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Friday, September 28, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 10 to 12
The next three items were each: one that would be easy to find, a second that was a head scratcher, and a third that was "what is that?"
The one that would be easy to find was a machine that flattens pennies. Our kids have a very large collection of such pennies from several places in Japan and the U.S. On this trip we documented our find at the Seattle Center in the shadows of the Space Needle. Lianne, Yuki's daughter, joined us for the photo.
The next one was a real head scratcher. A vehicle unique to the region that we would be visiting. We thought, "maybe we need to drive to Pennsylvania so that we could photograph ourselves with Amish driving horse and buggy." The best we could come up with were triple trailers. Triple trailers are illegal in most states. Oregon is the only state on the west coast that allows triple trailers. The other places where triple trailers are allowed are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana Toll Road, Kansas Turnpike, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio Turnpike, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.
The photo is one that Dorothy took during our drive on the road to Portland, Oregon. I'm in the foreground of the picture because one of the requirements of the hunt was that a member of our traveling party needed to be in each photo. We ended up with this moving photo because for some reason the only place where we could find triple trailers were while we were on the move. At the truck stops where we stopped, we found only single and double trailers. We wondered, "Do they have other stops just for triple trailers?" Fushigi datta (Japanese for "it was a mystery").
This next one was maybe the one for which we did the most research. We only had vague notions about phosphates. The scavenger hunt only said, "An old-fashioned soda shop that serves phosphate."
We did most of our research only after we had reached Seattle. We could not find any soda fountains serving phosphates in the Seattle area. The closest locale that held some promise was a soda fountain in Wenatchee, the apple capitol of the world in central Washington. We thought about driving there, but then we found two possibilities in Oregon.
The first one in Albany was a strike out. It turned out to be a candy shop in Albany called The Velvet Touch. Would we really find a soda shop in a place called The Velvet Touch? Sounded more like an adult entertainment establishment. It turns out they had great ice cream. So there we were at 10 in the morning eating ice cream. It was not a total loss.
The Grants Pass Pharmacy was our last chance. This was not our first visit to Grants Pass. The last time we found statues of dogs dressed up as batman and robin in front of a motel. This time it was all of the bear statues on the downtown street corners. San Jose had their shark statues. Seattle had their pig statues. Santa Rosa, home of Charles Schultz, has the Peanuts character statues. And Grants Pass has their bear statues.
The pharmacy did have a real soda fountain. It was a small soda fountain right in the middle of the pharmacy. And it did serve phosphates! The price was right, too. Twenty five cents. We pulled up to the counter and asked for a phosphate. The soda jerk said, "what flavor?"
"What are the flavors?"
"Anything on the board."
There were something like 20 flavors (coke, diet coke, Dr. Pepper, sarsaparilla, sprite, diet sprite, root beer, orange, grape, cherry, etc.) on the board. We had no idea.
The soda was made by mixing flavored syrup, soda water and what I assumed to be phosphoric acid. We ordered grape. It lasted just like a regular grape soda pop.
The one that would be easy to find was a machine that flattens pennies. Our kids have a very large collection of such pennies from several places in Japan and the U.S. On this trip we documented our find at the Seattle Center in the shadows of the Space Needle. Lianne, Yuki's daughter, joined us for the photo.
The next one was a real head scratcher. A vehicle unique to the region that we would be visiting. We thought, "maybe we need to drive to Pennsylvania so that we could photograph ourselves with Amish driving horse and buggy." The best we could come up with were triple trailers. Triple trailers are illegal in most states. Oregon is the only state on the west coast that allows triple trailers. The other places where triple trailers are allowed are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana Toll Road, Kansas Turnpike, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio Turnpike, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.
The photo is one that Dorothy took during our drive on the road to Portland, Oregon. I'm in the foreground of the picture because one of the requirements of the hunt was that a member of our traveling party needed to be in each photo. We ended up with this moving photo because for some reason the only place where we could find triple trailers were while we were on the move. At the truck stops where we stopped, we found only single and double trailers. We wondered, "Do they have other stops just for triple trailers?" Fushigi datta (Japanese for "it was a mystery").
This next one was maybe the one for which we did the most research. We only had vague notions about phosphates. The scavenger hunt only said, "An old-fashioned soda shop that serves phosphate."
