10/30/07 (Sunday): We had a fantastic Christmas. Hope yours was special, too.

We headed out I-5 on the Friday before Christmas in the neat little Toyota Prius we rented. We decided to rent a car for the trip because we figured that even with the expense of the rental, we'd save money because the truck only gets 12-15 mpg. We averaged 45 mpg in the Prius, and it was a neat little car. We saw snow on the hilltops at Tejon Pass, about 20 miles from Piru. Fortunately, there was none on the road.

On Saturday, Mark and the boys took us to Muir Woods for a hike in the redwoods. Incredible! The trees are very old and very large.







The trail followed a gorgeous little creek. We hated to turn back, but we wanted to hit the beach before we headed back, so we turned back before we hit the end of the trail (much to Austin's displeasure).










He cheered up considerably when we reached Stinson Beach. It's a really big, beautiful Pacific beach. It was quite chilly, but Austin waded right in.







These young people were riding horses on the beach. It looked like so much fun!








The next day, Mark and Heather and the boys took us to San Francisco's Chinatown. It's bigger than Los Angeles' Chinatown, but I thought it was a little more tourist-y. This building was pretty authentic, though. It's an apartment house.

We went into this tea shop. It was fascinating. We got to taste several different kinds of tea, and the proper method of brewing tea was demonstrated. The tea was amazingly good, and each of the boys got to choose some tea to take home. I think this was their favorite part of the trip to Chinatown.







After Chinatown, we drove to San Francisco's Discovery Museum. The boys had a blast. The exhibits are fun and educational at the same time. Hudson got this bubble almost over his whole body!











Wiley and I skipped out on seeing the last of the Discovery Museum in order to hike this little stretch of trail along San Francisco Bay. That's Alcatraz Island in the background.

This is the Golden Gate Bridge, of course. We didn't drive over it this time, but it was interesting to see it from this perspective. There's a lighthouse at the base of the bridge (on the left side of this picture), but we didn't get close enough to really see it.








Christmas came at last, and it was a great day. The boys took most of the morning to open their presents. Then Mark and Heather prepared a wonderful meal of prime rib and Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings. I'm not sure whether Wiley liked that or the Dungenness crab we had for Christmas Eve better. What a great day!


The day after Christmas, we drove up to my sister's house in Magalia, CA. It's north of Sacramento, about 3 hours from the Oregon border. They built a lovely home a couple of years ago on a magnificent piece of property high on a hill overlooking a forest of ponderosa pine. We walked down to the creek at the bottom of their property. Absolutely gorgeous. We felt like we were in a premier mountain lodge.






The next day we toured the area. Magalia is at about 2,000-3,000 feet. The mountains are greener and have more trees than the ones in Southern California where we are. The town is on the Feather River, where one of the biggest gold nuggets was found during the gold rush. We went to a gold rush museum and learned a lot about that interesting period in California history.

Wiley was hoping to see snow (and I was hoping I wouldn't have to drive the rental car in snow), but Wiley's wish won out. We woke up to about 2-1/2 inches of the cold, white stuff. Fortunately, Jim was able to take us out via a route that avoided the worst hills, and by the time we got off the mountain they live on, there was no more snow. We had a great time, Jan and Jim--thanks for your hospitality!



We made it back safely last Friday, returned the rental car Saturday, and worked for a couple of hours today. We took a great drive into Soledad Canyon this afternoon, but that's another blog. Have a safe and happy New Year's, everyone!