Category Archives: Travel

Will They Make It?

 

These were some of the skies about and above the Santa Monica Mountains today in Camarillo, California.

 

This is what the neighborhoods look like in the Seattle area right now.

Our 4 kids have airline tickets to fly from the Seatac Airport to the Long Beach Airport Tuesday evening. We are hoping and praying that their flight will not be cancelled and that they will make it here. This is the first time in 16 years we are all gathering with the Bagdanov extended family for Christmas Eve. The last time ellen b’s immediate family attended the celebration was in 1992! We felt it was high time for us all to attend this annual event. My parents, our kid’s grandparents, are 85 now and we wanted our kids to experience this event with them again now that they are all adults. If our kids make it down and if Lana G. and her husband make it down there will be 35 of us celebrating in Huntington Beach at my sister Vera and her husband Nick’s house.

So all of this to just get personal and let you know that I will keep busy tomorrow so I don’t fall into worry mode over whether Seatac gets it’s act and de-icer together to get those planes in the air again!

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother as I go through each post to delete the ugly boxes.

San Francisco Landmarks

 

Alcatraz, Ghirardelli, Lombard St., and the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

Fisherman’s Wharf and the Bay Bridge.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother as I go through each post to delete the ugly boxes.

San Francisco ~ Inside Grace Cathedral

The pipes to the Aeolian-Skinner Organ, the only one of it’s kind west of Chicago, heard in over 400 services and concerts each year.

Chapel of Grace, the oldest part of the cathedral features Connick windows, a 14th century Flemish altarpiece, and Lewis Hobart design.

 

The church is lined with different murals painted by renowned artists such as Antonio Sotomayor and John de Rosen. “Centennial Mural” shows the 1906 earthquake and the fire that destroyed the city, including Grace Church.

 

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother.

 

San Francisco ~ Grace Cathedral

 

Today I’m sharing my outside shots of Grace Cathedral. I will show my inside shots later.

Grace Cathedral is descended from the historic Grace Church, built in the Gold Rush year of 1849, and the imposing structure on the corner of California and Stockton streets that was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. San Francisco’s Crocker family gave their Nob Hill porperty, destroyed by the fire, for the building of a new cathedral.

Work began on this structure in 1928. Designed in the French Gothic style by Lewis Hobart, it was completed in 1964.

Famed for its Ghiberti doors, labyrinths, stained glass, the cathedral has become an internationally-known place of pilgrimage.

The Doors of Paradise are considered by many to be the first and greatest masterpiece of Italian Renaissance. The magnum opus of Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), the doors were made for the Baptistery of Florence Cathedral (the Duomo) and told the story of the Old and New Testaments. Grace Cathedral’s doors were made from the same molds – which were later destroyed – used for the originals.

 

I was also impressed with several of the other doors into the cathedral and wanted to show you them, too.

 

One of my special treats the day I visited the Cathedral was a small orchestra practicing for a Christmas concert. It was just so beautiful to walk around the inside of the cathedral being serenaded with beautiful music that inspired me to praise God for all the wonder available to us…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother.

San Francisco ~ Pacific Heights

Queen Anne homes dominated Victorian residential architecture from 1880 to 1910. In fact, this style is virtually synonymous with the phrase “Victorian house.” Typical characteristics of a Queen Anne home include projecting bay windows, wraparound porches, towers, turrets, balconies, elaborate banisters and spindles, stained glass, decorative trim, and patterned shingles.

On Sunday Dear and I walked around the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco to see these great Victorian Homes. We saw other styles of grand houses, also.

This yellow and green house are on Gough street. The Victorians on this block, all built in 1889, are particularly lovely. These are in the Queen Anne Style. I believe they refer to the yellow one being a Queen Anne-Eastlake style (marked by elaborate woodwork).

This was a smaller house tucked between two larger structures that just caught my eye.

This is the Spreckels Mansion. Romance novelist Danielle Steel’s home is one of the most extravagant in town – built in 1913 for Adolph Spreckels, heir to the sugar empire of German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, who made his fortune refining California sugar beets and Hawaii sugarcane.

 

This is the home featured in the Robin William’s movie Mrs. Doubtfire.

I really enjoyed seeing this old church and all the people coming out of services.

This is the Haas-Lilienthal House built in 1886. The exciting thing about this house is that we stumbled upon it on their annual Christmas open house day. We met one of the Foundation workers out front who told us about the open house and invited us to come back when it started. I will be posting more about this great house and the indoor pictures I was able to take also.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother.

