Sons of Norway Convention in Modesto, CA

I was in Modesto, California. I went to attend the Sons of Norway convention as a voting delegate. I am the current secretary to the Stein Fjell Lodge 6-114 in Loveland. We stayed in the Doubletree hotel and the convention was in the hotel. I had a roommate of which I had never met before. We got along famously. She is from Arizona. I met alot of really nice and fun loving Norwegians. There is a small amount of business to take care of which is to be expected, in between we had workshops to learn more about building the organization on a local level. Tons of coffee was served during the day and tons of Norwegian cookies. I of course, tried all of them.  One of our lunches was open faced sandwiches, a very traditional food in Norway. All the members who had traditional Norwegian bunad costumes were requested to wear them to dinner, After which they paraded around the room. It was great to see so many bunads. One woman explained each of the bunads and where they came from in Norway. It was very educational. I took so many pictures and put them on my facebook page. There was one guy who dressed up as a Viking and talked partially in Norwegain and English. He had us in stitches most of the time.

Cambria, CA

     We decided to go to the coast again for more pictures. Our destination was Cambria but not the quick route. We drove highway 46 west to Santa Rosa Road. This is a back road through the mountains to the coast in Cambria. It is actually a very lovely drive. Some parts of the street are lined with oak trees dripping in Spanish moss. There were some newer cute homes along this route.

     Cyclists on the Santa Rosa Creek Road. I do not envy them at all.

     



     The picture on the right was taken at Linn's Fruit Bin. It can be found on the Santa Rosa Creek road going to Cambria. I have been going here for over 20 years and love to buy fruit pies here. The berry farm opened a restaurant in town due to the volume of traffic on the small country road.

And finally at the beach in Cambria. The plant in the forground is iceplant. It grows all over California.

Paso Robles, CA

     While walking around town taking pictures I am sure I looked like a tourist. But, I was only taking pictures because the whole downtown area had changed so much since I moved away. I like the way to town is changing. It has become quaint and not just another small town. It is not copying the look of San Luis Obispo either. They are keeping the old library and turned it into a museum. It is beautiful inside. They also rebuilt the clock tower building that was all but destroyed during the last earthquake. The water fountain in the park is waterless due to the drought. The local residents are on a rotation schedule for watering their lawns.

This is the town Clock Tower.

    

     This is the original library that has been retrofitted for earthquakes and now open as a museum.

The city park in the middle of downtown Paso.

Morro Bay, CA

My daughter and I drove over to Morro Bay today and had our traditional fish and chips.

We also walked on the embarcadero and did tons of window shopping and bought sea shells for the little ones back in Fort Collins and of course could not forget the salt water taffy. I took many pictures of the Morro Bay rock and the harbor and of sea gulls. But most of all I enjoyed just sitting at the beach and listening to the pounding of the waves and the wind in my face and the smell of the ocean. I miss that very much.

 
 
 
 
 
     Morro Bay is a wonderful place to go and just hang out. It is a bit on the touristy side but all the same it is one of my favorite places to go. I love to watch the boats going to and from in the harbor. Every now and again you might catch a glimpse of an otter laying on his back, floating by eating his lunch on his stomach. Seagulls constantly flitting here and there talking amoungst themselves. The smell of the freash sea air. I love sitting near the ocean and just listening to the waves pounding on the shore with the wind blowing gently across my face.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Projects

While in Paso I was helping my daughter Karrin with some projects. She is having a Mad Hatter Tea Party for a birthday party. I was painting and helping her come up with more ideas. Somehow I have managed to have two very creative daughters.

Here we are attempting to make mushrooms out of paper mache that she wanted to put around the yard for the party. It was a pain trying to get the paste to cooperate with us.

    




     This was the painting station where wooden spools were being painted to be turned into a necklace that will be worn by the birthday girls. (There are two woman celebrating their birthdays together, one is my daughter Karrin.)

     Here is a close up of the spools that we painted.







     Well, who knew that while on my road trip I would be altering a bride's maids dress? Karrin ordered a dress from a company in China at the request of the bride to be. When she got the dress, she can't zip it in the area of her ribs. So, now I am not only hemming this dress but have to take it apart and try to make it fit with what little fabric I have available to me. This will be a challenge to make it look like part of the design of the dress. I forgot to take a before picture but I will take an after picture to show. I forgot to take pictures of both before and after. I managed to get the dress back together and it fits her. I think I did a good job of making it look like it might have been part of the original design of the dress. Altering Karrin's bridesmaid dress was a major challenge. I made it work and the dress fits her, Yeah! It took me 2 days of figuring and fitting and sewing and ripping out. Whew. It has rouching around the bust area and I tried to copy this as best as I could with what little fabric I had to work with. All the while we are trying to get the dress done her dog is begging us to go outside and play with him. He is so cute.