We did most of our research only after we had reached Seattle. We could not find any soda fountains serving phosphates in the Seattle area. The closest locale that held some promise was a soda fountain in Wenatchee, the apple capitol of the world in central Washington. We thought about driving there, but then we found two possibilities in Oregon.
The first one in Albany was a strike out. It turned out to be a candy shop in Albany called The Velvet Touch. Would we really find a soda shop in a place called The Velvet Touch? Sounded more like an adult entertainment establishment. It turns out they had great ice cream. So there we were at 10 in the morning eating ice cream. It was not a total loss.
The Grants Pass Pharmacy was our last chance. This was not our first visit to Grants Pass. The last time we found statues of dogs dressed up as batman and robin in front of a motel. This time it was all of the bear statues on the downtown street corners. San Jose had their shark statues. Seattle had their pig statues. Santa Rosa, home of Charles Schultz, has the Peanuts character statues. And Grants Pass has their bear statues.
The pharmacy did have a real soda fountain. It was a small soda fountain right in the middle of the pharmacy. And it did serve phosphates! The price was right, too. Twenty five cents. We pulled up to the counter and asked for a phosphate. The soda jerk said, "what flavor?"
"What are the flavors?"
"Anything on the board."
There were something like 20 flavors (coke, diet coke, Dr. Pepper, sarsaparilla, sprite, diet sprite, root beer, orange, grape, cherry, etc.) on the board. We had no idea.
The soda was made by mixing flavored syrup, soda water and what I assumed to be phosphoric acid. We ordered grape. It lasted just like a regular grape soda pop.
Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 9
This is the item that prevented us from having a chance to win the scavenger hunt. Of the over 300 hundred entries received by the paper, well over 100 were for entries where all 20 items were found. We found but 19.
We just ran out of time on our trip to Seattle. We needed to return by July 8 to the Bay Area so we departed Seattle on July 7, Friday. We reasoned, since Saturday would be 7-7-07 there would be some wedding in one of the towns that we would be driving through.
Also, we still needed to make it to Grants Pass and the the Grants Pass Pharmacy in the hopes that it would have a soda fountain serving phosphate. The pharmacy was only open until 600pm or so on Saturday.
So here we were driving down I-5 in Oregon on Saturday trying in vain to find a wedding. We even stopped and asked people if they knew of any weddings in their towns. Maybe belief in lucky numbers is not important in small towns. We couldn't figure it out. We thought, "there's got to be one wedding some place."
We placed a call to Yuki during the drive. She reported to us how a church in Seattle had been performing weddings every 15 minutes since midnight because of the demand for weddings on 7-7-07. Just our luck. Maybe we should've stayed in Seattle.
We just ran out of time on our trip to Seattle. We needed to return by July 8 to the Bay Area so we departed Seattle on July 7, Friday. We reasoned, since Saturday would be 7-7-07 there would be some wedding in one of the towns that we would be driving through.
Also, we still needed to make it to Grants Pass and the the Grants Pass Pharmacy in the hopes that it would have a soda fountain serving phosphate. The pharmacy was only open until 600pm or so on Saturday.
So here we were driving down I-5 in Oregon on Saturday trying in vain to find a wedding. We even stopped and asked people if they knew of any weddings in their towns. Maybe belief in lucky numbers is not important in small towns. We couldn't figure it out. We thought, "there's got to be one wedding some place."
We placed a call to Yuki during the drive. She reported to us how a church in Seattle had been performing weddings every 15 minutes since midnight because of the demand for weddings on 7-7-07. Just our luck. Maybe we should've stayed in Seattle.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Wedding Bash
Tonight wrapped up the Jen and Matt wedding miniseries that started for us with our departure to Honolulu on September 3 to attend their wedding. Jen is Jennifer, Dorothy's niece.
The wedding was a small affair outside of Honolulu at a country club on the Pali Highway. It was attended by about 50 family and close friends, some traveling from as far away as Florida. It was a beautiful setting for a wedding, nestled in amongst the lush hillsides of the windward side of the island. Everything was green, from the groves of trees to the green lawn to even the bride's maid's gown. Naomi was the flower girl, which she thought was really cool. Waking up early to get hair done and dressed up for the wedding made it extra special for Naomi, and her first ride in a stretch limo wasn't too bad either.
