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...

San Jose - first few days

I booked a hotel for a couple of days in San Jose. It seemed pretty cool and was close to the airport. I didn't know when Fred and our paths would cross so this was saved as a buffer to get caught up. Turned out (as you read from yesterday's post) that Fred arrived a few hours before Zac and I did.


The weather in San Jose was something to get used to. It was amazing, sunny but cool. The sun seemed...brighter and clearer. I was trying to imagine it most of the year...enjoyable but it could get boring (did I say that?).


The hotel room was a little small but it provided us a place to stay. Next door was I-Hop so that's where we had breakfast. Zac was very happy! I-Hop does offer some lighter dishes with fruit so that made Fred happy! I got something middle of the road...an omelet with added veggies and a fruit dish on the side.

We spent Thursday afternoon touring the Winchester Mystery House (photo from internet). Amazing tour guide that told about Mrs. Winchester and the house that she added on to year after year after year. Very cool house and story. I knew if my parents were there, my Mother would have taken the garden tour for sure!


Lunch was awesome in Santana Row at The Counter! This place was really cool! It was a neighborhood of restaurants and shops over a few blocks. Of course, because of the amazing weather, most of the restaurants had seating outside. The Counter http://www.thecounterburger.com/menu/ is a place where you custom build your burger! We each got handed clipboards with different sections on them. We chose the size of our burger, what it was made from, cheese, assorted toppings and bread. It's one of those places you would have to go back to many times to try different combinations :-) There is one in West Hartford, CT too!!

The pool at the hotel was way cool...actually it was way warm! Something I didn't expect but totally made sense. The outdoor pool was heated! With the air so cool, it was nice to swim in a pool that was warm! Zac and I enjoyed our swim in the pool.

On Friday, Fred and Zac went to California's Great Adventure. This is an amuzement park in Santa Clara. They left me the car in case I wanted to go somewhere. They took the hotel shuttle to the park. Zac's favorite ride was the Grizzly. This photo is from the internet. I don't think the boys took any pictures at the park. They came back earlier than I expected - I guess this park doesn't have anything on Six Flags back home :-(


I spent my morning/early afternoon alone...vacation-like pace getting ready. I spent a little time by the pool...talking to my sister Gayle...it was lovely! There wasn't anyone around, the sun was shining and it wasn't hot!


Made plans to head to Pacifica for the next couple of days.

Flight to San Jose...sounds simple enough...

My parents brought us to the Providence airport. I factored in WAY too much time...it was a long time to wait until our flight but it was nice to hang with Zachary :-) Note to self...be reasonable on the wait time.

We started with no problems with checking our luggage and getting through security. First thing...get something to eat. Zac spotted Johnny Rockets and was sold! Burgers were good! Starbucks was close by too :-)

We continued to wait, read and watch people. He said "Wouldn't that be funny if we saw someone we knew?" Well, funny enough, we DID see someone we knew. We saw our good friend Ivy from church! Her flight was delayed. She was tickled to see us too! We chatted briefly and then continued to walk around and wait for our flight.

Zac was lucky enough to catch the end of the US team at the World Cup match. It was neat to see so many people congregate at the bar/TV and route for the US team and then all cheer when Donavan scored the winning goal during stoppage time!!

Once we were on the plane, we listened to a little bit of music then we enjoyed a couple of movies. They started off light with Monsters, Inc (that was my choice) and then finished with Black Hawk Down (his choice). We landed in Phoenix fine. The next plane was delayed (from Chicago) so we stopped in a few shops. Turns out our flight was delayed about an hour and was overbooked by 6 people! So after finally getting 6 people to take the SW deal and not take that flight, we were off to Ontario...California that is. It was just a stop (we didn't need to get off). That was a full flight too. It was short and sweet to San Jose.

Do you know how big of an airport San Jose is?? Okay, getting our luggage was no problem but finding the shuttle to the rental cars was a bit of a challenge. I was tired, hungry, wanted to see Fred in the worst way and I couldn't find how to get to the rental car place :-( After talking to a few people, we found it. This huge shuttle bus stops at all the rental places and makes a loop. We picked out our car and we were on our way...so I thought. Getting out of the airport complex was easier said than done. Yes, we had GPS! But with roads closed and needing to reroute, I was now beyond frustrated. We finally got on the road to the hotel and I felt so much better.

Fred had checked into the hotel a few hours ahead of us. His ride across the US along the southern states was long, interesting and hot! He kept texting us to ask us when we would arrive! It was around 11 PM local time when we got to the hotel - our bodies thought it was 2 AM!!! We were all so happy to see each other after being apart for a week and a half! We chatted a little, hugged a lot and went right to sleep!

Too overwhelmed to write - experience before vacation

We all agreed we were going to spend some money on a family vacation...to California! We hadn't been there before and we were all looking forward to it for different reasons.

My husband was going to ride his motorcycle across the southern states and then my son and I would fly out after school got out. Fred had to do his own planning for his solo trip. He was busy looking at maps, talking to other bikers who ride distances and buying cool things for his trip. Zac was finishing up school taking final exams. We all talked about places to see in California and got some great input from other people. So much information!!!

Fred planned to leave on a date that gave him enough time to get to California somewhere around the same time that Zac and I would get there. Flights were booked along with a hotel for the first couple of days.
After that...we were going to go where the road took us...

In past vacations/adventures, I write about things that are going on and how I am feeling. But this time was very different! Work had kicked notches past overdrive and other things were busy too. I felt like all I could do was to get the next thing done. After Fred left, I was acting as a single parent. I have done this before but for very short periods of time - not a week and a half! I have so much respect for those single parents who have to make all the decisions about their kids and be the only parent present. This is a lot of responsiblity! It has made me more aware of how grateful I am (#1) to be in a happy, funtioning marriage and (#2) to have another adult to discuss family life and make decisions together! There were also moments where I enjoyed being alone with Zac. He is such a great kid!

I did get intentional on what was important to get done. I felt like I made good decisions to let "extra" tasks either slip or ask someone else to do them. I had over a week to practice letting things go that weren't priority and keeping focused on things that were important. I was pleasantly surprised at how focused and productive I was! I think the thing that kept me going was that it was temporary and at the end was seeing Fred on our family vacation...

This picture is one I pulled off the Internet...it reminded me of what I was working for...