San Francisco & Yosemite

The Jackson Browns are back from California and had another fantastic trip! We are now counting down until the start of school (August 8th here in Mississippi), but let me tell you the highlights of what might be our best family vacation ever:

Day 1: Arrive in San Francisco; check in to the Tuscan Inn at Fisherman's Wharf (a great hotel with an Italian theme which can't help but strike you as funny as Asian bellmen are dressed as Italian gondoliers!) First activity: eating tomato soup out of sourdough bread bowls at Boudin bakery and then walking over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Day 2: Take a cable car to Union Square and eat at Sears Famous Pancake House. Visit the Women Impressionist Exhibit at the Legion of Honor and end the day with a sunset tour of Alcatraz.
Day 3: Drive to Muir Woods and see the redwoods. Continue drive on Highway One to Point Reyes, a beautiful isolated national park where cows graze, deer roam, all beside the rocky cliffs of the Pacific. We first visited it during our honeymoon 14 years ago and enjoyed hiking to the Point Reyes lighthouse with the boys.
Day 4: Departed San Francisco and drove the 3 and a 1/2 hours to Tenaya Lodge located at the entrance of Yosemite. Beautiful resort with two pools, hot tubs, excellent restaurants, a game room--a good alternative if you prefer visiting national parks in comfort like I do. (Not a camper!)
Day 5: First day in the park. We take a tour and I immediately meet a young woman who has graduated from Duke and we buddy up. We see all the highlights of the park: El Capitan, Glacier Point, Half Dome, and all the waterfalls--Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Falls, Nevada Falls, Vernal Falls--all spectacular! Highlight of the day: a rattlesnake eating a baby squirrel (literally had it in his mouth! a true National Geographic moment!)
Day 6: Go back into the park on our own and hike to different waterfalls. Have another great day exploring the park.
Day 7: Back to San Francisco and spend the night at the Westin St.Francis in Union Square, site of the marathon last October. Eat at Puccini & Pinetti, site of celebratory dinner after the marathon. Good, good memories.
Day 8: Back home to Jackson.
Lus will post photos later this week!

Meet Me in St. Louis

The Jackson Browns have recently returned from St. Louis and what a fantastic trip we had! I highly recommend St. Louis for a family vacation. We did a lot and there is still lots more to go back and do. Highlights included going to the top of the Gateway Arch; visiting the Missouri Botanical Gardens; experiencing the St. Louis Zoo; stopping at Turtle Park (a children's playground with enormous turtle sized sculptures to climb on and when you do it with an imminent lightning storm in the sky it makes those turtles extra exciting!); City Museum (an urban indoor jungle with caves, tunnels, slides, bridges and all sorts of things to climb and get lost in); and walking down Delmar Ave. and seeing the stars on the St. Louis "Walk of Fame" and eating at the original Blueberry Hill. The only thing we did not get to do was see the Cardinals play at Busch Stadium due to the All-Star break, which was unfortunate because the stadium was walking distance from our hotel! We also did not visit the Anheuser-Busch brewery, but it was timely to be in St. Louis during the historic sale.

And let me comment upon the hotel: the Hyatt Union Station, so-named as it resides within a former train station so the hallways are extremely long as they were originally railroad tracks. The lobby is breathtaking with its stained glass windows and architectural detail. There is the famous "Whispering Arch," where you can speak to someone else located on one side of the arch while you stand on the other side and mysteriously and miraculously carry on a conversation as your voice is transported through the walls of the arch. The boys loved the fact that the hotel is adjoined to a retail mall that had many of their favorite chain restaurants, an indoor bungee trampoline and 3D putt putt. A 9-year old boy's dream!

The Browns are off again and when we return I will fill you in on what I have been reading while I have been traveling. I will just conclude by saying that I am ready for Brideshead Revisited the film now (and it better come to Jackson), and I am reading a book now which in style and subject is Brideshead's complete opposite, Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Both brilliant yet so different.

Sam's Movie Recommendations

The latest movie I saw was Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D. It was a great movie. You could probably compare it to Indiana Jones. The main character is an anti-Indiana Jones. They are both professers but Indiana has loads of students and the main character of Journey, Trevor,only has two. Indiana could solve a mystery by himself. Trevor coudn't have done it without a tour guide. Still it was a very good movie and it was very cool with 3D.

More recommendations to come.

Sam

Sam's Newest Movie Review

The latest movie I have seen Is WALL-E. It was a very interesting movie. To me it seemed like a fable. It showed how you could wreck your future with greed and selfishness. Sam

Back to the Blog

Wow! We just returned from a fantastic trip to North Carolina where Sam attended Duke basketball camp and we played in Greensboro, returning for the traditional 4th of July activities in Sunset Hills park. It was a great trip back, but now it's time to return to the blog and my book list because, even though I was on vacation, I tried to keep up with my reading. So for those of you keeping track with me, I need to add numbers 23 & 24:

#23: The Memory Keeper's Daughter: the entire time I was reading this book, I kept thinking these people need to be in therapy, which I guess is the point. The hero, of course, is the nurse, and her struggle to get services for a child with Downs. Many of us with children who need intervention for their children can relate to her struggle.

#24: *Governess, The Life & Times of the Real Jane Eyres: A book I read for school, since I will be teaching Jane Eyre in the fall. A great book for a book club, though, as Ruth Brandon writes about different 19th century governessess, some well known and some not. Provides important historical perspective for all women.

On the night table: I am debating between Bridehead Revisited since the movie opens next month and Nice Work, a very funny novel by David Lodge that I read over 20 years ago while in graduate school and the BBC World Book Club plans to tackle next week. I will keep you posted.

And what do you think Lus is doing right now? Reading? No--the tour is on!