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We love Florida Springs Part 2

27 Feb

 A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

Bill

The Florida natural springs are some of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have ever experienced.  Floating down a quiet, cool, spring run on an inner tube in the middle of a hot and humid Florida day is one of the best stress relievers I can think of.  You can leave all your worries and cares back at the job and just lay there and drink in nature in all its glory.

 

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If it gets too hot for you, all you have to do is drop over the side into the water and cool off.  We found that snorkeling was another great way to explore the natural beauty of the springs.  A person can float along with the current and be surrounded with some of the most beautiful underwater scenes of plant life and fish.  Snorkeling also allows you to explore the spring “Boil” at the source of most of the springs.

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By far our favorite Florida spring is Ponce de Leon Springs located about 10 miles North of Deland, Florida.  This spring is rumored to have been visited and used by ancestors of the Seminole Indians as long as 6000 years ago.  In the early 1500’s history tells us that the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon went searching for what the local Indians called their “magical spring waters” and he called the “Fountain of Youth.”

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In the early 1800’s, after the U.S. purchased Florida from Spain, central Florida was settled by sugar cane and citrus growers.  It was during this period that a sugar mill was built at the spring for grinding sugar cane.  The original sugar mill was destroyed and restored at least two times during the late 1800s and now houses the famous Old Sugar Mill Restaurant.

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Designed around the rustic mill equipment, you sit at a table with a griddle in the middle, and cook your own meal.  There are eggs, bacon and sausage of course, but the specialty of the house are the pitchers of stone ground 5-grain and unbleached white batter for you to cook your pancakes.   You can spruce up your pancakes with a variety of items including blueberries, pecans, peanut butter and even chocolate chips.  Top that off with some local maple syrup, honey or molasses and you have a breakfast fit for a king.  There is also French toast and several homemade breads available.

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When we first started camping at Ponce de Leon springs, it was privately owned, very primitive and had many beautiful campsites.  It was less crowded and more restful than most of the larger springs and soon became our favorite weekend retreat.  We usually tried to keep our tent camper as open as possible to enjoy the cool spring surroundings.  The screen windows were at both ends of our pullout bed, so our heads were as close to the out-of-doors as we could get and still keep the insects out.  On one occasion, in the middle of the night, I was awakened from a deep sleep by what sounded like heavy breathing.  I couldn’t imagine what in the world could be making that kind of sound.  When I raised up on my elbow to look through the screen window, I almost had a heart attack.  Right there, not an inch away from my nose, was a very large horse sniffing me through the screen!   I almost jumped clear out of the bed!  “Whoa!  Where did you come from?”  I said.  Then, with heart pounding, and as calmly as I could manage, I told the horse to take it easy, and go find another place to sleep, as all the beds in our camper were taken.

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Now for those of you who don’t like to get wet, Silver Springs near Ocala, Florida is the largest of the 33 Florida natural springs, gushing 500 Million gallons of clear fresh spring water per day. They feature great glass bottom boat cruises, botanical gardens, wildlife exhibits as well as many other activities.

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Try a Florida springs Day Park or camping sometime–I think you’ll like it.

—–The End—–

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We love Florida Springs

20 Feb

A Slice of Life
Bill Lites

BillAfter we moved to Titusville for my job in the mid 1965, some close friends introduced us to the wonderful life of camping at the many natural springs located down the center of the Florida peninsula. This became one of our favorite adventures; selecting and exploring a new spring as often as we could. In fact, one year, instead of taking my regular two-week vacation all at one time, I would take a vacation day Monday or Friday, and we would make it a three day camping trip to a Florida spring we hadn’t been to before.

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Our first camping trip with our friends was to Alexander Springs where we discovered that millions of gallons of beautiful clear cool spring water gushing out of the ground from an underground aquifer every day. What a wonderful place to rest and relax while staying cool on a hot Florida summer day.

