Day 19 - June 29 - Pacifica-San Francisco-Salt Lake-Detroit

Were home :-)

See photo album @ http://picasaweb.google.com/magwheel44/DiegoCarolMarion2009Trip

We had a great time. Look at this last video and you can tell I miss my family.

We had Maria and KD at the hotel send us away to the airport with a smile. They are nice people. I hope I can see them again. The place they work at is great and right on the beach.

We had to drop off our rental car and then went on the train at the airport to get to the place where the first plane would take us to Salt Lake City in Utah. As we flew away from San Francisco, could see the ocean for the last time on this trip.

Later on we crossed over mountains that had snow on them and a very big sandy desert.

In Utah, we had to run down the halls to get to our next place the airplane would take us to Detroit. Since we were hungry, got some sandwiches to eat on the way. I had my favorite - tuna fish salad. Papa had chicken salad. And Nana some roast beef. It was a quick meal and then we got on the plane.

We couldn't see much since there were a lot of clouds blocking our view.

I tried to get some sleep while Nana read a book. Papa was watching a movie.

As we got close to Detroit airport could see all the lights shining below.

We had to wait along time to get our luggage. We called my mom who was going to pick us up from the airport. We would drop Nana and Papa at their house and I would go home and see my dad, sister and my bulldogs, Lulu and Belle.

My sister Mya was going to farm camp while I was away. Sometimes they would let her bring animals home. Tonight she brought home a goat. When we got home, found out it got out of the cage in the garage and was chewing on whatever was there. Mom and I got the goat back in the cage.

I watched some baseball from California on TV with my dad. It is good to be home. Fun to see so much, but still think it will be good to tell my friends about I saw and did.

Let my Papa know on his e-mail how you like out trip stories :-O)

Day 18 - June 28 - Pacifica

Day 18 - June 28 - Pacifica. We started the day early - 7:30 hoping there would be low tide for us to see the tide pools. We were in luck :-)

There were a few people fishing and saw one pull in a couple pound shad. Looked like fun.

We went to the edge of the cliff where we thought we would find pools in the fallen rock, but most of it would only let the water leak out and only saw a few small crabs. We looked around the rocks and found over a dozen starfish. Some rocks had hundreds of things that looked like puffed up anemones.

We moved some of the starfish to the water so they wouldn't dry in the warming sun. Guess those that were left would be food for some other animals?

Around 8:30 we went for Nana and had some breakfast. Again, had a nice talk with Maria at the front desk of the hotel. Breakfast is free here and the food is good. I really like the hot cinnamon rolls - yummy.

From there, went to church where Nana and Papa said they enjoyed the priest who wanted them to meet everybody important. On last visit, they met the mother of the archbishop who was saying mass that day. The pastor at that time even sent them a thank you note for visiting. Said if they were in the neighborhood they should stop in. They did and found he retired after 26 years at that place. He now lives in San Francisco at another church.

They had baptism for two little babies. It was nice service. The choir had good songs and voices. We also found out the pastor was leaving that week to help at another church since the priest there had bad cancer.

We drove back down the mountain and decided to read the Sunday paper and get things packed for trip to Michigan tomorrow.

After, we decided to hike up the small mountain at the end of the beach. It was very steep. Papa was the slowest. He was wearing his flip-flop sandals which are not good for climbing. Nana and I wore our good climbing shoes so left him behind. Papa stops a lot to take lots of pictures. So far maybe have 13,000 photos of the whole trip.

When we got to the top we could see for miles. No whales though to see this time. It was interesting to see a cloud coming over another mountain in front of us and coming in our direction. It floated on the water for almost a mile before climbing over another mountain past us.

After getting down the trail which was sandy and slippery, had to wait for Papa again. It was making us hungry.

We went to Bob's Burger Place. Of course, all of us had burgers with ranch dressing on them. It was messy. For drinks, Papa and I had milkshakes. Mine was butterscotch and Papa had banana flavor. Both were very good.

When we got back to the hotel, finished getting everything ready to take to airport tomorrow.

Looks like last photos and blog will happen once we are back in Michigan.

The whole trip was awesome. I miss my mom, dad and sister, but still was glad to be with Nana and Papa.