And so long, room with this view.

We enjoyed our last meal in the dining room.

We hope to come back one day.

We took one last stroll around the hotel after breakfast.

We took a shot of the sitting room from the mezzanine level on our way out.

Wish I could have saved my room key as a souvenir.

True story.  I had my souvenir all picked out in the downstairs gift shop.  It was a lovely onyx platter.  The stone liked to take my breath away.  There was good and bad news.  The good news, a sign said that the stone came from outside Yosemite.  The bad news, as I went to pay for the platter, I learned that the stone not only came from Pakistan, it made there too.  Apparently made outside Yosemite means anywhere in the world.  At that point the bad news did me in and I did not get the platter.

Guess what?  The guys we saw a couple of days ago (at Tunnel View) were at the hotel as we were checking out that morning!  Can you believe we ran into them again?  Well, I can’t.

Another true story.  We had all of our bags piled into the car and ready to go when I realized I left something behind.  So I ran up to the room while hubby waited.  While I was gone, hubby heard familiar voices carrying on across the way (about 20 or so feet away).  Hubby said.  “You guys guests here?  We don’t allow riff-raff around here.”  While hubby caught the boys off guard, they quickly remembered him and got chuckle out of it.

We exchanged info and plan to keep in touch.  Our friends, yes, that’s you Joe, Tom and Mike.  If you’re reading this, we trust all is well.  And if you’re ever in the San Diego area, please let us know.  We would love to see you again.  This was such a total unexpected treat to bump into them again.  Hey Mike, we missed you, wish we could have said hello to you too.  We hope you were getting some amazing shots of that tree…

Joe, me and Tom

We stopped at Tunnel View one last time before we pulled away from the park.  It just seemed the right thing to do.

Then we drove up the road to see the Sequoia’s at Mariposa Grove.

It was the first time for me to see these beautiful trees.

The “Grizzly Giant” behind me is the 25th largest giant sequoia living today. The circumference at the ground is 96.5 feet = It’s HUGE and pix don’t do justice.

Hubby and the Grizzly Giant.

After our little hike and visit with the Sequoia’s, it was time to hit the road.  It was time to go home and we were ready.

I can’t lie, I did reach for that pillow in the backseat and I did close my eyes and I did fall asleep on our way home.

We made it home safe and sound sometime around 9 o’clock in the evening.  The good news, we still had the weekend around home sweet home to rest up before the work week.  I love that we plan at least a day or two at the end of each trip to rest up before work.

This concludes Hubby’s 50th Birthday, an amazing week filled with lots of fun and great memories.

Blessings – Debbie

This 50th Birthday week for hubby has been amazing.  And I feel so blessed to get to spend it with him.  While I wished him Happy Birthday, morning, noon and night all week, this was the real day to celebrate.  The day he picked out just what he wanted to do.

He wanted to ride a mule thru the valley and that’s exactly what we did.

What a beautiful day.

Just hangin’ out waiting to get assigned to our ride.

Our first mule ride.

I was assigned to Shirley.

And hubby was assigned to Girtie.

While I had Shirley on auto pilot, I took my eyes off the road.

Since I didn’t have a rear view mirror, I had to turn around every now and then to check in with hubby and Girtie.

The view, what more can I say?

She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain…

It’s a good thing Shirley knew what she was doing as I wasn’t paying close attention to the path up ahead.

And the views had to be documented one way or another, just for the record.

Hubby somehow got in front of me such that he could turn around now and then to check in.

There were quite a few of us enjoying the ride.

But after the ride, the Birthday Boy and I made our way back to our room for a much-needed nap.  This was the view with my head on the pillow.  We even slept with the curtains open at night as this was an amazing sight in the middle of the night as the moon and stars provided just enough light to show off the falls.

We then went down and found our own little table and chairs for afternoon tea.

 It was quite refreshing.

Dinner reservations were made in the Dining Room and we enjoyed the lovely dinner music.

Looking out from the dining room.

Hubby had the amazing Rotisserie Chicken with Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

I had the Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Root Vegetable Pave, Veal Sweetbreads and Porcini Jus.  Yum!

And we shared this amazing Chocolate Pecan Pie A La Mode.

This was so yummy!

The dining room – pic taken after dark.

The Birthday Boy on his Birthday.

Just the two of us outside the hotel.

And one last Birthday pic before we called it a night.

