Christmas Gift Outing #3: California Author!

 We spent the morning learning about John Steinbeck!

 (1902-1968)

He was born and grew up in Salinas, California.

We enjoyed visiting the National Steinbeck Center in downtown Salinas.

We watched two movies about Steinbeck and the area. 

A painting of the Salinas Valley at the museum:

The main exhibition hall had areas respresenting his most famous books.

This is from The Grapes of Wrath:

 Travels with Charley, a book about the 1960 10,000 mile road trip Steinbeck made with his dog, Charley in this camper:

 East of Eden:

Steinbeck is the author of 27 books.  Other familiar titles include: Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row, The Red Pony and The Pearl.

Many were made into movies and plays.

This is the Steinbeck House, 2 blocks from the Museum.

Steinbeck was born and grew up here and wrote a couple of his books while living in the house.  

This Queen Anne victorian has been made into a restaurant and is staffed by volunteers where they serve only lunch 5 days per week. 

The house has many of the original furnishings and other period pieces.  

We loved eating here!   Everything on the menu is from the family cookbook and they use fresh produce from the area.  

Our "waitress" was also a docent for the home and she stopped by often to share tidbits about Steinbeck and the house.  

 "I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley of all the little towns and all the farms and ranches in the wilder hills.  I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world."

Sleepover!

Hannah is in year round school and she has the whole month of March off.

We invited her to spend some time with us.

It was fun!

Lunch at Wendy's:

Getting in a little piano practicing:

We did some baking:

She got to use Grandpa's ipad and had fun connecting it to the TV screen:

She helped with our puzzle:

And she helped make dinner:

We had fun playing Tenzi:

She knows the sign language for "Choose the Right"

and showed us during Family Home Evening:

Our activty was Phase 10 Twist:

The next day I started teaching her how to knit:

 She got to watch a couple of episodes of Saved By The Bell:

 And she even worked on some of my indexing batches:

 It was great spending time with our granddaughter!

Now see if you can guess who we spent time with on Day 2 of our last outing?

Two famous Californians!

Christmas Gift Outing #3 Part 1: Pinnacles National Park!

We decided to visit the newly created Pinnacles National Park.

It was formerly a National Monument.  It's located in the Salinas Valley of California about 80 miles southeast of San Jose.

It is a very interesting place!

 "The park's namesakes are the eroded leftovers of the western half of an extinct volcano that has moved 200 miles from its original location on the San Andreas Fault, embedded in a portion of the California Pacific Coast Ranges." 

It is a popular place for rock climbers:

We decided to go on one of the hikes, but I only made it part way.  Dan went on ahead and took lots of great pictures.

The hike involved going through rock tunnels and talus caves.  Talus caves are formed  when steep, narrow canyons were filled with boulders, leaving passages between the larger rock.  (Too much claustraphobia for me!)

Here is one of the tunnels...

...and a narrow part of the trail

Now into the cave!

  Dan said the cave was very dark and the light you see in these next two pictures is from the flash on his camera:

Below is a professional picture from inside the cave: 

(FYI: Dan said he would never go in that cave again although he was glad he did it once.  He was on his hands and knees part of the time and twisting and turning in the dark.  He said if he had had a thicker shirt on, he would not have been able to squeeze through!)

 Just coming out of the cave are these steep stairs:

At the top is Moses Reservoir...

...and some other beautiful sights...

...including lots of wildflowers...

Looking down on some of the pinnacles:

Later we went on a walk I could handle:

It was a fun, scenic and perfect Spring day!

Spring Break: McClellans!

I enjoyed seeing some photos of the McClellans Spring Break activities!

Art at the library: Blending oil crayons with fingers:

Beautiful spring blossoms!

Elizabeth taking everyone on a walk at the park along the trail where she runs for cross country:

Sarah takes a break:

Painting at home: 

Camille's first soccer practice:

Free ice cream cones at Dairy Queen on the first day of spring:

Courtney volunteers with United Way.  Recently she helped with art classes for elementary age kids.  She loves the T-shirt because it is exactly what she will be doing during Spring Break!

Courtney made lemon meringue pie for the very first time:

 Playing Apples to Apples

 Camille and Sarah got to see the movie, Moana, at the library.

Cute picture of the sisters!