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Our choice of California as a vacation sight was based on the fact that
one of our daughters, Debi, lived there with two of our grandchildren,
Linsey and Haley, and her husband.
The list of places we visited almost seems endless. Prior to our trip
Debi reserved a condominium in Yosemite National Park and that was the
highlight of our first trip to California in the 90s. We had been there
quite often years before while stationed in Arizona. Yosemite is beyond
description, especially if you go during spring run off. There is one
picture of Yosemite on this page and several more on the next page. Each
picture is almost like a post card, they are so beautiful.
I'll just list some of the places we saw over the years. San Francisco at
least a dozen times. So many interesting places to go, including the Golden
Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, Treasure Island
Naval Air Station, Candlestick Park (now called Three Com Park (Whoopee)),
Chinatown, the Japanese Gardens in Golden Gate Park, Lombard Street the
crookedest street in the world. See photo below where I'm standing in front
of the flowers at the bottom, and a big favorite of my dad's the cable cars.
I can still remember my dad hanging by one arm out over the side of the
car.

Some of the other places that we went to: The Redwoods in Muir Woods and
the Giant Sequoias near Yosemite, San Quentin and Folsom Prisons; I guess we
wanted to see places where we hoped not to end up. We also made trips to
Lake Tahoe in Nevada plus Reno and Squaw Valley; San Simeon where Hearst
Castle is located; what a fabulous drive that was along Route One and the
Pacific Ocean. (I thought that Route One in Maine along the Atlantic Ocean
was fabulous until we drove along the cliffs of California, there is just no
comparison).
Another time I spent the entire day driving around Sacramento with a list
of sports card shops to see if I could find a few cards to complete sets.
Took in all the sights of Sacramento and made notes to return to them when
the rest of the family was along. It's also a nice city to visit but nothing
like San Francisco.
"Do you know the way to San Jose?" Well we went there also. Unfortunately
our timing wasn't the greatest and we hit San Jose at rush hour. What an
experience coming down out of the hills in all that traffic. I don't have
any other comment about San Jose except that if you don't like listening to
the song you can click it off just below. Of course our experience at THE MYSTERY SPOT didn't help our
mood at the time either. It's not that THE MYSTERY SPOT wasn't a unique and
nice place. It was all it advertised to be, however we purchased tickets and
were told the next tour would start in 10 minutes. We went and visited the
gift shop for 10 minutes only to be told it would be about 5 more minutes.
45 minutes later we were still waiting for our group to go on the
tour.