It comes as no surprise that hubby had a Very Happy Birthday.

Blessings – Debbie

Good morning from our window.  It was another exciting day in Yosemite.

After a yummy breakfast,

we made our way to Glacier Point.

A little hike…

Led us to the most amazing views.

We had a bird’s-eye view of the hotel.  Can you believe it took an hour to drive from the hotel to this very spot?  We were up there at an impressive 7,214′.

Can you spy our hotel now?  It’s down there, way down there.

A great big wow!  That’s what comes to mind.

The King and I – Glacier Point.

Taking it all in.

Half Dome – what a great view up here.

Here we are on our way back to the hotel making our way thru the tunnel at Tunnel View Yosemite.

We decided to return to Tunnel View that evening to get some shots.

Turns out, Tunnel View drew quite the professional photography group.  Joe, that’s Joe in the hat all set up to get some amazing shots.  He’s visiting with a couple who take shots for the Discovery Channel.

There’s Joe down there getting his shots.  And Roy is here in the blue shirt taking wow shots.  I know these things, I saw some of his work.  Allow me to say wow again.  WOW!

Thanks Joe, Tom and Mike and Roy for all the photography encouragement and advice.  And the laughs too!  It was such a delight to meet all of you!

Roy analyzing his shot.

I hope to one day be half as good as these guys.  Until then, I’ll keep snapping pix.

Blessings – Debbie

It’s no secret, we had the best time in Big Sur.  But the time was up and time to move on to a new place.

The night before, we were sure to open the blinds, and prepare the camera for that sunrise, just like the day before.  Only this morning, we wanted to catch it right as it was coming up.

It didn’t work out as planned as the clouds rolled in and the sky was thick and overcast.  It was a sign that it was time to go.

As we made our way out, the hotel lobby seemed void of any moving creatures.

And just like that, we pulled away from the coast and all of the wonderful memories we made back in Big Sur.

As I sat in the passenger seat that morning, the clouds broke and the sky was the prettiest shade of blue.  But, doubt flooded over me.  Doubt that the high we were on in Big Sur would soon be squashed.  As we passed through the mountains, they were just not the same as looking at cliffs and rock and all the shades of the deep blue sea.

During that 4 hour drive, the camera was completely tucked away.  And somewhere in California those mountains turned to flat land and cattle, as far as the eye could see.  I recall piping up to hubby saying “I feel like we’re in Okeechobee, FL” Hubby to me “This feels like Arkansas to me.”  Yeah, I was a little worried that the high of beauty we were just on was totally g.o.n.e.

The question “will Yosemite live up to Big Sur?”  “Will excitement return?”

I took out the camera as we pulled into Yosemite National Park.

I think this Yosemite Valley Chapel was one of my first shots.  It’s not the best lighting but I loved this cute little Chapel!  Turns out, it’s been a place of worship and weddings for over 130 years.

At this point, excitement returned on this little one way road into the park.

On into the Valley we go.  Soon we are surrounded with granite all the way around.  And the falls, o the falls were amazing!

We were two very excited campers as we forged our way deep into the Valley.

Look, there’s Half Dome!

And the Ahwahnee Hotel!  The place we were to call home for the next few days.  We tried to come here last year but learned we needed to make reservations a year in advance, if we wanted to be sure to be here when we wanted.  So last May, we made our reservations to come this year for hubby’s 50th birthday.

We had plans to meet up with friends, so we chilled in the sitting room as we waited for them to arrive.

We meet again, old family friends.  I’ve known this amazing couple since I was 8 years old.  We were neighbors.  I played with their little girl when we were kids.  This amazing gentleman was the Minister in our wedding.  From the time I was a kid, I knew who would marry me one day.

What are the odds that we would be here in the same place vacationing at the same time?  WOW!  This was such a nice treat!

Love them!

The place we had lunch, dessert and coffee together.

It did our hearts good to see them again.

Soon hubby and I were back in our room admiring our view and figuring out how we wanted to spend the remains of our day.

Exploring, that’s all we wanted to do was explore the Valley floor.  And with that, I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking as I am completely out of words other than wow!

On that note, I was completely speechless at day’s end.  I will also say there is no way to compare Yosemite to Big Sur.  And I will say that we both agreed that “We saved the best for last.”

I’m thankful for the unexpected wow’s in life.  For the beauty in creation and nature at its best.  We still have much to see and explore.  I’ll be back!

