Travelog for: Noodles

Hey there,

This  photo isn't really me; mom is keeping me warm and showing me to no one.  I'll be the plushie version of this species.  See ya after I hatch.

Noodles

Hi there,

I'm called Noodles because I'm a wise old owl, albeit just hatched.  My namesake is a gangster played by Robert De Niro in the movie, "Once Upon a Time in America."  Don't believe those other definitions of noodles you see online.  Noodles is a wise guy.  The Noodles character read a lot of books while in reform school so was thought to be the brains of the gang.



Please take a look here to learn about my species, the Snowy Owl, a bird of prey.  We are “protected under the [U.S.] federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, however, Alaska law allows Alaska residents to shoot unlimited numbers of owls if they are used for food or clothing. No bird or part of a bird may be sold or offered for sale.”  It is true, mom bought me but an exception to the rule is made for plushies.

The other TVs staying here for Christmas are:

Orkku Orava, a squirrel visiting from Finland/Portugal, wow, two homelands.  I could just swoop down and eat her up.  Mom says I mustn't because she's a guest.



My mentor is keeping me well-fed because if another rodent disappears from her house, there will be h*** to pay.  This is DuDu II:



I plan to be a host but who knows, Jeremy planned to host/greet and the next thing he knew he was doing a whirlwind tour of Disneyland and the caves at The Pinnacles.  Caves, oh, yeah, I could go for that.  Being a white tiger, Jeremy has nothing to fear from me:



This is Cheerio, a very pleasant yellow lady duck.  I am very grateful that she helped keep me warm while I was waiting to hatch.  I am imprinted on her!! We are about the same size, both have wings but she is vegetarian while I most certainly am not.



Here is BarryO, a small bear; who ever heard of a bear with a long tail?  He's having an identity crisis.  He just got back from a long trip which put him in the top tens for distance travelled!  I won't mess with him, he's barely big enough for a snack.



Last but not least, this is DuDette, a little brown mouse.  Yum, this one looks tasty.  Bye now, Mom is calling me into the kitchen.



See ya later,



Noodles

Mom, her friend who was having a birthday and all the TVs here took me to dinner and my first 3-D movie, "Hugo", which we all enjoyed a lot.  There was no time for popcorn but we get another movie soon!  Yay!!  I love to soar in high regions so I really liked the parts high up in the train station.

Poor little BarryO hid his face on my shoulder during the scary parts.  We think he has acrophobia.    I will help him overcome that fear and maybe take him flying.

We heard Santa’s sleigh bells and went outside to greet our Elf Bear, home for Christmas.




“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!!”

My older brother, Jeremy, and I set out today for our consultations with The Great Yoda, a local ToyVoyager tradition.  



The location of Yoda's fountain is also the starting point for a two-part puzzle geocache.  The actual cache has to be located elsewhere because geocaches are not allowed in National Parks.  So we needed to get the final coordinates by counting the number of benches and cascades at the fountain; picking up clues on a nearby sign, counting visible Jedi Masters nearby without trespassing but maybe peeking in thru doorways and figuring out how many bikes can park at the fountain. Phew.

Wow!  Yoda is very wise, what an experience!  .  This really jump starts my progress to becoming a real wise old owl. Wow!  Wow!  I am so excited about knowing Yoda and will go back again and again.  Mom is happy there is a nice Starbucks there to relax, plug in the coordinates, and soak in the movie industry atmosphere which is not really very glamourous at all; it's mostly hard-working young people, very young!, grabbing a strong coffee, taking a break and checking email while we TVs work at having fun.

This is The Palace of Fine Arts near the cache site.



We didn't find the geocache partly because of a muggle who seemed to be living there in the great outdoors but it was a great male bonding experience. I'm glad for the opportunity to get to know my brother before we head off traveling.  The geocache trail led us to the Palace of Fine Arts where we enjoyed looking at the architecture, a duck pond and two similar “jet d’eau” fountains.





This is the Palace of Fine Arts from the bus stop.


Later at home Jeremy and I continued hanging out together and Miss Kitty joined us but Mom rescued us from becoming kat toys.



Bye now and Happy New Year,

Noodles

“.... Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.  You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock everywhere, yes.”  Says Yoda

Hello Everyone,

It is very exciting, a new ToyVoyager has arrived.  He is a famous comic German pirate bear, named Pitzelpatz, who has been traveling a lot around North America. He is still wearing his Santa outfit.  He he!  Santa himself carried him the last segment of the trip; Santa likes to do a little extra volunteering in the off-season, the Christmas Spirit continues into wintery January. .



Cheerful Cheerio had the honor of helping Pitzelpatz out of his travel coach.







Then mom introduced him to the other ToyVoyagers here:  Orkku Orava from Finland, DuDu from Shanghai, my sister DuDette, my brother Jeremy, and me.

We had a welcoming blackboard waiting for Pitzelpatz where Jeremy showed him a few things to know about this stop on his travels.   Eureka (I have found it!) is the State of California motto, oro en paz is part of the City of San Francisco motto (gold in peace, iron in war),  The 49ers is our local football team, wait till next year ; and K2 is the nickname for Jeanne's top floor apartment; you are welcome to plant your flag when you complete the assent.  



We are happy to learn that Pitzelpatz is a famous comic character; he will do his best to amuse us.  He printed out a Pitzelpatz coloring book for our bedtime reading.  He he, he is Pitzelpatz, the pirate!







