Best Western Bonanza Inn Yuba City

Wow, what an adventure! 7882 miles. A few minor mishaps (or "adventures" we like to call them) along the way, nothing that can't be fixed. We have traveled from one side of the country to the other. We spent time with family, and enjoyed in celebrating Mark's parents' 90th birthdays and their 65th wedding anniversary. We have seen ...

Well the boys got cleaned up and went to bed. Mark and I decided to walk to the casino and relax for a 1/2 hour or so. It was kind of nice to do something together and something totally unrelated to traveling. I played the nickel poker machine and Mark played blackjack. After a few minutes I joined him at the blackjack. I won 4 hands- only betting 3$ at a time. I know- big gambler! It was fun, but then we were done so walked ...

We are back home and it feels like we just left. This was so fun, Noland and I kept smiling on our way back home, just talking about all the places we visited. It was a perfect vacation - I would not change anything, loved every state we visited, met so many wonderful people and seen scenery we've never seen before.
Our RV was great, fun to live in for a month ...

Zwei Tage verbrachten wir am und um den Lake Tahoe. Eindruckvolles Suesswasserreservoir (Umrundung mit dem Wagen: 117 km). Nachdem wir an der Suedkueste des Sees historische Zentren aus der Siedlerzeit besuchten, sind wir ins benachbarte Alpine Meadows gereist. Hier hatten wir ersten Baerenkontakt in der Umgebung des Ferienhauses. Heute gings hinunter nach Grass Valley. Daselbst besuchten wir die Empire Mine (riesiges Gold-Bergwerk mit tiefen Schaechten bis 2500m).

Well, we left around 11am - sooo, for almost 24 hours we did not see any wildlife but one deer and one chipmunk! Nevada was long! We decided to stop in Reno for late lunch/early dinner and had this great idea to show our girls the little white chapel we got married at - we did not go back to Reno since we eloped 12 yrs ago!
The little white chapel is GONE and some modern building is under construction in it's place - very sad to see it gone.

We are almost ready to go - have to make few more reservations, but, so far, we do have our trip outlined with places and dates. Looking forward to Yellowstone!
Now, I need to start planning and collecting all the stuff to bring on the road with us - I usually overpack, so this will be interesting :-)

... for things I need to do to officially pass my sabbatical. I checked off the first item today (with unexpectedly rigrous testing) when Jake and Andrew got their first drive time in on the infamous go kart. Andrew has a lot of potential for F1, but Jake is clearly headed for Baja racing !

GET-AWAY DAY! The tribe departs from Chateau Leal with speed and anticipation, bound for San Francisco to catch their international flight to Lisbon and beyond. The monkey children have, by now, even learned how not to hassle the TSA employees while going through security, improving their chances of being allowed on the flight.

We are leaving for Seattle now. We got to SMF using SuperShuttle. We should have taken taxi instead. They took us all over the place because they have to check some hotels. I wasn't aware that they do this since I always use SuperShuttle at night. Maybe they only do it during the day. Anyway, they are definitely worth it if there is only one of you. If there are many of you, might as well just take taxi.

... really gave our brakes a work out!! We arrived in Yuba City at 7PM. Yuba is North of Sacramento. The temperature was 35 degrees when we arrived here. The hotel has a pool and luckily the bathing suits were accessible in the trailer! We will have about a 5 hour drive tomorrow-looks like a slow drive along the Highway 20 to Mackerricher State Park in the Redwoods. Good Night!