Lost Coast....

Here we are on the Lost Coast of California. It is called that for good reason as one minute you are driving amongst giant redwoods, then along a meadow full of wild elk, then you cross a river that runs right into the crashing ocean. Absolutely spectacular! One amazing vista after another. And along the way you hit amazing little towns like Trinidad.

Quick recap....we drove up the coast yesterday along the "Avenue of the Giants" and then through Eureka and Arcata. After a quick stop at the Humboldt State University Bookstore we continued on our way. We stopped by Trinidad and decided to go back for exploring and dinner today. After a little navigation system guided detour that ended at a one way road and beautiful view of the ocean from the cliffs, we found our way to lovely Kamp Klamath. We were greeted by Pete - who has never left here I don't think : ) and after what seemed like him doing everything but telling us where to go and then telling us he would show us around and let us pick - he showed us the last hook up site available. So much for picking! We ended up on a grassy spot in the wilderness across from what should have been a river but was really just a valley full of grass! But we made the most of it. Cooked up a great dinner, made friends with our neighbors from Arizona and Ted started a fire so I could make smores!!! We paid more for the firewood, marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers than we did for the spot for one night!

This morning Mack and I walked to the ocean while Ted scootered away to meet us there. When we said no, no we want to walk we didn't realize it was probably 2 miles away....ooopsies. But it was a nice walk and the ocean was spectacular. The Klamath River pops out of the forest to meet the crashing waves. We saw whales but I was never quick enough to get a picture or actual video BUT I swear we saw them! We came back showered and hit the road! Drove back up towards Trinidad - stopped to get another peek at the Elk and then headed up to Patrick's Point Park before we got to the Moonstone Grill at Moonstone Beach. Joan recommended it and it was nothing short of phenomenal! The food was great but the view was what made it! We ate early so post we took Mack out to the beach for a romp before heading back up to "Kamp"!

We are back "home" for the evening. Ted got the fire started while I blogged. Looks like it's time to get to making S'Mores!!!!!

Love Us

PS Check out the map and the calendar to see where we have been and where we are headed! Tomorrow marks one week on the road and our last day in California - we will be spending the night in Oregon tomorrow - a new state for all 3 of us.

Happy 4th of July!!!!

And Happy Birthday Lucy!!! Hope everyone has had a fantastic Fourth!! The picture on the left is from the lake yesterday - we had a great time swimming and getting sun! Mack didn't love being thrown in but Ted couldn't resist. We are getting ready to make dinner and then watch the fireworks they have set to go off over Lake Benbow. We started the day doing laundry for the first time on the road. Not bad - I road the scooter with it in a bag on my back through the RV park!! And I was not the only one scootering their laundry in case you were curious!

We drove to Shelter Cove this afternoon, only 20 miles away yet about an hour and a half. There is one road that heads to the coast (Shelter Cove Road) and literally goes up a mountain and then back down to the coast. This area is called the "Lost Coast" and for good reason - we felt like we drove through nothingness to arrive. We went to an amazing black sand beach (looks good against my yellow crocs!!) with cliffs that dropped right to the ocean and barely any houses or people to be seen. The trip back we passed a ton of dusty pick up trucks - guess Shelter Cove is the happening place for the Fourth!!!

Tomorrow we head up the coast to Klamath and drive through the Avenue of the Giants! Plan to stop for a visit in Trinidad - supposed to be a great little town! We hope that everyone had a safe and happy Fourth of July!!!

We would like to send a prayer to the Munero's - we are thinking about all of you! And especially praying for Sylivita now that she is watching over us from heaven. We love you Sylvita!!!

Love Us

Garberville, CA

We drove along the coast and then through redwood forests yesterday (trees as big or bigger than Muir Woods for anyone we took there) to arrive at Benbow RV Resort on Benbow Lake just outside of Garberville, CA. Then dam the Eel River in the summertime and make the Benbow Lake. We are going to go for a swim today or tomorrow. We scootered down last night with Mack in tow to take a look - it is really nice and will feel great when it hits 93 degrees today.

