Intentional List of Accomplishments

There are so many changes that happened inside me (some intentional and some not) during the preparation of my two week vacation to California, during the vacation and since I got home. I want to list them and recognize them and realize how well I did to myself!

Sometimes I get into a mode where I look at my to-do list and lose sight of my accomplishments. It’s possible to then beat myself up and think I don’t do much or don’t do enough. I also need to realize the good after I do make a decision! I do take people’s advice into consideration and decide what the best decision would be for me.

To stop myself in my tracks and recognize what I DO, I listed some of them out…even the things that seem automatic – they count.

Before vacation:

• Make plane reservations (This was a big celebration for me. I don’t do this often enough to know if I am getting a good deal or not. Since I am going with Southwest airlines until they change their great customer service, I can’t go wrong with the airline. It then comes down to choose the right time that works for my schedule.)

• Make car reservations (This was an even bigger thing to commit to. I never rent a car for personal use! Which place is going to give me a good deal and not nickel and dime me to death? I procrastinated on this decision and talked to a lot of people and ended up with something that I was VERY happy with – Enterprise. No, they didn’t come pick me up but they were professional and very reasonably priced! The pickup and return process at the San Jose airport was a pleasure! Reserving a car to get home from the airport was another good decision. Going back to the timing of the flights that worked for us from above, what worked for us leaving California made a late arrival in Providence. I finished out the trip deciding on something that was convenient – renting a car for a day from Avis from Providence and returning it to Groton the next day.)

• Decisions about Zac’s before-trip activities (I was acting as a single parent for the week before our trip. I also was working. Zac had final exams at school. I relied on the support of my friend/neighbor to help with driving to school for exams and other activities J Not having my husband around to discuss or agree on activities was a challenge. At the end of the day, the decision and responsibility was mine. I have total respect for parents who have to act in this capacity all the time.)

• What to leave and work on at Pfizer (I discovered quickly that time was limited. For my sanity, I was forced to look at my list of things to do at work and decide what was important, what had to be done by me and had to be done before vacation. There were things that I asked others to handle in my absence and other things that would just wait. It was an interesting and productive mode to be in and one that I will work to be in most of my days.)

• Emails/arrangements for church responsibilities (Another area that I have a lot going on with is at church. I lead a team of responsible and helpful people! I listed what was going on while I was gone and people stepped up. Again, a look at the list of things to do and identify what had to be done by me, what someone else could do and what could wait.)

• Packing (I have gotten better with packing over time. I do pack and carry things “just in case”. I do realize that weighs me down in a couple ways. I tried to be reasonable knowing that we could buy things that we forgot and that we would be able to take advantage of washers/dryers where we stayed. As it turned out, I did pack too much but the good news is that my suitcases weren’t over the 50 lb limit!)

During vacation:

• Using body lotion (This might be too much information for some but I didn’t always use body lotion. I do know the benefits but I really thought it would take too much time to do every day. Well, seeing how much the air planes dry out my skin was clue #1 that I needed to buy some body lotion when I got to California. Since I would be outside a lot during the vacation it seemed like a smart thing to do to keep my skin moisturized. I found a nice body lotion from Jason. I used it every day and it made a big difference – and it didn’t take up a whole lot of time! This is now a new habit – and I deserve to take good care of my skin and feel good!)

• Blogging (I love to write and keep in touch with people. I committed to writing about our trip and shared the link with a few people to share. I won’t get too much into the fact that I haven’t finished blogging about our family vacation but I am almost done and will complete it soon.)

• Discussions about next town to stay (This could have been a trouble spot. It took agreement from all of us to speak our opinion and listen to each other about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go. We used a couple of resources and it turned out to be very enjoyable.)

• What to see, where to eat and what to do (This could have been another trouble spot…but we discussed respectfully and made decisions. I don’t think anyone had any regrets.)

• What to buy (The key that helped us here was that we had put aside money to spend on this trip. We all knew it was a big trip for us and didn’t want to feel like we had to be too cheap about things. Our mantra of “we aren’t here to nickel and dime” was perfect! We were reasonable and had fun at the same time. Whenever one of us was contemplating buying something or doing an activity, another one of us would bring up our saying, which helped us make a decision!)

