Ripavilla & other Tennessee Attractions

Ripavilla is a plantation house in Tennessee that was used as a hospital during the Civil War. It was a pretty typical plantation house tour. Behind the house is a mule and farm equipment museum (barn), and it was probably one of the hottest places I've ever been in my life. The heat did not detract from the excitement, though. We also visited an old graveyard.




Lucky for us, there was an outhouse made for three. I'm not sure if it's for three different sizes, or if they're insinuating that three people would be doing their business in such close quarters. Nevertheless, it made for an entertaining photo shoot.





We also managed to take a long detour through Tennessee Amish country where we purchased Amish-made goods. This is a picture of an Amish field. Coincidentally, we saw the farm equipment used to make these types of haystacks while we were at the mule and farm equipment museum.

Wetumpka: Impact Crater & Fort Toulouse

This is not the legendary star that fell on Alabama, but apparently a long time ago, a meteor hit near Wetumpka. Auburn geologists studied it and fairly recently determined that it is an impact crater, but not before people built things on it. So if the sign wasn't there, it would be almost impossible to tell that there was a crater. Meteor Crater in Arizona is better, but at least Wetumpka is a one-day trip.





For some reason, I thought Fort Toulouse was in Louisiana...it's not. It IS a very exciting place, though.

California & Nevada....only 4 more states to go!!



This was my first daylight view of California. We spent most of Friday evening on planes, and I have added another qualification to my ever-growing list of travel restrictions (which include not flying on Southwest and never staying in hotels without interior corridors unless they look supremely safe) -- I will no longer be flying into the Denver airport because the flight is always lengthened due to some sort of weather. We had 4 minutes to get on the next plane, which was larger and more comfortable, but the motion-sickness had already set in, and I ended up politely vomiting into the handy barf bag about five times. Oh, and remember the 4 minutes we had to catch our flight to San Diego? Well, no one told our luggage that it needed to hurry, so it didn't arrive until after 11 P.M. This meant that we stayed in the lovely Hacienda Hotel in San Diego rather than driving to LA that night...which was fine since I was still kind of sick.


Saturday we started driving up the coast in our big shiny car which we love and don't want to give back. Aside from the rest area pictured here, our first real stop was Laguna Beach, one of my most favorite places here, where we ate facing the Pacific Ocean. I'm looking out the hotel window at the Pacific right now, but somehow it seemed better at Laguna Beach.

We then went to Los Angeles to see the LaBrea Tar Pits. Does anybody remember the episode of Captain Cave Man with the tar monster? Well, that's when I first heard of them. I'm pretty sure Scooby Doo has an episode like that as well. We drove to all the required places: Hollywood sign, Walk of Fame, etc. Then we spent a while in Santa Monica (yes, mostly because of the Everclear song). We saw seals off the pier and walked around. This is a picture of the amusement park on the pier. It was this bright at around 8:30 P.M. That's the best part about the West.

We spent that night back in Beverly Hills, so now we can officially use the phrase, "when we used to live in Beverly Hills."







Then we were off to Death Valley...specifically to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the U.S. There are many, many signs about "no facilities" and "no services" for the next seventy or so miles, but for some reason we were not phased by these. The picture is James's artistic expression of the heat. It is hotter in Alabama, though. At 105 degrees, there was a hot breeze. We made it to the salt flats in Badwater Basin and out of the park in time to get to Las Vegas just after dark. We could see the city about 40 miles before we actually got to it.
We spent that night in Boulder City with a view of Lake Mead, the largest man-made lake, and we toured the Hoover Dam the next day. We went inside the acutal dam and got to look out the vents to the front. The dam was more exciting than Las Vegas, but we did have to get in our Vegas time, so that night we walked the strip from the Venetian to the Luxor and back. We rode the gondolas at the Venetian and went inside of several other hotels/casinos as well as watched the fountain show at the Bellagio. We are probably the only people who could do Vegas in a day, but I was quite excited to get back to LA and see Mickey Mouse at DisneyLAND. That night, we left Las Vegas around 11 P.M. and drove toward LA, stopping in Barstow for the night due to limited fuel in the car, which we were yelled at for by my dad who was afraid that we'd run out of gas and be murdered by a motorcycle gang.

The next day we went to the famous Randy's Doughnuts (the one with the giant doughnut on top...it's always on the Travel Channel or Food Network) and to Disneyland, and that has been and will be my favorite part of the whole trip. The first thing we did is meet Mickey Mouse at his house. Even though we've been to Disney World, we've never had our picture made with Mickey, so this was a very big deal. I am sure that you will agree that the "real" Mickey is at Disneyland since that's where the first Disney park was located. The ones in Orlando are just his "elves". We mostly focused on rides that are different from the ones in the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion are similar, but better at Disneyland. That was pretty much the best day of my life so far.

That night we drove down to San Diego where we have been since Tuesday night. It seems strange to stay in the same place for so long. Wednesday we ate in the Old Town at a restaurant owned by a friend of a friend's friend. Fish tacos were invented here, so James ate that. Afterwards, we went to the top of the Hyatt Hotel for a view of the city at their bar. I had a delicious raspberry drink with champange in it and James got his standard glass of port (since it is scandalously illegal to sell in Alabama, even though they have it at Hot and Hot Fish Club). We stayed there way too late and got a late start on Thursday, but managed to get to the zoo before lunch.

We rode the sky buckets and the bus at the zoo and also walked around for a long time. I got some good animal pictures. James's poster session was that night, so we had a late dinner at a Greek restaurant, and then came back to the hotel for a swim. It's a bit chilly at night, but the pool is heated. Soon we discovered the steam room and gave up on the pool. The hotel's pool area is really nice with waterfalls and fire pits.

Today we went on a SEAL tour (not to be confused with a DUCK tour which is pretty much the same thing). It started in the Seaport Village area near our hotel.
We saw:
the crusie ship port; lots of sail boats and other watercraft; the Navy installations; the SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography (which is super famous); Sea Lions...lots of them swimming and lounging; fishing boats; submarines; the place where the Navy trains dolphins; and lots more. I have a video of the sea lions...

You will hear some of the narrator and music in the background; it doesn't sound great.


REAL California sea lions!

After 9 days away from home, I was glad to get back today. James is already taking a nap with little miss Gretchen. And I have to give him a shout out for totally dominating trivia on the plane on the way home. I was afraid he might get mobbed on his way off the plane for the way he destroyed his competition.

Now it's time to unpack!