Last night we busted out our lovely tablecloth from Christina and set up the awning and the grill! All we are missing is the lights for our awning!! We are debating on what shape - ideas anyone? Ted went right to work for our first dinner from our new tabletop grill....delicious turkey burgers! Mackenzie was in heaven laying in the grass watching all the dogs and keeping an eye out for any stray turkey bits.

We are off to the lake...this blog entry was started pre breakfast and has ended well after breakfast and coffee....crappy internet connection!!

Love US

PS Christina - thanks for the mosquito coils, we finally needed them last night!

Mendocino....

We had a great day discovering Mendocino today! It is a beautiful town set along amazing cliffs right down to the ocean. And a little known fact...it is where "Murder She Wrote" was filmed. It is called the New England of the West and therefore has been used in lots of movies as a stand in for New England.

After walking and lettingMack run all over the headlands we wandered around town. I found the best treat ever....Rasberry White Chocolate bark with fresh rasberries!!! The town is super cute with lots of bed and breakfasts and little shops. Then we headed a bit north to check out Fort Bragg and have dinner and some beers at the North Coast Brewing Company. It was delicious. Tonight we got back to the RV park in time to take a walk on the beach. Ted tired Mack out playing fetch with dried kelp...guess we should remember the ball next time. We watched the sunset and then headed back to our cozy little home...our only home at the moment!

We are in for the night, me blogging, Ted reading about Robert Hansen. Tomorrow we head up the coast to Garberville for 2 -3 nights - we can't seem to remember so we have to call tomorrow...oops! Happy July everyone!

Love Us

PS Kath aren't you glad we didn't have the wedding here (I actually looked at this place at some point!)

The adventure begins....

After a long, painful move out day yesterday and a sad day of goodbyes today we left the Bay area. The moving day was filled with so many random terrible funny moments that is hard to replay for all of you but the highlights include a broken tree, two moving trucks, and the movers not finishing until 10:30 pm last night. So no last quiet night with Joan and Ruby and Lucy. Instead we woke everyone up to say hi and went to sleep. Today I got up early and hung out with Joan & Ruby while Mack and Lucy played and played. Ted and I kidnapped Ruby and had a great brunch in Berkeley with Luis and Julie. Then it was time to load up and say goodbye. Very hard to leave the Bartlett girls in Oakland but we will see them soon!!

We drove to Mendocino - absolutely beautiful. Picked up some pizza and pulled into Casper Beach RV Park right at sunset. Beautiful sunset on the beach. Thankfully we had enough light to back into our spot and eat some dinner!! I will post pictures tomorrow, it's getting too late tonight and we are exhausted but I wanted to let everyone know where we are.

Miss you Joan, Ruby and Lucy!!!

Love Maria & Ted & Mack

MOVING DAY!!!!

I can hardly believe it but moving day is in progress! The movers have all the boxes out of the house and are working on the furniture as we speak. Mack is about to lose his perch on the couch where he is supervising all of the activity.

We had a yummy goodbye dinner last night at Thanh Long with Joan, Ruby, Juli & Veenu. It was delicious and a wonderful way to spend our last night in the city. We are heading to Oakland tonight to stay at Joan's. Mack and Lucy can wear each other out before we hit the road tomorrow on our way to Mendocino for two nights. All I want to do is sleep and not see ANY boxes!!

We will miss San Francisco (and especially Joan, Ruby & Lucy) but are excited about our next adventure! We hope you will check in often and see where our RoadTrek takes us this summmer! We meet all of these boxes in NH in early August!

Love Maria & Ted & Mack

Well I am officially unemployed!! My last day at Washington Gas was last Friday June 15th. We flew to New Jersey Saturday to spend the weekend with a ton of family celebrating Anna's graduation!! We had a great time drinking sangria, hanging out at the pool, and sitting on the deck enjoying eachother's company! The Valle's had a houseful in town to celebrate with Anna for BOTH graduation and her 18th Birthday!! Judy & Liz even made it out to Jersey for the celebration dinner on Monday night.

