Day 21 LAST POST

(Blogged by Stacey)

Like they say...."All good things must come to an end."  Today is the day that our journey out West must come to an end.  However, even though our vacation is coming to an end, the memories that we made over the past three weeks will last a lifetime!  We have experienced an adventure of a lifetime!  We have seen so much beauty and have learned so much about the Western part of the United States.  This trip has brought us together, as a family.  We have laughed together, learned together and created memories that will forever be with us.  Now, Ben and I have the challenge to go back home and take what we've learned and pay it forward.  We will be co-authoring some children's emergent readers about our adventures in the West, and will give these books to Kindergarten-2nd grade classrooms in Marshall County.  I will also be developing some units/lessons to use in my classroom based on our travels and concepts learned.  I would personally like to thank Lilly Endowment for the opportunity of a lifetime.  Your generous Teacher Creativity grant made this Western adventure possible.  Thank you for not only the opportunity for personal renewal but for investing in me, as a professional, to learn as well.  I have always lived by the philosophy that learning never stops, it's a lifelong process.  This grant has afforded my son and I the luxury of enriching our own schema, renewing my passion for learning, providing meaningful and authentic time spent reading and writing together, and then passing what we have learned and experienced on to the young students of Marshall County.  Thank you for investing in me, as a teacher with 20 years of teaching experience in Indiana, the renewal it has provided has been a huge blessing in my life!

http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=411200008


                                 Our view from the sky....in the airplane flying home

Day 19 & 20

     We left Half Moon Bay, California this morning, with John feeling better but still not great.  We decided to drive down Highway 1, which took us right along the Pacific Coast.  We happened upon the neatest beach and discovered something we had never seen before.  The beach was called Pomponio State Beach, which is considered a California State Park.  It was pretty much deserted, with the exception of a few die-hard fisherman, due to the cold, rainy morning.  Between the weather and John's illness, we had not gotten to experience the Pacific Ocean quite like we had planned to, but this stop made up for it.  As we walked the beach (drizzling rain and all), we came upon some rock-cave like formations, that you could tell had been formed over time, right on the beach.  This beach was at the base of high sandstone bluffs.  We spent about an hour exploring the beach, caves, rock formations and taking pictures---many with Ben's prized guitar.  Ben has always wanted to take pictures on the beach with his guitar.  This was the perfect opportunity. 

 

After our beach exploration, we got back in our car and headed south towards Los Angeles and Hollywood enroute back to Las Vegas to catch our flight home.  We didn't have a lot of time to spend in the Los Angeles and Hollywood area but Ben had two places on his "wish list" of places to stop while in this area:

1.  The Guitar Center

2.  See the "Hollywood" sign

 

We accomplished both of these stops.  We stopped at The Guitar Center upon arriving Los Angeles (later in the evening) and saw the Hollywood sign upon leaving the area the next morning.

 

 

The Guitar Center

 

 

 

 

 

The Hollywood Sign

 

 

 

 

After seeing the Hollywood sign we hopped back in the car for a 4 hour trip back to Las Vegas.  Our trip out West is coming to it's conclusion.  We will be flying out of Las Vegas early tomorrow morning. 

 



 

 

 

 

Day 17 and 18

Yesterday, we drove back into San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge once more, as well as, visit the famous Fisherman's Wharf Pier 39.  We got stuck in a some major traffic near the toll.  What should have taken us 40 min turned into closer to 2 hours.  It was a foggy Sunday too.  We spent about an hour at Pier 39 at the Fisherman's Wharf.  During the Gold Rush Italian immigrant fisherman set up base here to catch crab.  It has remained San Francisco's main area for it's fishing fleet.  In 2010, the city decided to invest quite a bit a money to turn this area around and make it more of a tourist area.  Now it's a very well-known tourist attraction in the western part of the US. It has lots of restaurants, shops, museums, aquariums, the famous sea lion colony on Pier 39 and so much more.  We enjoyed the sea lions the best.  We found out they took up residence here on Pier 39 right after the Earthquake in 1989.  We also enjoyed watching the cable cars.  See Alcatraz Island was also really neat.  Tours were booked out, for quite some time, so we were not able to actually ferry over to view this area closer but would have like to have done this.

After leaving San Francisco, we headed for our "day at the beach" and some good seafood.  We decided to stop at Half Moon Bay just a little south of San Francisco.  It is a VERY BEAUTIFUL little coastal town.  Our day at the beach didn't go quite as planned and we are actually here an extra night.  The weather is very cold, foggy and rainy.  The locals say the fog is typical the cold and rain is not.  It's been in the 60's most of the time and continually damp.  We did find the greatest little restaurant and had the best dinner.  Our waitress, Jeannie, was awesome!  However, about an hour after we left, John started feeling VERY BAD.  He was sick all night long.  We ended up taking him to the local hospital to be evaluated.  It appears he has food poison from the oysters or clam chowder he ate that night.  Even though we were planning to travel on to Los Angeles today and then on to San Diego, John's illness has grounded us for a little bit.  However, out of all the places we have stayed, this is, BY FAR, the best place he could have gotten sick at.  We are hoping by tomorrow he will be feeling better. 

SAN FRANCISCO

 

 

 

 

Alcatraz Island

 

 

 

HALF MOON BAY

The Beach House

Where we are staying in Half Moon Bay

Different form of vegetation found near the beach.

Dinner at Barbara's Fishtrap

(before contracting the tainted oysters)