     In between trying to get this dress done, we went downtown in Paso Robles and took pictures. We had lunch at "The Touch of Paso" restaurant where we used to go every weekend with Karrin's grandparents (who have both passed). Both of us sat there and just looked around. We had not been in the restaurant since her grandfather had passed. It was a bitter sweet experience. Neither of us was prepared for all the emotion that was running through our heads. We ate our lunch in silence and did not begin to talk again until I paid the bill. The owner of the place actually remembered me. He came out of the kitchen to greet me. That was so pleasant to be remembered after all these years.

Changes

Let's see, some of the changes in Paso... They tore down the old Masonic Lodge and turned it into a medical facility. A&W drive in on Spring Street is not only gone, but the building is really completely gone and all that is left is a fence around a vacant lot. The auto repair shop next to the old Fox Theater on Spring Street is gone and replace with a nice new beautiful business building (empty). The clock tower that was leveled during the last huge earthquake is rebuilt. Almost all the stores and restaurants downtown I have never seen before. Driving through old neighborhoods, they almost looked foreign to me. The trees that were once so small now are huge.

     There are bike lines that are red and white while the street is still black topped. There are currently so many wineries in the Paso Robles area.





     I got lost on one of the back roads coming into town because there were wineries on both sides of the road coming into town. They were not there when I left. It almost feels like a completely different town.

Paso Robles, CA

The wind in Las Vegas was horrendous. It jostled my car all over the freeway. It was interesting driving through Las Vegas and getting to see all the unusual buildings they create just for gambling. The weather was very hot when the wind quit blowing. The drive from Vegas to California is pretty boring. The only break in the drive is the sudden unexpected gambling spots in the middle of nowhere. In the open fields the wind was whipping up the dust into what looked like a brown fog rolling in over the hills. Surprisingly there was not a lot of traffic on my drive out until I got to Vegas and was heading to California. Then it was like driving on the 405 in L.A. Once I arrived in California it was very hot, tons of traffic and more long boring roads to look at while driving. I left the really green mountains in Colorado. The much smaller mountains in California are already all brown. Although I did get a glimpse of some left over spring flowers tucked away in some nooks and crannies along the way. I stopped in Baker, Ca. This town is extremely small and not much in it except a few restaurants and many gas stations. One restaurant stood out in particular. It was called the Mad Greek Restaurant. It looked so out of place in a dusty western town. First of all the building was painted a very bright white, with brilliant blue awnings. There were statues all around the outside of the place. It looked like a historical Greek temple on crack. I wonder if the food was any good if they called it Mad Greek. Does that mean a Mad Greek is the cook, and or the designer of the restaurant? Next on my list was Barstow. In the interest of making travel easier for the driver, Barstow by passed the city by making you drive around it. So today's driver totally misses the whole point of a road trip. Driving through these relatively small towns is part of the joy and interest of driving on the roads in the first place. Didn't they watch the cartoon "Cars". They should bring back Route 66 and encourage people to drive those roads at least once in their life. You learn so much about the United States by stopping in the small towns and becoming a tourist. Between Barstow and Bakersfield there is a whole hillside filled with spinning propellers that create electricity. For me I found it fascinating seeing the hillside with those things spinning like crazy. It made me think of my childhood and those crazy paper pinwheels that spin when you blow on them. Now imagine the whole hillside filled with them. I drove right past Bakersfield, I was more interested in getting to my daughters house now that I am in California. On Hwy 46 not much has not changed much since I left California in 97. It is still two lanes, it is still dangerous, and who likes driving towards a setting sun?

     I stopped along 46 just long enough to snap a picture of the James Dean memorial. Again, like many things, in the middle of nowhere. When I got close to Paso Robles I decided to turn left on Union Rd. Because it was a road I thought I knew. Hahaha well, the road is the same but I did not recognize anything. This particular road had wineries on both sides of the road. Wineries with names I had never heard of. When I finally got to Golden Hill Rd., I thought ah ha... I know where I am, NOT.... I did not recognize anything about Golden Hill Rd. The same for when I got on Creston Rd. I was beginning to think I had landed in a different city and someone was playing a practical joke on me. I did manage to remember the names of streets and where I thought they might be approximately. Somehow I muddled through it and found my way to my daughter’s house. Whew..

   




 Today we drove through downtown Paso and it did not feel like the town I left so many years ago at all. I barely recognized anything.