Tonight's affair was the traditional Chinese wedding banquet. However, it also served as the main wedding celebration for most since attendance at the wedding was made available only for a small number of people. And it was quite the affair too. One of the largest wedding gatherings that I have ever attended, perhaps over 500 people.
Banquet Video
Video sent by CEmoto
This wedding was special for our kids also. It's probably the first one where they were interested in the cake cutting, the bouquet toss, the garter toss, and the other activities associated with the event. The following are a few of the sights and sounds from the wedding banquet from the point of view of our kids:
The Garter Toss
Dad: Were you able to see what they did?
Ethan: Yeah it was funny. Matt threw the headband and it landed on Bill's [Bill is Jen's younger brother] back. Bill didn't even try to grab it. Someone else took it off his back. It was really funny!
Wedding Favors
Dad: Ryan, why do you have two favors?
Ryan: Someone gave me hers.
Dad: Are you sure it's okay?
Ryan: No, it's okay. It was our other cousin who gave it to me.
[Later during the good-byes.]
Aunt Josie (Dorothy's Aunt): Did you see that I gave Ryan my wedding favor?
Dad: Oh that was you. I didn't know who gave it to him. He told me that it was our other cousin who gave it to him.
Left Over Food
One of the things that's done at Chinese wedding banquets is that the servers pass out take-out boxes for those who want to take home leftovers. The other family seated at the table with us did not want the leftovers so we packed what we wanted. The amount of food that is served is usually for 10 adults per table. Given that our table had one empty seat and three smaller children, we had plenty of leftovers. So we even filled up two boxes to give to Auntie Josie.
Dad: Ethan, can you take these boxes over to Auntie Jo?
Ethan: Okay.
Dad: Do you know which one she is?
Ethan: Yes, Dad. She's the nice lady who came over to see us. The one who has that thing [a cast] on her hand and blond hair. [Auntie Jo is recently retired and has graying hair. I guess to Ethan it looks blond. Maybe it was the lighting in the restaurant.]
So I learned tonight that Jen had a headband on her leg that Matt retrieved with his mouth and that Auntie Jo has blond hair and is really our cousin.
The wedding was a small affair outside of Honolulu at a country club on the Pali Highway. It was attended by about 50 family and close friends, some traveling from as far away as Florida. It was a beautiful setting for a wedding, nestled in amongst the lush hillsides of the windward side of the island. Everything was green, from the groves of trees to the green lawn to even the bride's maid's gown. Naomi was the flower girl, which she thought was really cool. Waking up early to get hair done and dressed up for the wedding made it extra special for Naomi, and her first ride in a stretch limo wasn't too bad either.
Tonight's affair was the traditional Chinese wedding banquet. However, it also served as the main wedding celebration for most since attendance at the wedding was made available only for a small number of people. And it was quite the affair too. One of the largest wedding gatherings that I have ever attended, perhaps over 500 people.
Banquet Video
Video sent by CEmoto
This wedding was special for our kids also. It's probably the first one where they were interested in the cake cutting, the bouquet toss, the garter toss, and the other activities associated with the event. The following are a few of the sights and sounds from the wedding banquet from the point of view of our kids:
The Garter Toss
Dad: Were you able to see what they did?
Ethan: Yeah it was funny. Matt threw the headband and it landed on Bill's [Bill is Jen's younger brother] back. Bill didn't even try to grab it. Someone else took it off his back. It was really funny!
Wedding Favors
Dad: Ryan, why do you have two favors?
Ryan: Someone gave me hers.
Dad: Are you sure it's okay?
Ryan: No, it's okay. It was our other cousin who gave it to me.
[Later during the good-byes.]
Aunt Josie (Dorothy's Aunt): Did you see that I gave Ryan my wedding favor?
Dad: Oh that was you. I didn't know who gave it to him. He told me that it was our other cousin who gave it to him.
Left Over Food
One of the things that's done at Chinese wedding banquets is that the servers pass out take-out boxes for those who want to take home leftovers. The other family seated at the table with us did not want the leftovers so we packed what we wanted. The amount of food that is served is usually for 10 adults per table. Given that our table had one empty seat and three smaller children, we had plenty of leftovers. So we even filled up two boxes to give to Auntie Josie.
Dad: Ethan, can you take these boxes over to Auntie Jo?
Ethan: Okay.
