Thursday June 17th

Pebble Beach, California

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Today is our tenth anniversary. I think back to that summer day ten years ago when we stood at the rose garden in Buchanan Park and exchanged our vows. The Rose Garden was beautiful that afternoon as we gathered before family and a few close friends. We were both very nervous as we said the vows we had written for each other. Our vows reflected the hope we had for our future together by learning from our past.

Our courtship had been quick, less than one year. We had known each other as friends for years and once we started dating, it did not take long for the spark to flash. Fred proposed to me at the water cooler before a volleyball game and to me that was extremely romantic. The past ten years have exceeded my expectations of how great a marriage can be.

Our Anniversary Day started early for the drive up Route 1 to Pebble Beach. Our plan was to enjoy a leisurely drive along Route 1, arrive early at the Pebble Beach Lodge to eat breakfast while watching the golfers tee off on Hole #1.

It was misting and foggy as we started out. Route 1 is a winding road along the ocean and not much fun when there is no view. Our twisting turning drive came to an abrupt halt for road construction. We were the second car in line and after waiting 45 minutes, we proceeded at 10 miles per hour through the construction zone. By now our gas was getting low and we were worried that we would not arrive in time.

We arrived at the Lodge around 10:30 and our room was ready. We had been upgraded to an ocean view. Even better than the ocean view was the fact that our patio looked out over the famous Pebble Beach 18th green. We were thrilled. For the next twenty four hours we were going to be treated like royalty so no more talking about how much everything cost. It was time to enjoy the moment.

The golf course is more amazing and thrilling then we could have imagined. Caddies were in short supply, so we elected to walk with our own bags. The couple we were paired with were from North Carolina. They were on their way to Hawaii to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

The starter put us all at ease as we waited for our big moment to tee off at Pebble Beach. He took our names to have our complimentary bag tags ready for us after our round. We both got off the first tee in decent shape and we were on our way. The 7th hole, a par three with an elevated tee box was quite a challenge. We both ended up in the sand, which is better than the ocean.

We each had a highlight during our round. I came within inches of a hole-in-one on #5. We were all yelling for it to go in. Fred's highlight was the famous Hole #18. His drive was not very long, but it was in play which was a great start. A 3-wood and 5-iron left Fred a short chip over the sand which he nailed three feet from the pin. Cool as cucumber, Fred one putted and as easy as that he had a par. What a great end to his round at historic Pebble Beach.

Right after our round, we visited the Tap Room to catch the U.S. Open. There was big news around the Pebble Beach Resort. New owners had purchased the property and all the local news reporters were there. Fred got himself on TV. As we were sitting the the Tap Room, we saw the reporter broadcasting live right outside the doors. Fred hopped out of his chair and as I watched the TV, he walked out the door and across the lot right behind the reporter. It was so funny.

We opted for room service for dinner and ate as we watched golfers come in on #18. We were not going to miss spending one second in our outstanding room. As we shared a bottle of champagne, we marveled at where we were and the first rate service. Luxurious bed linens, a robe and slippers in the closest, a chocolate on the pillow; what more could you ask for? Ahhh-this is wedded bliss!

Friday June 18th

Pebble Beach to Monterey, California

In the morning, we ordered room service again and ate on the balcony. I lounged around in my thick cotton robe and slippers feeling very spoiled and pampered. We were appreciating and loving every minute of this wonderful experience.

Unfortunately, the time came for us to say goodbye to our impeccable room at Pebble Beach. It was a great 10th anniversary celebration.

Fred had gotten us a tee time at Poppy Hills Golf Course. He has wanted to play it ever since the last time we had been in this area. It was touted as a tough course; the slope rating was 135. We played with a couple from San Jose, California who had been married for 37 years and seemed to enjoy each others company. Do couples who play golf together get along better than couples who do not? Or, is it that couples who play golf together do so because they get along and like to spend time with each other? Poppy was abeautiful walk through the pine forrest complete with grazing deer.

