Travelog for: BineHH

On Thursday we continued our journey down south.
Our destination for that day was San Simenon. No place you really need to know. Just a few motels and restaurants.
But on that day the motto was: the journey is the reward. 
Cause on the way from Monterey to San Simenon we stopped at four State Parks and another interesting bridge. Lets see if I can remember them all and what we did where...
1. Point Lobos state park: hiking and Bird watching
2. Bixie bridge
3. Andrew Molera State park: hanging out at the beach
4. Pfeifer State park: hike underneath some Redwoods
5. Julia Pfeiffer State Park: checking out a waterfall

What a day. 

Oh and not to forget: we ended the day at a sea elephant beach. Wow those animals are big...
They even have a webcam. Check this out: [url=http://www.elephantseal.org/][/url]

For Friday we didn't really have any plans. So we just drove around to see what there is around. And that was a good idea. 
First we strolled along the Moonstone beach where we built a....
sign...
And then we "found" Morro Bay/Morro Beach. Wow that was impressive. There is that giant Rock that is right by the bay. And we walk along the beach towards that rock for quite a while. There was so much to be found. 
And of course we had to stay till sunset. 

Hi Mumma,

after we came back to our friends house from the first little round trip, we had to go and see more of beautiful San Francisco (of course). 
We actually just planed on sightseeing for Sunday last week but when we got there we found that a Columbus day parade is about to start. And of course we had to watch it. 

More about that day is soon to come....

XOXO

Yours BineHH

PS They gave away all kinds of free candy. 

After the Parade we went for more Sightseeing.
I got to see Fishermens wharf, Pier 39, Chinatown and what not.

The next day we hopped on our rental car again and drove to the Henry Cowell Redwood State Park. When we got there we saw that cute little steam Train and decided to go on a ride  through towering redwood groves and up a winding narrow-gauge grade to the summit of Bear Mountain.
After the ride we took a hike along Redwood Grove Trail Loop.
You have no idea how tall these trees are.And they are thousands of years old. You have to be carefull not to fall over when trying to see the top...

A new day, a new state park. This time it is Tomales Bay.
To be honest it wasn't that great and interesting. But everything else was closed to to the goverment shutdown. 
We went on that hiking trail through a forest that kinda looked like a rainforest and saw that copy of shelters of the Coast Miwok Indians (they lived there). But thats about it.

On Wednesday we went to visit our friends daughter in Placerville. Which is in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the so called Gold Country.
Placerville has an historic downtown and it's also called Hangtown... Guess why.

The next day we went on a scenic drive around Lake Tahoe. It is even higher up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It has breathtaking views and the color of it is just incredible.
Since the eastern shore of the Lake is in the State of Nevada, we took the chance to try our luck at a casino. And you know what? Now we are rich...
Richly experienced not to waste any money at the casino.   

Friday Oct. 19th we spent in Virginia City/Nevada It is one of these mining towns which had a population of 15.000 in the late 19th century. Nowadays it's population is down to 855 and they live of the tourists.
We visited a museum and an old cemetery, took a tour through a mine and got to witness a walk in wedding. Hostmum even stormed in the room with the wedding (the door was open). But I think they didn't noticed.  (it is that saloon with the blue doors)

Back in the bay area we payed San Francisco an other visit.
This time we climbed up the Filbert steps to get to the coit tower. To get to the very top of it we had to take an elevator inside the tower. And from the top you have a 360° view of this beautiful City. 
Back down the three of us (Hostmum, her friend and me) got to go on a cable car ride. That was sooooooo much fun. 
On the way I saw this colorful sunset.

You won't belive what we did the next day! Yes! We went to San Francisco again for more Sightseeing .  Lombard street, cable care Museum, Cupid's Span and it was topped by a spontaneous cruise on a little boat. Under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. This cruise showes the weird weather of San Francisco quite well. Downtown there is this clear blue sky and the Bridge is almost completely covered in fog. San Francisco is even pretty famous for all it's fog.

This day we had the chance to visit San Francisco one last time.
The weather wasn't to great that day. All foggy, and windy and just waehhhh. But of course we went on our hiking trip anyway. It started at the Sutro Bath ruins ( they were a large, privately owned swimming pool complex. It burned down in 1966) along Lands end (that's the northern shore of San Francisco and it really looks just like that) all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge (where it was that foggy that you couldn't see the top of it).
We stayed in the city till it got dark and got to see the illuminated skyline at night. The bridge you see the the photos is the Bay Bridge with it's so called Bay lights which is an art project.

We had to leave again....
It's ok for me cause I'm used to it. But hostmum was in a pretty bad mood this day. Grumpy and sad and what not...

Hey Mum,

look what we did last weekend. Hostmum and me prepared two packages that will be donated for Weihnachten im Schuhkarton/Geschenke der Hoffnung, Christmas in a shoebox/presents of hope(international name: operation christmaschild).
You take a shoebox (empty of course), decorate it with christmas wrapping paper, put a label on it that shows who your gift is for (boy or girl and which age) and then you fill the box with everything a child could may need or want. A pencil case already filled with all kinds of pens, warm stockings, a cap and also sweets, toys cloves and much more. Both packages are so full that we had to put rubber bands around it so the cover won't come of. 
Susie's mum will take it to a collecting point where it was to be by the end of the week.

Our boxes are both for a boy age 10-14.

XOXO

Bine

Hi Mom,

something exciting happed yesterday.
A new Toyvoyager arrived.  It's Paluqtaq from Alaska.
He is a brand new TV it is his very first trip at all. I have so much to tell him and he asked me all kinds of questions all night long (since I'm a very experienced traveler  ).
But I heard that I will travel on soon...

XOXO

Your BineHH