Here he is after we tucked him in, isn’t he cute:



Hoping to visit you soon,

Noodles

Two of us are leaving soon and we had a little going away party with lots of hugs.  Can you guess which of us are leaving?

Orkku Orava and Jeremy left town today TOGETHER by ship!    When they get overseas they will split up and go to separate hosts.

We found photos of them checking out magnolia buds; we will miss them so much.

Bye Bye My Dear Friend and Sweet Brother,

Noodles

Hi there,

Wahoo!!  I’m on my way, getting started as a trainee host greeter. I got the honor of helping a new guest out of his travel box.  Our new friend is a lion named Okuma who just flew in from Texas.

Then after a big meal, because you know lions get very hungry traveling, we went for a walk and came upon a huge hat displayed on a human-sized mannequin in the Hyatt Regency Hotel lobby.  It is called “San Francisco Skyline” from the “Beach Blanket Babylon” musical which has been playing since 1974!  It weighs 350 pounds and is all silver colored; it was created in 1999 in honor of the silver anniversary of the show; also, we think, because the producer of the show was named Steve Silver (1944-1995). 

We are planning a big trip out of the city soon.   

Your buddy,

Noodles

Hi all,

We started out at the Emeryville, California train station.  Emeryville is across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco near Berkeley.  Where did we go?  All six of us TVs went along and met up with two more!  A ToyVoyager meetup!

There was some nice scenery along the railroad route as well as some yucky stuff like automobile graveyards, graffiti on concrete walls, and junkyards but also a cool ship mothball fleet, parts of San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, several bridges, some nice farms and animals, vineyards, walnut groves, a university, etc.  This area is known for its natural marshland with lots of birds.  Here we are sitting backwards watching the scenery we just passed.  We liked the shots of the marshland.

San Pablo Bay

Will show you more of our trip in the next update.

Your Buddy,

Noodles

We detrained at Sacramento, the capital of California.

Then we toured the Capitol building and met kcrawfish and her ToyVoyager guests, Tuli and Little R2.  It was a nice relaxing lunch and ToyVoyager Meetup.

We all walked around Old Sacramento which has a lot of museums and preserved buildings from the wild west days.  We liked the raised wooden sidewalks.

Then we went galloping on a horse statue.  Sacramento was one end of the famous Pony Express mail delivery service.  The other end was Saint Joseph, Missouri almost 2,000 miles away.  Telegraph communication was available at St. Joseph for communication toward the east.  Mail addressed beyond Sacramento was sent by steamboat on the Sacramento River.  That's how we would have received mail in San Francisco in 1860!

We will go visit again as there is so much more to see.

Bye for now,

Noodles

Hi there,

It is raining here and mom has been a bit crabby but she cheered up a lot after doing her taxes.    She sat at her desk for two whole days.   We spent those days playing with the cat.  That cat likes to eat paper, ha ha, "my cat ate the tax receipts". 

Here are photos of the games, which were especially dangerous for my sister, DuDette, and brother-in-law, DuDu, who resemble cat toys.  Our guest, Okuma, got to set the ball rolling; it makes lots of noise and brings kitty running.

Then we went climbing on the cat scratch pole; of course Okuma, king of the jungle, got up there first and perched on top.  Amazingly, Miss Kitty swiped at only the real blue cat toy, and ran away with it.  We all survived unscathed to play another day.  Phew.

Your buddy,

Noodles

Happy tulip time, everyone,

Okuma and I went out on some errands today and saw Pitzelpatz off at the Post Office.  Sniff.    After that we took a long walk and saw a strange landscape.  It turned out to be the lower part of Telegraph Hill.  Back in the Gold Rush days, ships came in loaded with 49ers and supplies.  The ships left here empty so they carved chunks out of this hill for ballast.  Then we wandered through some office parks and found tulips in bloom.

Bye for now,

Noodles

Hi everyone,

Okuma and I got so excited when we saw Eska in the mailbox, we jumped in to help her out.  Since we were on our way to walk up to the summit of Russian Hill and then on to Ina Coolbrith Park, we took her along and did the welcoming ceremony on the road, that is, on the stairway.  She shared her candy with us and that gave us enough energy to keep going.

It was nice and warm but wow, so many stairs and paths to walk.  I’m too young to fly very high but I flew part of the way and got ahead of them sometimes.  Ina Coolbrith was a poet.  Her poems aren’t very well known today; here  is a sample called “A Perfect Day”, which is a pretty good description of our first day with Eska.

See ya later,

Noodles

Mom and her friend have discovered the "Monk" TV series.  Better late than never!  We watch two episodes on Friday evenings and two more on Sundays.  Adrian Monk lives in San Francisco but most of the show was filmed in Canada and Los Angeles studios.  There were some exterior shots made here and Cheerio, Okuma, Eska, and I went out to find a few of them.

The first house was made up to look like a museum in the show but today it looks like a wealthy family's residence.  The Palace of Fine Arts can be seen from there, it is another Monk location.  Then we went to another hill top and saw where Monk crosses the street while the theme song, "It's a Jungle Out There" plays. Then to a flat street in North Beach toward St. Peter & Paul church.  Ha Ha, I see the others have written about me in their travelogs.  Yes, it was me, I imitated Monk by touching all the parking meters.   Then we went up another hill to see Monk's apartment building which has a view of the Bay Bridge, also a Monk location.  The last two photos show us checking out an interactive street art installation. .

See ya at the next location.

Noodles

PS  Mom says I fly well enough now that I can travel on my own.  Please contact her if you want to host me.