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That overnight stay was made in a two-man pup tent, you know, the ones with no floor and only a tie string to keep the door flap closed. Well, it didn’t take long to find out the mosquitoe netting we put over our sleeping bags wouldn’t do the trick.

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As I remember, our next outing was to Rock Springs, near Apopka, Florida. At the time it was a day park, but floating or walking down the spring run was great fun as we searched for shark’s teeth (of all things) on the bottom. On one occasion, one of DiVoran’s contact lenses popped out of her eye into the clear water of the run. Luckily, the contact lense was light green and I could see it being carried down the run before me as I grabbed for it. Finally after chasing it for nearly 100 yards, I caught it. We would take a watermelon with us and let the water cool it until we were ready to eat it.

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Another of our favorite Florida springs was Juniper Springs located in the Ocala National Forest. It was famous for its 7-mile canoe run, and what a beautiful experience that was. By this time we had upgraded from tents to a small tent camper, which made overnight camping much more enjoyable, keeping us up off the ground.

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Then there was Blue Springs near Deland, Florida where the Manatees migrate in the Winter. Because the water temperature is a constant 72 degrees, surprisingly, the spring water is sometimes much warmer, during the Winter season, than the river water they usually inhabit.

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Further north, just North of Gainesville, Florida is Ichetucknee Springs State Park I believe it was there, as we canoed down that crystalline spring, that we thought about pulling over to the bank for lunch. As the canoe glided toward an overhanging tree branch, I saw a snake sunning itself on that very branch we would pass under, and started back paddling like a motor boat. We didn’t bother it, and thank goodness, it didn’t fall in the boat or bother us.

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—–To Be Continued—–

 

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Backyard Shootout

13 Feb

A Slice of Life

   Bill Lites

Bill

 As I remember how it happened, one day several years ago, I was looking for something in our attic, when I came across an old pair of suede cowboy boots that I hadn’t worn in years.  I got them down, tried them on, and they still fit.  That prompted me to look for the really neat felt cowboy hat I had worn with those boots when I made business trips to California.  After the job was over, on my way back to Florida, I would usually take a couple vacation days and stop to see my mother and aunt in Albuquerque.  The boots and hat were always in style there and I enjoyed the casual Southwestern atmosphere that allowed me to wear my Western duds.  I had spent my growing up years in Albuquerque, and had pretty much lived in western clothes until I moved away from there when I was 18.

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With boots and hat in hand, I got out one of my best Western shirts and some Levis to see if DiVoran would remember her “Bill” of the past

2“Wow, you look great!” she said, as I strolled onto the back porch.  “All you need now is your leather jacket to complete that outfit.”  So, I went looking for it, and sure enough it did make a striking outfit, if I do say so myself.

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When our daughter, Renie, saw me wearing the hat, she wanted to see how she would look in it.  She found a vest and after much fussing with hair and clothes, she came out to show us her outfit.  “Beautiful.” I said, and told her she could wear the hat anytime she wanted to.

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It was the same with our son Billy, the next time he was over, except he wanted to try out the whole outfit.  That’s when I remembered a matched pair of fake revolvers and handmade Mexican holsters my aunt, Jessie, had given me when I was in college.  She had worn them when riding horseback in annual parades as a young woman in the 1930’s while living in Texas.

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Well, that made quite a sight, when Billy walked around our back yard pretending to be participating in “Quick Draw Shootouts” with the bad guys.  It was a Kodak moment, and as you can see, we didn’t let it get by without a photo to remember the occasion.

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Now our son, Billy, has an 18-year-old son, Jacob, and DiVoran persuaded me to give him my vintage leather jacket, so now it is in good hands.  Who knows, someday somebody else in the family may wear my cherished boots, hat, holster and jacket,

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Note:  We still have my grandfather’s denim work jacket from the 1920’s with the patches             my grandmother sewed on it.  I can’t wear it though because the sleeves are too short.

