Cousin

I have a cousin who lives in Sacramento - Jo Ann Lochner. She took us to Bridgeport CA where we did some hiking and sightseeing at the longest covered bridge still surviving. She then cooked us a great dinner.

Chico

While in the Sacramento area we had to make a pilgrimage to Chico CA, home of Sierra Nevada Brewing. They have a big brewery, a lot bigger than the others we have seen. It is proof that big breweries can still make good beer. We had a tour and after that went to their brewpub and sampled all 16 of their beers.


Notice the Volkswagen bus in the third picture, we are in California after all.


After the brewery we visited the Bidwell mansion, the man who founded Chico, it was pretty impressive.

Sacramento

We have moved further north and are staying in Dixon. Not for the city itself but because of it's location between Sacramento and San Fransisco. We got here Thursday and went into Sacramento on Friday. We visited Old Sacramento, Sutter's Fort, downtown and the Capitol. Arnold wasn't in though.

Half Moon Bay

We took a trip up to Half Moon Bay to check out the scenery, etc.



Including the lady walking her dogs in the ocean, the little one wouldn't come out that far.




After we left we drove through the mountians to Boulder Creek.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Happy anniversary to Jody and Jonathan. We took a trip to Pacifica where it all started. We wish you many more years.

Winchester house

The Winchester house in San Jose was built by the heiress of the Winchester rifle fortune. She was building on it 24 hours a day for 38 years. It has 160 rooms and all kinds of quirky features. For example only three people ever went through the front door, her and the two carpenters who installed it.

Beach/Mountain

One nice thing about Santa Cruz is that you can go from the beach to the mountains in 10 minutes. Great scenery in both.

Santa Cruz

We spent a few days in Santa Cruz. It had the requisite pier, beach, old downtown and surfers. It was a little tackier than other places we stayed. Don't tell the chamber of commerce. It has a big amusement park on it's boardwalk.

Missions

We have visited a lot of missions on our trip. We do historical things also. We visited the Santa Barbara mission before we left the area. It was a very interesting tour.

California

Every once in a while we get a graphic reminder we are in California. We went to a brewery in Santa Cruz. It was all organic. Organic is good for food, not so much for beer. A plus though, was that you could bring your horse.

View

There is a hill, mountain really, behind Ventura that was purported to have a great view of the area, Barb thought we should walk to the top when we had a perfectly good car. What happened to the relaxing vacation?? We started off with a warning about mountain lions and with lots of huffs and puffs got to the top. At least I made Barb pose for a picture.

Paramount Studio

Wednesday we visited the Paramount Studios, the tour was interesting and entertaining.