After vacation:

• Time to rest (I have learned from past experiences that taking a day or two after vacation to rest and transition back into routine is a great idea! Some vacations involve a time change. And although 3 hours doesn’t seem like much, when you have been on vacation in a place 3 hours behind it DOES take time to readjust. At the same time, this rest time helps solidify the experience in my mind and in my heart. I can go through receipts or brochures or photos and really enjoy them without being weighed down with work or other responsibilities.)

• Unpacking / laundry / grocery shopping (Taking the time to get to the grocery store, unpack suitcases and do laundry is nice. Yes it could have been shoved in the time before or after work but it was nice to do it at a leisurely pace.)

Going over my list, there were things that I did that I had doubts about the outcome but they had to be done. I did have to ask myself “what’s the worst thing that can happen?”. There were no awful “worst things”! The worst I could come up with was a task wouldn’t get done until I got home or I would spend more money than I needed to.

New things always challenge me and challenge me differently depending on what they are. When others are involved, I think I put more pressure on myself than necessary. If I forget about how good I want to appear and how well I want the outcome to be and if I trust that the information and gut feeling that I use to make decisions will help everything turn out the way it should!

Santa Cruz - Boardwalk, Wharf and beach!

The three hour drive from Mariposa (outside Yosemite) to Santa Cruz was an interesting transition. Fred rode his motorcycle on a different route and left earlier that we did. Going to Santa Cruz was the last leg of our stay in California. It was exciting to head to the beach but sad because it was our last place. The landscape change was funny. We went from warm mountains and windy roads to flat and brown landscape to cooler foggy coastline.

We arrive at the hotel just minutes before Fred. We found that we were only a block from the beach! We walked down to the boardwalk for lunch. We passed a Mexican place and had lunch. The meals were simple and very inexpensive. Then we headed to the wharf. There were so many restaurants and shops. Walking along the pier and seeing waves crashing on each side and beach goers, volleyball players, surfers and fisherman was amazing.

We learned the day before that some friends from CT (Sheri and Jane) who were visiting their cousin were in Santa Cruz. We hooked up with them for dinner on the wharf :-) What a nice time! Sally (the cousin/local person) had a list of recommendations for us. This list proved to be very helpful!

We got concerned with sleeping next to the party group next to the beach when the neighbors were making noises into the wee hours of the morning! We found out, it only was for that one night. We slept better the 2nd night.

Next day includes Mystery Spot tour, slow train ride into the redwoods and great pizza and people watching...

One rode and two had toffee

Thursday was a relaxing day in Mariposa. Fred made arrangements with someone new to get his oil changed. He took off in the morning for Coarsegold, CA. Fred said the drive was well worth it - great scenery!

Zac and I relaxed in the morning. We found a nice sandwich place that we walked to...the long way. We had been in Mariposa for a couple of days and thought we learned the shops that were up the street and down the street from the lodge. Plus we had a map. Should be easy, right? Well, I looked at the map and put it in my mind that the sandwich shop was down the street one way. So we head out for lunch. It was a little warm. It was mid-day anyway. It is clear after a while that we went the wrong way :-( After a short conversations of which one of us was at fault for walking the wrong way, we turned around and walked past the lodge and finally arrived at the sandwich shop :-) It was off the main road and had some good sandwiches. We sat outside and got to be part of the neighborhood. Pictures of hummingbirds are on the camera that didn't come home yet but I think I pulled a picture off the internet and included it in a previous post.

Later in the afternoon we needed dessert. In the walk going the wrong way for lunch we saw a place that had soft serve ice cream. So off we walked. This place was really interesting. It was a deep building that 3 separate vendors in it. The first "section" was for wine tasting. The second "section" was beer. The third "section" was soft serve ice cream but better than that, it was topped with this amazing toffee! Zac and I had a nice time talking with Sidney. We learned of her journey and how she started No Jokaroka. Here is the link: http://nojokaroca.com/. She is preparing to ship toffee for the holidays. Think about crushed toffee on top of ice cream...

Santa Cruz beachfront...here we come!

