcast, the acoustics in that room are truly amazing especially considering its age. The choir was pretty good although I think the room and sheer volume of voices add more. After a pretty good breakfast in the hotel we headed out on the road with a destination of Reno for the night. The salt flats of Utah were something to see, the white seemed to stretch on and on to the distant mountains, and we stopped to take a closer look after we got past the Great Salt Lake. When we got just inside the Nevada border Anna took over driving and took us about halfway across the state to Button Point where we had a snack (no lunch today) and I took over driving. Movies today were Rookie of the Year, The Fugitive and Sister Act. I drove us the rest of the way to Reno where we had reservations ahead of time. Northern Nevada was surprisingly green for being desert; the mountains were a beautiful blue-green in the distance which contrasted beautifully with the blue sky. We walked around Reno a bit after arriving and had dinner at a casino buffet before settling in for the night. I think we’re going to sleep in a bit tomorrow because we don’t have to drive very far to get just outside of San Francisco where we’re spending the night before heading into SF Tuesday morning.

More to come as internet connections permit, pictures to come after we get the file developed at home…

Ok kids, here’s my blog for my week of vacation. If you’re not interested and want to skip to the newest section pop down to the bottom of this entry.

Friday March 29, 2002: Travel
We left for the aiport about noon CST for a 2:30 flight and we got through security with plenty of time to spare. I thought that I may as well pull out the laptop and see if there were any 802.11b networks to be found. Lo and behold, MSP has a free internet access (through April 30th) wifi network. I was able to check Leoville and my mail one last time, good thing too because I got a great email from Jan about Key West which is bound to help up when we get there. We flew to Atlanta and had a two hour layover, alas there was no wifi network to be found but we did have to eat dinner anyway. We changed planes and flew on to Melbourne, FL where we landed about 10:00 pm EST. We drove up the coast to Merrit Island where we stayed the night.

Saturday March 30, 2002: KSC
We got up early (for me) and drove the few miles out to KSC where we took a tour and got to see a number of presentations and NASA artifacts which I enjoyed, took a number of pictures which I hope will turn out pretty well. After lunch we droveq bac towards Orlando, we soon found our hotel there and unpacked. We went to Steak n’ Shake for dinner but it was not on par with our previous experiances with the chain. Anna was feeling sick muchq of the late afternoon so she stayed at the hotel and sleptq while we went to a 7:30pm Easter Vigil Mass at a local parish. Let me say that it was a very energetic parish, reminded me of a southern protestant church. Anyway, that took the average 2 hours and we returned, hung out by the pool and enjoying the nice weather for a while and then turned in for the night.

Sunday March 31, 2002: Islands of Adventure
We got up early (again) and dad and anna dropped the rest of us off at Universal Islands of Adventure while they went to an Easter Sunday mass. We rode the rollercoasters there and met up with anna and dad a few hours later. We all went and rode the rollarcoasters again together. This was noah’s day for the vacation and he wanted to spend it at the theme park. After a while the rest of us got pretty tired out but he went and rode some more stuff. About 5:30pm We left and drove down the turnpike towards Miami, stopping for the night in Fort Pierce.

Monday April 1, 2002: On to Miami
We got to sleep in for a little while today because we can’t board the ship until at least 1 pm anyway. After a short breakfast I discovered a cat 5 cable hanging behind the desk in our rooms so I thought, why not hook it up and see shat it does… a short while later I was checking some leoville messages and downloading new email. We decided to head out about 11:00 which we did and drove down the Florida Turnpike to Miami. After filling the rental car with gas and returning it to Hertz at the Miami airport we caught a shuttle to the pier. It was a little before 2 when we arrived at the boat, which was perfect because there were no lines to get on. One of the fist things we did was to have lunch at one of the buffets on board. Afterwards we explored the ship for awhile and met again for dinner at an onboard pasta cafe. Dinner was good and afterwards I went and caught a comedy show at one of the clubs. After that got out I headed to the other club for the 70s night. The crowd wasn’t too big and the band pretty good, suffice to say I got down with the dance floor. Since it was midnight by this time and it was an early wakeup in the morning I headed to bed.

Tuesday April 2, 2002: Key West / At Sea
The boat arrived at Key West, FL sometime early in the morning. We got up at 7:30 and it had already been docked and cleared. After eating a quick breakfast at one of the buffets on board we headed ashore to catch the Key West Conch Train which gives an excellent narrerated tour of the island. That took us until 10:30 we had only an hour and a half before the ship left again. I would have liked to have had a full day in Key West, but at least I got some pie. I also took a walk down to see Hemingway’s house and Truman’s “Little White House.” I’ll try to post some pictures once I get them developed. We sailed about 12:30 in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day at sea. It was pretty hot so I took a long swim in the afternoon and then dired off in the sun. I took a shower and had dinner at a poolside bbq. Afterwards I was able to catch a pretty good sunset and got a number of pictures to post. I went to a meet the captain event and then caught a broadway tunes show. Of course it being the second day of a four day cruise I had to meet some crew. Before and after the show I struck up a conversation with Christien, the onboard sound technician who is primarily responsible for mixing the big shows and also doing installation and repair of all sound systems onboard. He was nice enough to take some time after the early show to give me a tour of many of the non-public audio facilities aboard the ship and we had a great time discussing sound and lighting systems for live and studio work. After sticking my head in the other lounge which was doing Karoke I headed down to the cabin to cool off for a while. I’m going to head up to the second showing of the broadway show soon and try to get some still photogrpahs and then pop in to a 50’s through today live music event in the other lounge. At midnight I plan to be at the Chocaholic buffet and will certianly snap some photos too. We get an extra hour of sleep tonight, heading into the central timezone again, of course we loose it going out of Cozumel again tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes I think we’ve got tickets for a sail, snorkel and beach party which should be fun.