After our round of golf, we drove the stunning 17 mile drive. The scenery was just as beautiful as we remembered. The contrast of ocean and cypress pines is breathtaking. Several holes of Spanish Bay, another Pebble Beach owned course, are visible along the 17 mile drive. The course is links style, with perfectly manicured fairways and spectacular views of the ocean and a price tag to match. We saw deer all around the course as we drove past.

Saturday June 19th

Monterey, California

We were major slackers today. I went to get my hair cut at the local Super Cuts as it has been driving me crazy. Fred wants to know if there are any women who are ever happy with their hair. While I was gone, Fred decided to read (that's red, ala Lancaster County style, not read) out the van and reorganize. When I arrived back at the room, the entire insides of the van was sprawled about in our hotel room covering the bed and floor. Time for a mid trip reorganization.

After watching an hour of the US Open in our room, we walked down to the waterfront. The views from the walkway paths were gorgeous. The Pacific Ocean, with huge rock formations that cause the surf to crash wildly against the shore, is more rugged than the Atlantic Ocean. Our hotel location is a short walk to the ocean and downtown area. The fact that we can hear everything our neighbors in the next room are doing is a mute point considering our close proximity to all the Monterey action. We were somewhat bummed because we missed the Montrerey Jazz Festival by 1 week. Of course the crowds would have been enormous so we decided it was a lucky break. Monterey is an expensive place to live. We passed a realtor display last night that showed a 576 sq. foot house for $145,000. If that is too small, you can get 1,500 sq. feet for only a mere $395,000.

We were in search of a sports bar for a hang-out to watch the U.S. open tomorrow. The only place we could find was Characters which was in the Marriott hotel. Characters turned out to be a fun place. We met two guys from Cleveland. They worked for Cisco foods, a major distributor of foods to restaurants, and were in Monterey for a conference. The Stanley Cup finals were on TV, Buffalo against Dallas. The one guy from Cleveland was originally from Buffalo, so we were all rooting for Buffalo in the three overtime periods. Unfortunately, Dallas ended up winning.

Fred started chatting with a fellow named Daniel who was from Virginia. Fred bought him a 7-up as they were having quite a conversation about baseball. Daniel had been to Puerto Rico when the Yankees were there and told Fred all about it. Daniel said that he was not as good at baseball as his twin brother; he liked to play soccer. He asked Fred if he knew who Mia Hamm was. For those of you who do not know, including me, Mia is on the Womens U.S. Soccer team. Daniel and Fred had quite a conversation much to the amazement of 6 year old Daniel's mother who told me that Daniel does not talk to many people. Daniel was born without a left eye and has been through many operations. We left our e-mail address with Daniels big sister, Lexi, who promised to contact us.

We also talked to a young couple from Australia who have a better story than ours. He had won a car on Wheel of Fortune and sold it for tickets to travel around the world. They were heading to San Francisco and then to Vancouver. From there, they were flying to New York to spend a few days and then onto Nairobi - a whirlwind world country tour.

Sunday June 20th

Monterey, California

I have a question for you at home. How much is gas these days? The gas in Monterey at $1.69 per gallon is the most expensive we have seen so far. We were only paying $89.9 per gallon at BJ's before we left home.

What an exciting ending to the U.S. Open. We were watching it on a big screen TV at Characters while we had lunch. Payne Stewart certainly held his emotions in check until that last putt. It was a thrilling finish.

We had to drive back to Pebble Beach because we left our pillows in our room. After getting them and taking another look at the 18th green, we viewed part of the 17 mile drive again. It was still beautiful.

Monday June 21st

Monterey to Yosemite National Park, California

The drive from El Portal, CA into Yosemite was beautiful as it wound past the Merced River. However, road construction on Route 140 had narrowed the already skinny two lane road making it quite treacherous. I happened to be driving and had to pay close attention to the road especially when it appeared that huge RV's and tour buses were coming straight at us. I was convinced our mirror was going to be torn off.

As our first waterfall appeared in the distance, I had two reasons for pulling in at the turn-out. First, to take a look at the gorgeous cascading waterfall which happened to be Bridalveil Falls, and second to put Fred in the drivers seat for the remainder of the harrowing drive into the Village.