Glacier Point and other things in Yosemite

We got some great advice to drive to Glacier Point - what a great drive! It was seeing Yosemite from the top :-) Very windy roads. They just opened up the road the week before - the weather "warmed up". We got to see some of the road crew still making some last minute repairs. Driving along the edge of the road was hairy in some points. Like me putting my hand on the door was going to stop anything!!!

I can't decide on my favorite Yosemite picture! The whole forest is amazing! One of the best parts was the tram tour - two hours of Brian, our tour guide, telling us all kinds of facts about how Yosemite was formed and its early inhabitants, things the people did about preventing fires and then later learned that fires are a healthy part of forest growth and re-growth. He also talked about John Muir and his writings about his time in Yosemite. I did buy one if his books already at Borders -  I am sure it will be thrilling!

The squirrels around Yosemite Lodge where we picked up the tram were so funny! As you can imagine with them being around people and getting food they are very comfortable with people and get very close! Their coloring was different than squirrels back home. They had a white ring around their necks. This is a picture of how close they get to people!

The history of the forest is impressive. The tour was so great to help us appreciate it all. They left us with some parting words and an action...to think about taking care of our neighborhoods. Wherever we live, we need to consider what we do every day if we are planning to leave our world to the next generations. It's what Yosemite has committed to do so future generations can continue to understand the history there and so we and future generations can enjoy Yosemite :-)

Thursday - day spent doing nothing in Mariposa...

Friday - headed to Santa Cruz...

Mariposa - means butterfly in Spanish

Our goal was to tour Yosemite and specifically drive to Glacier Point. Looking through the AAA book for choices, we stumbled upon a town called Mariposa. We booked a room at the Mariposa Lodge which was close to Yosemite. The place was small and nice. Key point for Zac - it had a pool :-)

Fred took a different route from Pacifica to Mariposa to enjoy some nicer roads and views.

Once we all hooked up, we looked for a place for lunch. The butterfly caught my eye - The Butterfly Cafe. That's where we had lunch. It was a small place that served simple yet good/healthy meals. It reminded me of Somewhere In Time in Mystic. When we left and paid, I told the woman that the butterfly theme caught my eye. She told me that Mariposa means butterfly in Spanish. On the About Us page of the website (http://thebutterflycafe.com/about_us), it does explain a bit about the cafe and Mariposa itself. And there were plenty of butterflies in town :-)

Back at the lodge around the pool, there was a trumpet vine separating the pool area from the street. I thought it would be a perfect place for hummingbirds (at least back home anyway). I had been on the lookout for local birds to see the difference from the northeast. I didn't think I knew bird sounds as well as I did - but I HEARD the hummingbirds before I saw them! I waited and watched and soon enough, a hummingbird came to the trumpet vine :-) The sun was bright so I couldn't get a good look at his true colors so I had to watch at different times and angles. What it might be (after doing a bit of web surfing) is a black-chinned hummingbird. The sun was bright and I didn't have a camera to catch these guys.

Another funny bird, yet very clever, was the Western Scrub blue jay. He was having a feast at picking the large bugs off the front of the car grills!! He looks like a bluebird but with a longer tail and he is bigger.

We also saw the Stellar Jay back in San Jose. Really cool black rooster head more typical of the blue jays back home :-)

Along our journey, we saw a couple of woodpecker. With all these trees, this should have been an obvious find. I think we saw the Acorn woodpecker. Small but very bright red head!

Mariposa was significantly warmer than Pacifica!! One thing I thought was neat to experience was the dry heat - guess what? It's still HOT! Standing in the shade makes a big difference and when the sun goes down, temps can drop significantly (20 degrees)!

My experience in the pool was interesting to me...temps in the 90s. I got in the pool and of course the water feels cooler than the air. Okay. We swim around a bit. When I went to get out of the pool, it was very cool! Even funnier, I laid on the pool lounge...dried off in no time! It was something that struck me as a fun experiment - where in CT, it is wet heat if you are in the shade or not and if you just got out of the water, it was still humid and hot.

Finished off the first day in Mariposa with Mexican dinner. It's great to be able to walk everywhere!

Headed off to Yosemite in the morning...

Half Moon Bay - big healthy lunch and amazing organic grocery store

We drove south to Half Moon Bay. We found this cute deli called Garden Deli & Cafe. Nice eating area outside - and who wouldn't want to eat outside in sunny nice weather? The sandwiches were big and good California healthy food! We walked around other stores in this village. I wish I could find something online but I can't so I can't point you to anything.