San Francisco

 

I have so many photos I want to share from my 3 days in San Francisco. I’ll be choosing several over the next few days and will have a few San Francisco Posts. These are three collages I have already…

 

Our first day Dear and I met up at Johnny Foley’s for a pint and some great Lamb Sliders! Then we walked all about the town and ended up on the Trolley car. That’s our great trolley car driver! The roof shot is from the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street. It has lots of great specialty and gourmet shops housed in the building.

 

This is Saints Peter and Paul Church in the Italian Section of San Francisco. Since the Italians who came to North Beach in the 1870’s were primarily fishermen, it became known as “the Church of the Fishermen,” and yearly processions to bless the fishing fleet still start out here. I have more photos from the inside of this beautiful church to share later.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother.

Our 34th Wedding Anniversary in San Francisco

I arrived in San Francisco from Seattle on Saturday and met up with Dear at Foley’s Irish Pub for a snack and a Guinness before we headed out on a walking tour of Market Street, the Ferry Building, Embarcadero and on to Scoma’s for dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf.

The food was really wonderful at Scoma’s. Dear had the Lazy Man’s Cioppino (with the crabmeat out of the shell) and I had the Broiled Swordfish con Fagioli (broiled with White Beans, Swiss Chard and Pancetta) It was served with mashed pototoes. I want to give a shout out of thanks to Michelle and Pam for recommending this great restaurant. Our good friends the Romero’s also recommended it. So 3 families in 3 different parts of the U.S.A. all gave us the same recommendation. We knew it would be great. Bloggy friends are great resources!!

I have to wait to get back to my condo and good internet service to upload any more of my San Francisco Photos. This hotel connection is very painfully slow. I mean really slow!! I have a couple preposts ready to go for Monday and Tuesday thank goodness…

Thankful in Washington…

 

What fun we had waiting together at the Long Beach Airport for our flight to Seattle. My brother Tim and his wife Letty, my sister Lana, and Dear. We were all set and ready to go in total vacation attitude. Seattle here we come.

 

Got home to a very clean house with fresh linens on Dear and my bed and in the Guest room for our Thanksgiving company, Tim and Letty. Thank you Katie! The maple tree has lost all it’s leaves and our son Dan had them all raked up and the yard looked nice. The pot belly stove is warming up the house and we are settling in for a wonderful holiday with family and friends. The view from my bedroom window couldn’t be better!

I hope you all have a wonderful extended weekend here in the U.S.A. and enjoy your turkey and all the trimmings with joy and thanksgiving. Blessings…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Cold Springs Tavern ~ Santa Barbara

 

Dear and I decided to escape the heat and drive north to Santa Barbara to have breakfast and a walk. We drove up to the top of San Marcos Pass and started down into the Santa Ynez Valley to stop at the Cold Springs Tavern for breakfast. It was so refreshing to have it cool enough that the tavern had a wood fire going.

 

History of the Tavern

Over one hundred twenty years ago, dusty stagecoaches stopped here at what was then known as “Cold Spring Relay Station” to change teams of horses and allow travelers to rest at this stagecoach stop and enjoy one of the most delicious meals in the Old West.

The Tavern was purchased in 1941 by Adelaide Ovington and her daughter, Audrey. Today the tavern is still a “rest stop” though now the travelers arrive in more modern coaches to enjoy the food and refreshment.

After breakfast we drove further on Stagecoach Road and got some great views of the Cold Springs Arch Bridge and the Santa Ynez Valley.

 

Then we headed back to Santa Barbara for a walk along the beach and a bird refuge. I’ll post my beach and bird photos another time. Hope you all are having a nice weekend.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage demanding a ransom that I can’t afford. So frustrating as I try to clean up my posts and delete their ugly squares of black and grey off my blog posts!

San Francisco ~ Suggestions Please

Does anyone out there know San Francisco? I get to spend a few days there in December while Dear attends a conference. He’ll be busy for a lot of the day so I’ll be on my own to view the city with my blogger eyes and camera. The last time Dear and I were in San Francisco was in 1974 one night of our honeymoon. So here are my questions…

1. What do I need to make sure I see? And what should I avoid?

2. Do you have any restaurant suggestions? How about one really nice place to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary on Saturday December 6th!

3. Do you know some great free attractions?

4. What museum is worth it?

5. Should I drive out of town to see something close by?

Any input will be appreciated.