We arrived at Camp Curry and checked into our tent cabin. A canvas tent, on a platform, with two cots inside is as close as I care to get to roughing it. Hey, where is the bathroom? Where is the outlet for my hair dryer and curling iron? Where are the showers? Time to be nature girl.

Camp Curry is 100 years old. Over 150 of the cabins were roped off due to several rock slides that occurred less than a week ago. One person was killed. Geologist were monitoring the situation and could not accurately predict that another slide would not occur. It was unsettling to see the pure white granite on the mountain directly behind Camp Curry that had been exposed during the slide .

We opted for the tram tour to give us an overview of Yosemite Valley. The area known as Yosemite Valley, which most people visit, only covers 7 miles of the more than 1,000 square miles preserved as Yosemite National Park. We stared in awe at Half Dome, the Three Brothers, and the grandaddy of all granite domes, El Capitan. Katlin, our tram tour guide was in her early twenties and had lived and worked here for three years. She loved Yosemite and it was easy to see why. I am so grateful that someone more than 100 years ago had the foresight to preserve this gorgeous natural beauty know as Yosemite Park for us to be enjoying today.

All kinds of signs and notices about not leaving food in your car alerted us to the threat of black bears. An entire poster board was covered with polaroid pictures of car windows pulled out of their frames by bears foraging for dinner. Even our tram tour guide warned us not to leave anything in our cars, not even a paper bag. In our van, we have a food bin for noodles, raisins, condiments, cereal, etc. for use at the timeshares. I was apprehensive about this bear situation so I insisted we take everything out and put it in the bear proof food storage lockers. Problem is you had to supply your own lock and we did not have one. If someone wants our noodles or cooler, they can have it. I was not about to take a chance on some big old bear smelling our garlic and tearing the BK to shreds. Fred thought I was being overly cautious, but he went along with my paranoia. Fred joked that we should pull our blinds down in the van so the bear can't see inside. Excellent idea! I lowered all the blinds and did not leave a speck of anything within view of the front windows.

Later in the evening, we attended a talk at the outdoor amphitheater by Mike Corbitt, one of Yosemite's most famous rock climbers. Mike touched the audience with the story of his climb up El Capitan with friend Mark. Mark, a former climber, became a paraplegic in a tragic climbing accident many years earlier. Mike devised special equipment to enable Mark to climb using only his arms and together they trained for six months. The story of their 8 day climb was shown as a special feature on NBC. Mike holds the record for scaling El Capitan the most times; he did it 52 times.

We had not eaten since lunch, so after the talk we hustled over to the outdoor pizza place. As we were sitting on the deck eating, we were delighted by the sight of a raccoon sneaking out of a grassy area. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looked around, saw the coast was clear and signaled for her two babies who came scurrying along behind her. They were so adorable with their cute bandit faces and fat little round butts as they hurried across the sidewalk. What a sweet scene to witness-mother protecting her babies. They were soooo cute.

We retired to our cots and I would like to say we slept well, but that was not the case. We both tossed and turned. At one point, I woke up thinking I heard rustling outside. I was sure it was a bear. Just then Fred flopped over in his cot so I whispered, "Fred, I think I heard a bear." Fred, in his half asleep state, did indeed hear a low growl. As he awakened completely, he laughed when he realized that it was only the man in the next tent snoring. A good example of the power of suggestion.

Tuesday June 22nd

Yosemite National Park

Fred gave me the option of picking out our hike for the day and I was like a kid in a candy store perusing all the choices. I finally opted for the Top of Vernal Falls trail which was 3 miles round trip and rated as strenuous due to an elevation gain of 1,000 feet. The Yosemite Guide predicted the hike would take 4 hours.

We walked from our cabin to the trail head as Fred refused to take the shuttle bus to go hiking. I guess he has a point-who wants to be a lazy hiker.

Our hike started with a steady up hill climb. We broke into a light sweat as we kept a vigorous pace. The trail wound along the Merced River which flowed merrily over the rocks on its journey to the valley floor. We could hear the river more often than we could see it; a wonderful accompaniment to our hiking. Eventually, with a small downward turn, the path reached a footbridge. Looking up, we were transfixed at the sight of the Vernal Falls tumbling 317 feet toward us. The top of that falls was our destination.

