Heritage Inn Express Chico

Hey everyone,

I made it back from Hong Kong to San Francisco today on a 12 hr. non-stop flight. My adventure through China was something I will always remember and I hope that you enjoyed reading little tid-bits from my experiences there.

- Michael

... We did, however, see the aftermath of two separate truck roll overs - one in the northbound lanes and one on the southbound lanes. Both made us convinced the decision to give any rig a wide berth was a good judgment call. The rain and the cold followed us down deep into California. The most comforting things were the distance we were putting between ourselves and the concentrated part of the rain depression and the fact that we were ...

... is Beijing. Don't forget to leave comments as you read the blog entries and also sign my Guestbook. I hope all will enjoy checking this from time to time as I provide updates of my travels!  This map gives a rough idea of where my travels will be taking me.

... Julie lucked out and picked up a nasty case of Strep Throat. I blame the Berkley House :P Anyhow we soldiered on, Donna and Amy (from San Fran) and I spent my final weekend doing just the same as we started out doing... relaxing.. with farmers markets, visits with Donna's friends, great food and a lot of laughing....oh and we watched MILK with Sean Penn... Did he get the award for that performance? I don't remember, but if he did he deserved it ...

... by Bill rather than having to brave the Muni again with my giant bag. Turns out The greyhound waiting room at SF was not so bad. Apart from the 2 pigeons that decided they wanted to hang out in the waiting room. Yes I'm an animal lover, but pigeons just don't count. Yuck. Didn't help that one bored traveller was encouraging their being there by feeding them doritos, or maube it was cheetos.... I have no dea which is which. Mind you perhaps the pigepns will have coronarys and that ...

... br>Anticipating icy roads after nightfall, we hurried through mountains to arrive in Chico around 8pm. We stayed in what used to be the cheapest hotel in the downtown, known as the Thunderbird. We found out that they are under new ownership, and therefore the whole place is under renovation. We ended up staying there for $55, and in a brand new room, no one has used before! Pretty awesome--aside ...

... where we stop for sandwiches and let the dogs have a run. We are all out of our coaches and we have a picturesque view of Mt. Shasta. Road travel is good with minimal traffic and a sunny day. We press on to Corning getting in at about 4:00. We are at the back of the casino with full hookups but no cable. Very clean however strong winds. Quite evening and I make a stir fry for Pat and myself. As this the third fairly long day we take it easy in the ...

... kids don't believe in Santa anymore, I always wait til Christmas Eve to wrap the presents and put them under the tree. So, after confirming with Norad that Santa was close, we convinced the kids that the sooner they got to sleep the sooner we could get to sleep and the earlier we'd be willing to get up in the morning.

... dinner in Fresno at a fairly new diner called, Yosemite Falls Cafe. I believe they call Fresno one of the gateways to Yosemite, so I can only assume that's where it got it's name (it would take a good couple of hours to get to Yosemite from there though). The cafe was great, good food, wonderful service, really friendly staff. We continued on until we got to my hometown. We checked in at the Springhill Suites. It was late, so I called my family and invited them ...

... by some weekend night and catch a glimpse though one of the many telescopes setup out front. You won't be disappointed. We returned to Chico at 4 AM this morning. It's nice to be home. The weekend ahead will see us logging and capturing the footage from the past two weeks and prepping for our next adventure that starts Monday morning - the Lick observatory. Now where is my bed?