Wednesday April 3, 2002: At Sea / Cozumel
We got to sleep in today which was a nice change, after arriving in Cozumel we took a tender to the pier and went out on a catamaran sailbot to a reef where we snorkeled for about forty minutes. I took an underrwater camera and when i get the photos I’ll put some up. We got back on the catamaran and headed toa private beach for another hour or two. We had a leisurely sail back to the pier and got to see a pretty good sunset on the way. We still had some time before the ship left so we went to a local restaurant that was reccommended to us, Pacho’s Backyard, it actually had some very good authentic Mexican food. After dinner we walked back to the pier and caught a tender backt o the ship, we sailed about 10:00 at night. There wasn’t to much going on that night so I caught a live band performance and hung out on the decks for a while before heading to bed.

Thursday April 4, 2002: At Sea
I got up early today on my own free will to catch some breakfast onboard. I got an omelett which was very good and hung around the decks for a while. In the afternoon I went and watched some pool games for a while, watched for flying fish, went to a couple trivia games, and a sing along at one piano location. Just before dinner I went to see the Piqua High School Show Choir from Ohio Valley perform some numbers in the theater. They were pretty good at performing, but their singing was not as good as I’d hoped. We went to one of the fancy restaurants for dinner, I had steak which was pretty good and I ran out for a few minutes for a last chance to capture a sunset which was good but not great. In the evening I went to see another production show by the same preformers as the on-broadway show (the Jean-Ann Ryan Company) it wasn’t as good, but they’re not the best group anyway. I hung around the decks for a while and went to a live liar’s club event in the evening (basically balderdash with the cruise staff).

Friday April 5, 2002: Disembarkation / Travel
Had to get up by eight today which was no fun, I even skipped breakfast to get the extra sleep. We got off the ship around 9:15 and were quickly processed through customs, they even stamped my passport for me. We got our luggage and caught a shuttle to Hertz where we picked up a minivan to drive back up to Melbourne. My dad had the idea to drive up US 1 because we’ll be driving down CA 1 in the summer and they’re on opposite sides of the county. Well, my mom soon found FL A1A on a map and wanted to drive along it to see the ocean, it was sooo slow, after half an hour of it I gave up and I took a nap in the back for a while. They finally gave up the idea and took 95 up the coast to Melbourne, along the way I called and found us a great deal on a hotel room on the beach for the night, even though it didn’t really matter since we would only be there a short while. We got to Melbourne about 5:00 and checked into the hotel. We ate at Ci-Ci’s Pizza which we don’t have in the frozen North (yet) and my sister loves it (if you’ve never tried it do so today, it’s great, I promise!). We went back to the hotel for a while and some people went swimming, others watched a movie on TV, we all turned in at 11 since we had to get up to catch the plane tomorrow early, very early.

Saturday April 6, 2002: Airports / Home
We had to get up at 4:00AM to get showers and get to the airport to get on our 7:00 flight to Atlanta, it was unplesent but I made it. I took a brief nap on the hourlong flight. We had an hour in Atlanta so it was pretty much moving from one gate to the other, we stopped and grabbed some Cinnabons to eat on the plane. The longer 2 hourish flight back to Minneapolis was uneventful I took another nap and listened to some music on my laptop. When we got back we decided not to change back to CST because that night was Daylight Savings anyway. Some of us got back in my grandparent’s car and drove home, I went grocery shopping, my dad drove back to the airport to pick up the rest and the luggage. We went to church so we could sleep in Sunday. I stayed up and caught up on Leoville and read my email, headed to bed exhausted around midnight, long day.

Sunday April 7, 2002: Back to school
Got up around 11, read some for history, had breakfast, the ususal. Packed for school and read some more. Left for school about 4:00, got there about 5:30 (sister, slow driver…) got my mail and unpacked, settled in, caught up on my mail, ate dinner, watched the three TSS and one West Wing eps I taped while gone and did some Cisco reading. Sent some emails and that’s about it. I’m exhausted again today and will head to bed soon I hope. I think I’ll write the English paper tomorrow night, yes that sounds good to me. Sorry today’s and yesterday’s was a little brief, I’m tired, ah well back to a regular schedule tomorrow. That sounds good right now…