Down the street from Downtown Half Moon Bay was this (new to us) grocery store called New Leaf. This place is amazing! We wish we had one near Stonington! It's like walking through the natural/organic co-op catalog! It's like Puritan & Genesta but bigger and with reasonable prices :-) Of course, we did a little shopping to stash some food in the hotel fridge and to snack on later.

Heading to Yosemite next...

Pacifica - sunny and quaint

The hotel we stayed in for a few days in Pacifica was right along the west coast just south of San Francisco. Perfect for walking along the clifts, walking along the beach, watching the waves crash and watching the surfers in their wet suits waiting for that perfect wave! There is a constant breeze, lots of sun (after the morning fog burns off) and not too hot.

We took a walk on a path that went up a hill next to the hotel. It took us higher and higher. It was funny how we kept walking and stopped to look back every once in a while not realizing how far and how high we were! Photos is one Zachary took.

There were wild flowers along the path. We walked over a hill and walked along the beach on the other side where we watched surfers waiting for the perfect wave.

On the walk back, we watch birds. While looking closer at where we were walking instead of the surf and mountains, we found a 3-foot snake skin. We also found what lives in all the holes that were along the path - some had something that was like a mouse but was something else and other holes had snails coming out of them as the sun went down! These snails were bigger than ones we had seen before and there were a lot of them! Another Zachary picture...

Our hotel had a microwave and refrigerator - gave us some other options for meals. We shopped at Safeway and New Leaf. Safeway was like a typical Stop & Shop but New Leaf is a totally organic store! It was like the co-op that we belong to and order from once a month but where we could see all the items like a regular grocery store. The other great thing about New Leaf was the prices...usually organic costs more (in CT anyway). Here, the prices were very reasonable!! I wish we had one in Mystic!!

San Francisco - busy and full of life!

We spent a day in San Francisco...

• where's the best place to go?
• where should we park and not pay a fortune?
• what place should we see?

The answer to these questions and more are unfolded as we went.

We stayed in Pacifica in a nice place along the coast. We woke on Sunday to chilly temps and fog. There was a huge event going on in San Francisco on Sunday...the 40th annual Pride Parade. So we figured we would be dealing with lots of people but we didn't know what was normal so it didn't matter to us.

Along the way, we coined a phrase to help us enjoy our vacation..."we aren't here to nickel and dime"...meaning we weren't going to try to save a dollar on everything that we wanted to do. That would make us crazy and take lots of extra time in making decisions on where and what to eat and what to do. It ends up serving us well.

We drove towards SF and went up Route 1 and went over the Golden Gate Bridge. Too bad it was so foggy but what was cool about the fog is how it rolled off the mountain, over the bridge and onto the bay! It was a fast roll - nothing like the fog in Mystic!

We headed back over the bridge and decided to pay the money and park in Ghirardelli Square parking garage. We could have searched longer and fretted to save $5 at the end of the day but this was one of those decisions to just park next to where we wanted to go - "we aren't here to nickel and dime" :-)

The CitySightseeing Tour is who we went with and we rode the Downtown Loop to see parts of San Francisco. This tour company had a lot of different loops and packages and we could hop on and hop off at any of the stops for the loop that we picked. This tour matched what we wanted to do. We did run into a snag which turned out to be fun. Because of the Pride Parade, two of the stops on the tour had to be skipped during the parade time but they made up for it by taking us on different streets and improvising on the stories they told.

Our tour started at Ghirardelli Square - why wouldn't we start where the chocolate is??? It was sunny but we still chose to sit on the top of the double-decker touring bus. We went down different streets and heard stories about the history of the town. It was fun to see the different big name stores and watching all the people. We hopped off in Chinatown and at lunch at House of Nanking (recommended from Suzanne our guide on the tour). We hopped back on and then got off at Fisherman's Wharf. Lots of people there. We saw the sea lions that hang out on the pier and watched some performers on the corner - very talented kids putting themselves through college. We finished our time in San Francisco with ice cream & chocolate at Ghirardelli!

Walking along the coast in Pacifica and our finds there are next...