   






      Then tonight we drove down to San Luis Obispo and it had changed but nowhere near as much as Paso Robles. And to my delight they still had the Farmer's Market. This market is the best one in the United States. I wish they would do the Farmer's Market like this one, in Fort Collins, CO. I walked through the streets with my daughter and took pictures of the market, the people and the buildings.

 






      We stopped and did the tourist thing of checking out Bubble Gum Alley. This is a strange thing that was started years ago where you are supposed to put your previously chewed gum on the brick wall in an alley. It has become a tourist attraction now in SLO.

   I enjoyed just walking around town and taking in the sights, sounds, and yes even the smells of SLO. I really do miss the Central Coast area of California. I came upon the mission in SLO and took a few pictures. It was late so the mission was closed or else I would have gone in and toured the mission and taken pictures.

     There is a creek that runs through the middle of town. It is a favorite hangout in especially in really hot weather. Or to just sit and enjoy the beauty of the creek.

Here are a few more pictures of downtown SLO at the Farmer's Market.

Start of this Blog

     To celebrate starting this blog I am going to do a trip report of my drive from Fort Collins, Colorado to Paso Robles, California. I plan on taking pictures along the way to share. I start this 1200 mile (one way) journey in the morning. June 15th, 2010. So I hope you enjoy meandering with me across the states.

      Well, my trip started out much like any other trip, fraught with mishaps before I even pulled out of my driveway. Could not find this, could not find that. You know the story... Best laid plans of mice and men... I even managed to get 10 minutes from the house and remembered yet another thing that I forgot. Had to turn around and retrieve it. Finally getting started on my drive I was happy that it was a sunny and warm day. There was not a tremendous amount of traffic which enhanced my enjoyment of the drive. I was excited to get to the mountains. I wanted to see if there was any snow left on them. We have been having flash flood warnings in the area because of the snow melting on the Rockies. As I approached the base of the mountains I was amazed at the color of the mountains.

     They are greener than I have ever seen them. With all the water runoff it is a wondrous site. I stopped in Idaho Springs to get my favorite drink of quad grande white mocha. I don't buy them very often any more. I make my own at home now.








     Then I proceeded to drive up to Dillion, Co. I stopped and took a couple of pictures. The mountains, some with snow, some without with a lake Dillion in front of them and a lone sailboat sailing on a beautiful day. The air was crisp and with a slight breeze. It was so comforting just standing there watching the sailboat.

  Knowing that I had to get back on the road at some point I got back into the car to see what waited around the next corner.










      I got so side tracked looking at the mountains that I did not notice the time passing by so quickly. I even took a picture inside Eisenhower tunnel. I hope it turns out.

     I stopped in Vail because I wanted to take pictures and nearly drove right by the whole town. It is quiet small. It is a very unique town. It looks like a European town possibly in the Swiss Alps. It is a strange town also. They kind of went crazy with the roundabouts. There are so many at all the intersections that I actually got motion sickness, disoriented.. The drive through Vail Pass is beautiful also. The elevation is 10,665 feet. My ears were popping constantly.

The drive to Glenwood Springs through a pass in the mountains was breathtaking also. The Colorado River was to the point of over flowing. The roads we were driving on looked as though they had been gently placed there so as not to disturb the beauty of the pass. One of the roads looks like it is floating on the river. On my way home I will try to get a picture of that. I could not from the direction I was traveling. I arrived at Grand Junction and was looking for a gas station. This is where the trip was not so nice, I became ill. Oh well, a little excitement during the trip is ok I guess. I got a phone call from my granddaughter Rylee. She wanted to know where I was and when I would be in the next state. So I started taking pictures of the state signs as I went into each state to show her. My other grandson is checking the map at home with the help of his grandpa.

     I stopped off in Green River, Utah and topped off my gas. I did not want to get stranded in the middle of no where in the middle of the night. By now it is dark out and I am watching the moon which is just a sliver. It was facinating to watch it go behind clouds and the mountains and change colors. It was my constant companion until I decided to stop and sleep for a few hours. I made it to about 20 miles short of St. George. I pulled into a rest stop and slept for a few hours. I put up the sun shades on all the windows to help me sleep. It was a surprisingly quiet rest stop and there were many people there doing the same thing as I was.

     I finally arrived at the outskirts of Las Vegas. I am a strange one as I have no real desire to go into Vegas, even to get pictures. It is extremely windy today and warm. I think without the wind it would be very hot. I am sitting in the IHOP trying to charge up my computer and phone to get back on the road to get to my destination of Paso Robles, CA. ... until my next entry.. catch you on the flip flop.. ttfn