Blessings – Debbie

Good morning from paradise!  Who knew the sun would poke me in the eye, in the morning, on the west coast?  Tis true, that big guy in the sky nudged me out of bed bright and early for this shot.  Taken from the balcony.

Since this leg of our trip was planned last min, we were not able to pillow our heads in Big Sur.  But we found a place (Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa) on up the road in Monterey Bay.  Although it was about an hours drive from Big Sur, the drive down was beautiful.

Shot from our balcony.

I was in love with the proximity of the hotel over the bay.  Shot from our balcony.

I caught this shot from our balcony as well.  We also watched fishing boats make a b-line out to sea.

As soon as we were ready to explore Big Sur, we hit the road.

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur CA

Panned the camera just away from the bridge to see the stunning cliffs and rocky coast.

We were here…

…having the time of our lives with nothing on the agenda other than to enjoy ourselves and take in the things we wanted to take in at our own pace.  It truly felt like vacation in every way.

I think this is yet another time when I was wishing hubby Happy Birthday.  I wished him Happy Birthday morning noon and night for 7 days straight.  He deserves the very best.

We were still at Bixby Bridge, but this is another shot of the coast on the other side.

After we had our fill at the bridge, we moseyed up the road.  This pic was taken from the passenger seat.

Another shot from the passenger seat.  That mountain running into the ocean is a Navy Facility of sorts.  We both agreed that was a nice strategic place.  If I were in the Navy, I would want to eat, sleep and work from there.

We stopped at Nepenthe for lunch.  It came highly recommended by friends and we can report that the food was amazing and so was the…

VIEW!

What a gorgeous day!

While there was a bit of haze, the weather was spot on.

A testament that this passenger could not sit still.

And the driver was delighted to pull off as we were on a mission to take it all in ’til our hearts were content to move on up/down the road.

Our next planned stop was a little hike in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.

It was yet another beautiful place to get out and stretch our legs.

Something we continued to say about our trip “It is so easy on the eyes.”

A close up of the waterfall as seen in the above pic.

And another.

The little path, what fun!

The trail ended here.  Not a bad place to land.

It was another magical day filled with beauty at every twist and turn.

It’s a place we hope to return one day.  If not, these pictures will serve as a reminder of the joy we experienced while there.

Blessings – Debbie

Good day from San Simeon, CA!  It truly was a beautiful day.  A nice vacation day where we let the day unfold.

We fell asleep to the sounds of the crashing waves and woke to the same amazing sounds.  This was the morning view just outside our hotel sliding glass doors.

Many thanks to Yelp for helping us find this 5 star hole in the wall for lunch.  The food was fresh and amazing.

My tuna sandwich made with fresh ingredients.

So yummy and HUGE!  I could only eat half.

I particularly loved this old tractor they had parked out front.

Just outside the restaurant was this old schoolhouse that was built for the workers who were employed by William Randolph Hearst in the construction of his castle in San Simeon, CA.  If you look really close, you can see Hearst Castle to the left of the schoolhouse bell, up on the mountain top.

Speaking of Hearst Castle, it was our next stop.

What a grand place.

With amazing detail.

Hubby and I having a grand time.

A bit of detail

A little sneak peek of the side.

Just me, trying to take it all in.

And the views?  I do believe the views were my favorite part.

No doubt my absolute favorite part.

The 90,000 + sq foot Hearst Castle featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world’s largest private zoo.

One of the indoor fireplaces – From floor to ceiling.

The dining room set up as if they had dinner prepared for us.

Dining room detail from the other end of the room.

Billiards room

While I was fascinated with much of the artwork and rooms inside, I was more interested in the gardens, views and the great outdoors.

There was so much to see and many views to take in.

My heartbeat.

Yet another amazing view.  Currently there is 80,000 acres but Hearst used to own a whopping 250,000 acres which included all of the mountains you see in the far distance.

I was in awe of the whole feeling and area surrounding the castle.

Such beauty at each and every turn.

The indoor swimming pool.

We were able to walk the grounds alone (after our tour) and stay and enjoy the place until our hearts were content.

As we left, I was sure to capture a portion of the winding road that led us to and from the castle.

Once we were finished, we hit the road on up the coast to Big Sur.  Yes, we’re on this amazing road winding along the coast again!