Now we are back and packing has begun!! The packers come next Thursday to finish up what I am starting and the movers arrive Friday - I can't believe it, 1 week and "Foggy Hill Cottage" will be empty. Well off to pack some more!! At least there is less to go through and pack than last year this time :)

Our blog is BACK!!!

To bring everyone up to date with us.....first 2006...

In October we had a wonderful visit with Christina and Matt. While they were here we attended Rees & Katie's wedding and had a wonderful time with all our old pals from Arlington here in SF! We also took a trip to Sonoma - ending a day of wine drinking with a few beers at a local brewery in Healdsburg - time for Ted to catch up and me to sober up to drive us home! Mackenzie and Matt were reunited happily for a few days and then sad while nita and matt tromped off to Hawaii and then happy again to have them back for a few days before they went back east. The end of October brought a trip home to DC for me and Ted. Much needed visit to the east coast to visit with friends and family and see the fall folliage!! Ted did some interviewing, I worked but mostly we caught up with our DC folks. Stayed at Hotel Bartlett in Dupont and then at the Stately Goodhart Manor in Leesburg for a few days.

November brought cold to SF and the Dalys in for Thanksgiving! We enjoyed our first fried turkey in SF with Ted's parents. They came out for a week and we had a fantastic time showing them the sites and celebrating new Thanksgiving traditions.

December...the start of true wedding crunch time! RSVPs to count, details to hammer out, shoes to dye, and rings to arrive. And lets not forget Christmas - who said planning a wedding around the holidays would be easy!! Christina came out to help me with the final wedding prep push and Christmas shopping - many thanks to her because I am not sure it would have gotten done without her!! We enjoyed Noche Buena with Kristy and Hector and Hector's family. Wonderful food and great company! Christmas morning we awoke to the scampering of many not so little feet - Mackenzie, Lucy and Hubert (our guest for Christmas). After Joan, Christina, Ted and I finished going through our stockings opening our gifts it was time to get to a real Christmas activity - WEDDING PROGRAMS!! We had a delicious Christmas dinner of stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, pecan pie, pumpkin pie and hard sauce!! Where was the Turkey you ask? In the fridge : ( Our peanut oil congealed so we couldn't fry and by the time we realized it it was too late to roast it in our mini me oven!

Post Christmas brought LOTS of friends and family from the East Coast to join us in Sausalito for our wedding! We had a wonderful time and thank everyone who came out! If you want to see more pictures check out http://www.pictage.com/ and just search for Bartlett or Daly (adding the month - December and year - 2006 makes the search easier!) We were able to spend New Year's Eve with all the folks that were left in town and brought the New Year in with margaritas and fireworks over the Bay Bridge.

For 2007....
We had our honeymoon weekend in Carmel in January - many thanks to Christina and Matt for our first night and a lovely dinner! We drove back through Pepple Beach and Monterrey - had a wonderful time!

Valentine's Day took on new meaning for us this year since Joan gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Ruby Ann!! Aunt Judy's planned SF visit lined up perfectly so that she could meet our new little niece!! Joan, Ruby and Lucy stayed with us for a few weeks post leaving the hospital which was wonderful!

In March, Jen came out for a long weekend!! We finally made it to China Town on her visit where Ted found the Fortune Cookie factory - when I say factory I really mean tiny little hole in the wall in an alley in China Town! We had a wonderful time with Jen showing her all the sites including my last trip to Alcatraz at least for a few years...LOL!!

In April Karen, Tom, Kelsey & Brian came down for a spring break getaway! They had a wonderful time getting to know Ruby and we enjoyed some beach time, a little shopping and lots of hanging out!! We also finally made it to Yosemite which was amazing!!! If you ever have the opportunity it is a must see place!