Dad: Do you know which one she is?
Ethan: Yes, Dad. She's the nice lady who came over to see us. The one who has that thing [a cast] on her hand and blond hair. [Auntie Jo is recently retired and has graying hair. I guess to Ethan it looks blond. Maybe it was the lighting in the restaurant.]
So I learned tonight that Jen had a headband on her leg that Matt retrieved with his mouth and that Auntie Jo has blond hair and is really our cousin.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 5 to 8
The Contra Costa Times showed some photos earlier this year that showed families posing in front of famous trees with bark seeming to show a face. There was one from some place in Indiana. Something tells me there was lots of research done to find some of these items. We did a little too, but not nearly enough to find all of the items prior to our trip.
The picture of the fifth item was taken outside the Charlotte Martin Children's Theater at the Seattle Center. The scavenger hunt did not say that the tree had to be a real one.
The next item was difficult to find at the time of our trip. We were able to find gas for less then $2.75 based on a tip from my brother. The picture was taken near Wood Village, Oregon on the Columbia River Gorge.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the writing of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." This explained the lack of copies of this book at several libraries. We finally found one at the Burien, Washington library and Stephen the librarian was kind enough to pose with us.
Finding a red caboose was one of the easier items to find. The photo shows a red caboose in downtown Albany, Oregon that had been remodeled into a pet grooming shop. We were actually looking for a soda shop serving phosphates when we came across this caboose.
The picture of the fifth item was taken outside the Charlotte Martin Children's Theater at the Seattle Center. The scavenger hunt did not say that the tree had to be a real one.
The next item was difficult to find at the time of our trip. We were able to find gas for less then $2.75 based on a tip from my brother. The picture was taken near Wood Village, Oregon on the Columbia River Gorge.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the writing of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." This explained the lack of copies of this book at several libraries. We finally found one at the Burien, Washington library and Stephen the librarian was kind enough to pose with us.
Finding a red caboose was one of the easier items to find. The photo shows a red caboose in downtown Albany, Oregon that had been remodeled into a pet grooming shop. We were actually looking for a soda shop serving phosphates when we came across this caboose.
Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 4
We had to reach for this one. We found that all sheriffs at least along the west coast are County sheriffs. The scavenger hunt specified a town sheriff. We did the best that we could by going to the Tehama County sheriff's office in Red Bluff, California, only to find that the sheriff was not in the office.
However, a very personable public relations officer came to our rescue with trading cards with pictures of the sheriff and other goodies for the kids. We learned that the sheriff was Clay Parker. The back of his trading card says that he is a 5th generation law enforcement officer with 27 years of experience. It also says that he enjoys outdoor sports and is an avid bowler.
This definitely was one stop that we would not have made without the scavenger hunt.
However, a very personable public relations officer came to our rescue with trading cards with pictures of the sheriff and other goodies for the kids. We learned that the sheriff was Clay Parker. The back of his trading card says that he is a 5th generation law enforcement officer with 27 years of experience. It also says that he enjoys outdoor sports and is an avid bowler.
This definitely was one stop that we would not have made without the scavenger hunt.
Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 3
Did you know that there is a covered bridge association in Oregon? We did not know this. Always pictured covered bridges as an artifact of other parts of the country. Think "Bridges of Madison County."
The one that we found was located in Cottage Grove, Oregon.
Cottage Grove has special meaning for us. We first stopped there in September 2001. Ethan was not even a year old. Naomi was just past two. We were scheduled to fly up to visit Ojiichan and Obaachan, but 9-11 cancelled all flights. So we decided to drive. We stopped to get gas in Cottage Grove and were invited to join a candlelight vigil. We couldn't stay because we were trying to make it to Portland, but the image of streams of people passing through downtown Cottage Grove to a candlelight vigil will be something we will always remember.
The one that we found was located in Cottage Grove, Oregon.
Cottage Grove has special meaning for us. We first stopped there in September 2001. Ethan was not even a year old. Naomi was just past two. We were scheduled to fly up to visit Ojiichan and Obaachan, but 9-11 cancelled all flights. So we decided to drive. We stopped to get gas in Cottage Grove and were invited to join a candlelight vigil. We couldn't stay because we were trying to make it to Portland, but the image of streams of people passing through downtown Cottage Grove to a candlelight vigil will be something we will always remember.
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