The Mist Trail, our pathway to the top of the falls proved to be aptly named. The only way there was straight up, on granite steps of varying heights directly beside the falls. The mist from the falls was spraying wildly over us and got more intense the higher we climbed. I could feel my leg muscles screaming as we ascended step after rocky wet step. About three quarters of the way up, the trail was suddenly protected from the mist by a rock outcropping and we stopped to catch our breath. Drenched, but refreshed, as if we had just run through a spring rainstorm, we turned to stare at the Vernal Falls. Sunbeams dancing off the mist had created a beautiful rainbow. We were awestruck at the natural beauty before us.

A few more feet and we were at the top of the falls. We stretched out on rocks to dry off and the sun felt simply wonderful. After a few minutes I got antsy and asked Fred if he wanted to continue on up the trail. I wanted to see where the water flow was coming from and go somewhere with less people. As we continued along the trail, the rough large boulders in the river gave way to huge slabs of rock. The granite was smooth as silk and the water flowed over it like a giant water slide.

As we hiked, our mood was peaceful. We walked in comfortable silence enjoying the sound of the river. Before we knew it, we had gone another mile and were alone. The trail entered a pine forest and although we could still hear the river, we could not see it until we spotted the Nevada Falls. The Nevada Falls drops 594 feet into the river before flowing along and forming the Vernal Falls. At this point, we were more than half way up and the challenge of hiking to the top of Nevada Falls called to us. The trail wound slowly through the forest until the last 100 feet which required scrambling straight up and over rock formations. The view from the top was magnificent and worth every aching muscle. As we ate our well-earned lunch from the top of the falls, we offered a thank you for being able to experience such incredible splendor.

Hiking down is supposed to be the easy part. However, by the time we got to the last mile, our feet were berating us for being so ambitious. All told, we had hiked over 8 miles with an elevation change of 1,942 feet. This was not a hike we would have planned to do, but felt exhilarated for having accomplished.

Wednesday June 23rd

Yosemite National Park to Lake Tahoe, California

We drove ourselves kicking and screaming from Yosemite. There are so many fabulous areas of the Park that we still longed to see. I am reminded of a quote by a ranger when asked what he would do if he only had one day to spend at Yosemite. He said, "I would sit by the Merced River and cry." I loved Yosemite so much that I would be grateful to camp in a tent if I could just come back to spend a week.

Tuolumme Meadow at an elevation of 8,600 feet is the part of Yosemite called the high country. We drove up that way and stopped for a picnic and short (very short) hike. Our muscles were quite sore from the day before.

As we continued on our drive we went over Tioga Pass, the highest mountain road in California at 9945 feet. We could see snow covered mountains. The snow run-off from these mountains feeds the Yosemite Falls. The falls dry up by mid August.

People we had met at Yosemite suggested we stop at Mono Lake on our ride to Lake Tahoe. The story of Mono Lake is sad and another example of actions without any thought of consequences. In 1941, Los Angeles decided to divert water run-off from three mountain streams for their own water source. This decision dramatically affected Mono Lake which up to that point had been a source of recreation and a wildlife habitat. The selfish decision of Los Angeles Municipal dried up the source of water to Mono Lake. Consequently the lake lost 40 feet of water much to the detriment of local wildlife. There were rock formations that used to be under water all around the edge of the lake. After extended litigation, finally in 1994 the courts mandated the lake be brought back to the level it was in 1951. Unbelievably, it will take 20 years for that to happen.

Our arrival in South Lake Tahoe was a little disappointing. More on that tomorrow.

Thursday June 24th

Lake Tahoe

Have you ever felt grouchy for no apparent reason? Ever since we arrived in Tahoe, we have both been edgy. Consciously, we know we have no reason to feel irritable so I am attributing it to low bio rhythms. I strongly believe that everyone goes through a bio rhythm cycle and if your bio's are high, everything goes well. But when they are low, watch out. The same task that was a breeze during a high cycle is now a giant pain in the you know what.