May we headed back east for me to work in the office for a week and see all my east coast pals. As usual I split my time between the Hotel Bartlett and the Stately Goodhart Manor!! It was wonderful to see everyone and we made sure to hit our favorite spots - Cactus Cantina & the yummy bbq place in Leesburg! We left DC and headed up to New England where within an hour of arriving we were in the North End enjoying a great dinner with Erin, Dave, Elisa & Sean - and Kachi even stopped in to say hello! We spent the weekend and 500 miles on the rental car looking for a place to live in NH - for those of you who may not know Ted took a job at Dartmouth-Hitchcock in Nashua. We signed a lease on a great house in Amherst, NH - so come visit this fall!!! We spent memorial day weekend testing out our new "home" the RV!! We took it down the coast as far as Santa Barbara and then back up through Big Sur! It was a great prep trip for our 6 week cross country summer adventure!

And now it's June - I can hardly believe our year in California is coming to a close! We have had such an amazing year that it will be hard to say goodbye! But we will be back lots!!

So that is our update for the last 9 months...ooops can't believe I went 9 months!! We hope this update finds you well!! I am back on the blog now so check back often!! We leave San Francisco June 30th in our RV to begin our 6 week cross country adventure - so expect daily (or every other day) entries and photographs!!! We will have a link to our google map detailing our stops soon!

Love Maria & Ted

Bye, Bye September!!

I can't believe that September has come and gone and I didn't blog once!! So here is the September recap : )

We started out with a pretty mellow labor day weekend. Instead of going away for the weekend we decided to do day trips (well no hotels anywhere really made the decision!). We went to Half Moon Bay which is south of SF - a beautiful drive along the coast. Annoyingly we went in search of the sun and never found it. We had a yummy dinner at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company sitting outside amongst the fire pits overlooking the water. On Sunday we took a drive to Pt Bonita - another beautiful coastal drive (also very close to Sausalito for those looking for wedding weekend drives). We didn't get there in time to walk down to the lighthouse (closes at 4 pm) but it was still fun. Of course we forgot the camera...ooops! Our last tourist visit of the weekend was to the Ferry Building - it is a huge marketplace right on the water overlooking the Bay Bridge. We ended the weekend with a bbq at Rees and Katie's house and learned that they live literally 5 min away...LOL!

Joan and Lucy came down for a working visit the next week. Lucy and Mack had a fantastic time as usual. Wrestling and chasing eachother all over the house. Their favorite activity is playing tug with one of Mack's many toys : )

Ted was on call for the first time since we moved here this month and it was thankfully uneventful. The temptation to put his pager on mack to ensure he didn't sleep through it was high but we fought it. He managed not to sleep through any calls because he didn't have any calls : )!!

September also meant it was time to meet up with my ladies in Vegas!!! I had a great time at the Manadalay Bay with Christina, Kath, Lynn, Judy, Liz, Karen & Kelly G!! I left my camera in the hotel and let others be in charge of picture taking so I don't have any pics to show off my great bachelorette weekend : (

This weekend Ted and I started at our dancing lessons at the Metronome Ballroom here in San Francisco. We are currently learning the Rumba! Once we finalize our first dance song that may change but we shall see!! It was very fun! We were both a little nervous which made me giggle and made Ted very serious - I am sure our teacher was amused!

Here are some final pictures for September. I awoke one morning for work to the most amazing pre sunrise and sunrise out our dining room window...enjoy!

Sunset on Mt Tamalpais

How could I forget the best picture from August....

August in SF

August is almost over - I can't believe it!!! We had a very fun month! We had lots of visitors; Kath, Lynn, Joan & Lucy and are looking forward to more guests in the months to come! We have been enjoying barbequing and eating at our real dining room table that finally came!! And now that our couch is here we actually all fit to watch TV : )

We have caught up with old friends from the east coast who are now living in San Francisco and made some new friends here. We have hung out with Kristy and Hector & Max and Teeny a couple of times, including a very fun picnic in the park followed by a showing of "Best in Show" - very funny for those who haven't seen it. Rees and Katie are coming over for dinner tonight for a little of Ted's bbq action! And we had dinner with fellow residents from UCSF last weekend.