Lucky for us, we were not on any deadlines to be anywhere at any certain time.  So in hubby and wifey fashion, we stopped along the way whenever we felt the urge to get out and enjoy the beauty.

Side Note: The stopping along the way part, was the plan.  Say we were on a regular road trip, neither of us would want to stop to smell the roses, unless we had to.

I took so many shots that I find it difficult to know which ones to post.  Thus, a lot of pix!

Another look at the same coastline, we’re just in a different spot.

While we were out there enjoying our surroundings, we heard the loudest noise down below.  We quickly looked down to see THIS!

Have you any idea how excited I was to see this whale?

Again, I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

This was the first time in my life to see a real whale, in the ocean!

Next thing, there were TWO!

I was such a happy lady.

It was hard to pull away from this amazing sight.

This is the rest area where we stopped.  Thank goodness we took the time to smell the roses.  We would have never seen the whales had we not taken the little hike out there to get a view of the ocean.

I was so excited on our way back to the car, that I was telling perfect strangers that if they hightail it to the ocean fast enough, that they too could see the whales.

We hit the road again, but we were no more than on the road and it called for another stop to take in beauty.

Another day on the road where there was no desire to grab for the pillow and take a little rest.  Why, I couldn’t put down my camera long enough to relax.

I did get a bit concerned that I would get carsick.  Last year, we took a similar winding road sort of drive and I got so carsick.  But this trip, I had no trouble.  I wonder if it had to do with the weight loss and the shape my body is in?  I have no idea, but I took these winding roads in stride.

On up the road and soon to pull over again.  That’s Bixby Bridge in Big Sur up ahead.  We stopped the next day on the other side of that bridge for more pix.

Another view

Same view panned out a bit.

Back on the road again.

Taken from the passenger seat.

Next stop, the hotel.  Pic taken from our room that evening.

While we had an ocean view room, we were located in the Bay and did not have sunset views from our room.  So we drove up the the road (approx 10 min) to enjoy the sunset.

I was so taken with our hotel on stilts.  The ground level was where we enjoyed dinner that evening.

And the moonrise from the balcony of our room, could not have been better.

What another amazing day filled with so many great memories.

If you made it to the end of this post, you are a trooper!  Sorry it was hard for me to post less pictures than this.

I need this post with all the details.  After all, this blog is for any who want to visit and for us during our rocking chair years as well.  🙂

Blessings – Debbie

Who doesn’t like a road trip?  I do believe I’ve enjoyed road trips ever since I was a little girl.  There’s always a certain element of excitement when the scenery is ever-changing.

In this case, we were just driving up the coast of CA.  Just driving up the coast?!  Well I had no idea all the excitement  and sites that were to come.  Although I did have a little idea of the beauty, I just wasn’t prepared to be blown away like I was, Every. Single. Day.  I had a pillow and blanket packed for passenger comfort but didn’t so much as think about using them.

The happy passenger.

And hubby, the best driver ever.  He never once let me in the driver seat.  And I must admit, there were times I felt guilty as he deserved to sit in the passenger seat to enjoy the beauty as much as me.

I was happy as a clam, bouncing off the walls taking way more pictures than a girl should be allowed.

Snapping away.

First stop = LA for lunch.

After lunch, we were right back on the road again.

We pulled over at the look out place to see what we could see.  There wasn’t much to see, until we climbed a little higher.

We took in this view and snapped a few pix.

Then we were right back on the road.

Although this shot is taken from the passenger seat, I like the feel of the motion and country side.  And I love that we could see the ocean on the other side of the road.

There was another look out place on up the road.  So we stopped in the Santa Barbara County Parks for this shot.  Have I mentioned what an amazing driver my hubby is?  Well he is, as he takes the time to stop along the way to smell the roses.  I love that!

Next stop – the place to pillow our heads for the night.  This is the view taken from just outside our room, on the coast of San Simeon, CA.

We made dinner reservations early such that we could get back to our room to watch this.

This is the spot where we sat on a bench, enjoying the view that evening.

What a treat!

A beautiful day and night we will never forget.

And right on cue, we were right back out to find the Super Moon.  I searched all around to find a place where I could frame it.  I like this spot, it was magical.

And this my friends, is a wrap of the first day of vacation.  I’ll be back with more vacation pix, as there are 6 more days of vacation to come.

Blessings – Debbie