It started with our hotel room. No air conditioning, only one window and 85 degrees does not a happy Fred make. We needed to get an oil change and it was an hour wait at the only quick lube we could find in South Tahoe. We took the BK to the Chevy dealer to check a vibration that should be under warranty but they did not have the parts needed to fix it. We spent four hours doing the laundry that had piled up. Tahoe has a beautiful lake, but we could not find a way any public access. We found a car wash and as I sit on a concrete block typing this, Fred is washing the BK. Since we are both feeling irritable, a project such as washing the car together, would not be a good idea. So far, we have managed not to fight with each other.

Using a two for one coupon, we rented bikes. Even using the bike path we still could not find much public access to the lake. After riding for about an hour, we stopped at an apartment complex and had our lunch on the grass by an inlet. Even though it wasn't Lake Tahoe, it was a pretty spot. The bike ride and a decision to check out of our hotel tomorrow lightened our mood. There is absolutely no doubt that by tomorrow we will be feeling on top of the world again. Even in Nirvana, there will be days like this!

In the evening, we hit the Casinos. We were staying in California, but two blocks over was Nevada complete with Harrahs and Caesars. We did not hit it big, but we did have fun. Harvey's Casino (never heard of Harvey's before) offered an awesome coupon package. All we had to do was sign up to be in the club. As we were drinking our free beverage at Harvey's, we split $5.00 worth of quarters and played two poker machines competing against each other. First game was who could get the most credits and the second game was who could make those credits last the longest. We had a riot and still walked away with $1.25. We decided that no one can have more fun with a roll of quarters than us.

Friday June 25th

Tahoe Vista

Without so much as a backward glance, we left South Tahoe. We weren't to sorry to go. The vibes just did not feel right for us in this town so we canceled our hotel for tonight and opted to take our chances on the open road.

Actually, Fred did take one backward glance before we left our room and thank goodness. Yesterday as we were re packing our suitcases after doing the laundry, Fred kept saying that his suitcase did not seem full enough. He said it three times, but we couldn't figure out why nor did we spend much time trying. We were all packed and ready to go when Fred called me back into the room. The top dresser drawer was full of his socks and underwear. That would have made the rest of the trip interesting-Fred going commando!

As we drove north on Route 50, we were finally able to fully appreciate the beauty of Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is the third deepest lake in the United States. It is 22 miles wide with 72 miles of shoreline. Our stop at Shoals Lookout reinforced our decision to hit the road. The lake, in all its splendor, was laid out before us with gorgeous snow capped mountains in the background. From our vantage point, the sapphire blue lake looked as if it was completely ringed by mountains. The heavy wind formed little white caps on the lake adding to the visual enjoyment.

As we continued on down the road, we entered a pine forest. As we drove through the trees, we could still catch glimpses of the lake. We were hoping to find a lake-front cafe to eat breakfast, but by 11 AM, still no luck. We finally found a grocery store and stopped for snacks. Fred does not do well without breakfast and he was grumping big time.

We opted to buy sandwiches for lunch and find a place along the lake for a picnic. We lucked into the Kings Beach Recreation Area and a picnic table directly beside the lake. It was beautiful. Our table was in the trees with a direct view of a sailboat on the lake.

Finding a place to stay for the evening was a priority. There were plenty of No Vacancy signs since it was Friday and people were streaming into the area for the weekend. We spotted a No Vacancy sign at the Tahoe Sands which turned out to be a timeshare property. They had a 1BR with kitchen available and with our RCI discount, we paid less than a nice hotel room. (and only $20.00 more than staying at the Blue Jay). Our patio looked out over the lake. This is definately the way to enjoy Lake Tahoe.

Since there happened to be a golf course right across the street we decided to squeeze in 9 holes. The Old Brockway golf course was an interesting 9 hole course with a rustic clubhouse and a loyal membership. Cosidering we were trying to get on just as everybody was getting off work it was amazing we got on. It was an interesting little course, short but tight winding through a mountain terain. We played poorly but really enjoyed it.