I have been keeping busy with work, wedding stuff and pilates. Yes I am taking pilates!! It is very fun and I figure between that and our hill I should be in great shape for the wedding!! Mack tries to hit the park everyday since he no longer has his big backyard to romp in. Although he thoroughly enjoys sitting on his leash in the front basking in the sun and keeping an eye on the cats. He also has found all the sun spots inside to nap.

We actually put stuff up on the walls this week so ALL the boxes are gone!!! I can't believe there are no more boxes.....ppphhewwww! Lots of people have been asking for more pictures of the house so hopefully I have included a few that will satisfy the craving to see how we are living!! Very comfortably I must say - especially curled up on the new couch!! Hope this post finds everyone well. I will make sure to write next week after we figure out and go on our labor day adventure!

Love Maria, Ted & Mack

PS Happy Birthday again to ALL of our friends and family with August birthdays!! And to the 5 new additions to my palm - holy birth month!!

Lynn's Visit!

Shortly after Kath left Jay got to town on business and then Lynn arrived! Jay got in a night early so he got to do a little scootering around the neighborhood on his own. He got the hang of it pretty quickly - he even went down our street a little! As you can sorda tell by the picture it isn't very flat : )

Lynn's trip started fast and furious with a visit to the Berkeley Cheese Board before we even got to San Francisco! The requisite cheese rolls and Zampanos were purchased as well as a 1/2 baked pizza for dinner later in the week. After a quick stop home our whirlwind tour of SF began! Day 1 - Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach - where Lynn got a feel for just how cold the Pacific can be! Day 2 - Off to Sausalito with a quick stop at the Golden Gate Bridge for some great pictures! The bridesmaids are slowly but surely ensuring that the Alta Mira is going to work for all the festivities! We also headed up the VERY windy path for a visit to Muir Woods - a must see for all visitors! On the way back we took a little excursion and discovered Muir Beach - a great little hideaway not far from Sausalito where Mack got some time out of the car. Day 3 was spent waiting for our new fantastically wonderful spacious couch to arrive between its 10 - 2 window (it arrived at 2). Once we sat on the couch and ooohhdd and aaaahhdd for a few minutes we were off to Alcatraz. Warning for future visitors - if you want to go to Alcatraz tickets MUST be purchased early. When Kath was here they were all sold out a week ahead and thankfully for Lynn's visit I was able to get them about 4 days ahead of time. Lynn and I raced to Fisherman's Wharf just in time to grab chowder in a bread bowl and squeak onto the ferry to make our trip over to "The Rock" While everyone else was enjoying the view on the trip over we were eating chowder - they were jealous! We got in all the sites around fisherman's wharf; Ghirardelli Square, Buena Vista Cafe (no irish coffee for us though!), and the cable car - although we only looked at the cable car - no riding - line was WAY too long!! We haven't quite figured out what a good time to take folks on the cable car is - hopefully we will find out the secret to not waiting in line before our next guests arrive : )

We enjoyed a final night with Lynn and Jay at the Cliff House for a delicious dinner with a view of the ocean and sent them back to the east coast! Then we rested up and got right into wedding planning after they left!! This last weekend we tasted food on Saturday and cake on Sunday! Not to worry we weaved in some fun too. We finally made it to Stinson Beach and Bolinas - both beautiful and crowded even on a foggy day! I can't even imagine what a sunny day looks like there!

Thanks to Lynn and Jay for a fantastic visit! Our next scheduled visitors our Christina and Matt in October - Mackenzie is VERY excited!! The next posting I promise pictures of the house - now that we have the couch and the dining room table and no more empty front room : )

Love From "The Rock"