Time for the February ACN convention.We are back in California this year, in San Jose this time. San Jose is only about 30 miles from San Francisco,m a city that I have always wanted to see, so we decided to come down early and do some sight seeing. I am totally "blown away" by the unexpected beauty that is part of this area and this state - it is more than just a pretty face.
We flew down on Saturday , finally arriving at our hotel about 10:00 Saturday evening, California time!!
Sunday was a rest and get ready day.
Monday we spent the day doing a 47 mile self-guided driving tour of San Francisco. You know those movies that you watch where people are driving up and down impossibly steep and long hills and you think to yourself "hmmm, looks like some camera funny-stuff". Believe me, there is absolutely NO "funny-stuff" involved. All I could think about as we drove through some of those neighbourhoods where the streets are really as steep as thet look was that there is NO WAY that you could build a city like this somewhere where it snows - you would not be able to get up and down those hills. San Francisco is a very unique and beautiful city and those hills just add to it's charm. It is a city of contrasts. The downtown area is very modern (so are the people). In the core of the city, most of the available housing appears to be town homes. One thing that has struck us here is that people do not seem to have enough room for their cars. They have a garage (whether they have a car in it or not is anybody's guess), they have 2 cars in the driveway and then the streets are lines with parked cars!
Anyway, during this tour there were several times when it appeared that we had left the city - beautiful parks and green spaces - then we would turn a corner and would be back in the middle of the city again. We just had to ndrive over the Golden Gate bridge - it is as amazing as it always appears in film and pictures. I will post a bit of a slide show of our tour. San Francisco is everything that I had imagined it would be and more.
Thursday 18 February 2010
New Orleans
Seems that it's about time that I got around to this!!!!! We actually did make it to New Orleans!! Like just like just about everywhere else that we went, New orleans was colder than we would have liked it - especially when walking the dogs first thing in the morning and last thing at night!!
Someone forgot to tell us that the Sugar Bowl was being played in the Silverdome on New Year's Day and that meant that getting to downtown New Orleans on New Year's Eve would be absolutely impossible. Disappointing as we had hoped to spend the evening in the French Quarter. We ended up spending the evening in a small casino about 10 miles out of downtown. There we soon discovered that New Orleans has "Saint Fever"!!!!! Even the dealers were all wearing Saints' jerseys.
We actually arrived in Covington, which is on the north shore of Lake Pontchatrain on New Year's Eve at about 6:00. To get into downtown New Orleans, we had to cross the causeway across Lake Pontchatrain - this causeway is 22 miles long. What a feat of engineering!! Again we stayed at our favourite - Residence Inn. Since most of our activities in the Big Easy were not "dog-friendly", we were able to leave the dogs in their crates in the bedroom and housekeeping was still able to clean the rest of our suite (they were, however, quite appalled that we would consider making our own bed!!)
We spent time at the New Orleans Riverwalk - quite different from the San Antonio Riverwalk. This one is a mall on the Mississippi River - just when you think that you've hit the end, there is another bend, a few more stairs and a whole other level to explore. We took a carriage ride through the French Quarter - just about froze to death doing it. The carriages are pulled by mules in New Orleans. Our mule's name was Pumpkin and our guide was David, a born and bred native resident of New Orleans.
We found it more difficult to put in full days in new Orleans because our hotel was so far away from the city and we couldn't leave the dogs for long periods of time. Generally we would make the trip into the city just once a day and find something else to do (like relaxing) the rest of the time.
All too soon, Monday arrived and it was time to head home so that we would be back in time for Jamie's surgery on Wednesday morning. We packed up the car and the dogs and managed to get home from New Orleans in just 2 days with a stop in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
It was an amazing trip and as hectic as it was, I would do it all again. We certainly saw some awesome scenery and witnessed the site of some heartrending history. We also took time out to play.
Someone forgot to tell us that the Sugar Bowl was being played in the Silverdome on New Year's Day and that meant that getting to downtown New Orleans on New Year's Eve would be absolutely impossible. Disappointing as we had hoped to spend the evening in the French Quarter. We ended up spending the evening in a small casino about 10 miles out of downtown. There we soon discovered that New Orleans has "Saint Fever"!!!!! Even the dealers were all wearing Saints' jerseys.
We actually arrived in Covington, which is on the north shore of Lake Pontchatrain on New Year's Eve at about 6:00. To get into downtown New Orleans, we had to cross the causeway across Lake Pontchatrain - this causeway is 22 miles long. What a feat of engineering!! Again we stayed at our favourite - Residence Inn. Since most of our activities in the Big Easy were not "dog-friendly", we were able to leave the dogs in their crates in the bedroom and housekeeping was still able to clean the rest of our suite (they were, however, quite appalled that we would consider making our own bed!!)
We spent time at the New Orleans Riverwalk - quite different from the San Antonio Riverwalk. This one is a mall on the Mississippi River - just when you think that you've hit the end, there is another bend, a few more stairs and a whole other level to explore. We took a carriage ride through the French Quarter - just about froze to death doing it. The carriages are pulled by mules in New Orleans. Our mule's name was Pumpkin and our guide was David, a born and bred native resident of New Orleans.
We found it more difficult to put in full days in new Orleans because our hotel was so far away from the city and we couldn't leave the dogs for long periods of time. Generally we would make the trip into the city just once a day and find something else to do (like relaxing) the rest of the time.
All too soon, Monday arrived and it was time to head home so that we would be back in time for Jamie's surgery on Wednesday morning. We packed up the car and the dogs and managed to get home from New Orleans in just 2 days with a stop in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
It was an amazing trip and as hectic as it was, I would do it all again. We certainly saw some awesome scenery and witnessed the site of some heartrending history. We also took time out to play.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)