Scripture:  Isaiah 61:10

                                               

 

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Titusville Centennial Celebration

6 Feb

A Slice of Life

  Bill Lites

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The year was 1968 and Titusville was celebrating its 100th year of founding anniversary.  The city had been growing from it 250 inhabitants, in 1886, and this was a festive occasion for young and old alike.

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For the duration of the celebration, many of the local families dressed in period clothes to remind us of the era of days gone by.   All the men were instructed to wear beards and all the women were not to wear makeup if they didn’t want to be fined by the city fathers.

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There were reenactments with folks in period dress and there were riverboat rides up and down the Indian River.

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There were parades thru downtown, covered dish dinners on the grounds.And then there were street dances, buggy rides and hayrides, as well as fireworks.

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At the same time, many of the inhabitants of Titusville were working day and night across the Indian River, at the Kennedy Space Center, preparing the world’s largest rocket to send men to the moon for the first time.  The East Central Florida area, with its Cape Canaveral rocket launch facility had been known, ever since the early 1950’s, as “America’s Doorway to the Stars.” Now NASA and its many contractors were on the threshold of fulfilling President Kennedy’s challenge, ‘To put men on the moon and return them safely to the Earth.’  The method for accomplishing that Herculean effort was the mighty Apollo/Saturn V moon rocket program that at the time encompassed over 300,000 workers nationwide.

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It would be another year and a half before that historical event would take place, but the Titusville Centennial was a wonderful way for many of the Space Center workers to relax, during their time away from work, and help celebrate another memorable local event.

 

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One of the most interesting events, during the Centennial Celebration time for me, was the unusual beard contest, which was held after the men had allotted time to grow and fashion their beards.  I can’t remember who won the contest, but it was amazing how some of the men were able to come up with the designs they did.

As it turned out, DiVoran and I were members of the Titusville Twirlaways Square Dance Club during the time of the Centennial Celebration, and much of the period costumes fit right in with our square dance outfits.

 

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When our children’s school was out for the summer, a group of dancers from our club traveled to Fontana Village, NC for a week of square dance classes, round dance classes and relaxation.

 

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It was a wonderful and fun experience, with morning and afternoon dance lessons, and then evening skits and dancing the new routines, we had learned earlier in the day.  Couples and clubs came from all over the Southeast to enjoy the camaraderie of a large group of people with the same interest.

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And so, that was how it was for the many of us who were part of two of the most opposite events taking place at the time.  One, a small little-known town’s 100th Centennial Celebration and the other, the U.S. landing of the first men on the Moon, which was celebrated by many people worldwide.

2 Chronicles 15:7

 

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I was a 12 Year Old Businessman-Part 2

30 Jan

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

It was like the difference between night and day to move from LA, a hugh city within an area consisting of almost 500 square miles of asphalt and concrete, to say nothing of the massive traffic problems there, to a small town with a 1960 census population of only 4000.

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The non-stopped work at the Kennedy Space Center to land men on the moon only lasted until 1970.  Not long after NASA and its many contractors had successfully completed this monumental accomplishment, the American public lost interest in space, manned space program funds were cut, and NASA started laying off contractors as the Apollo Program started spinning down.

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At age 35, I was one of the last engineers at Rockwell International to be laid off in 1973, and since DiVoran and I didn’t want to return to LA, and there were no engineering job to be had in the immediate area, I worked and studied the construction business to obtain my General Contractors license.   I built houses full time for two years until I landed a job with Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. on the Trident Submarine Missile program.

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For the next four years, I worked full time assembling and launching the Trident C4 submarine missile at Cape Canaveral, while building houses in my spare time.

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When that series of launches was completed, I was laid off by LMSC and went to work for McDonnell-Douglas who was launching communication satellites from Cape Canaveral using their Delta Launch vehicles.

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Then in 1979, I was recalled by LMSC to work on another series of the new Trident D5 submarine missiles launches, again at Cape Canaveral.

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In 1987, after that series of launches was completed, I transferred to the NASA Space Shuttle program with Lockheed Space Operations Co. at the Kennedy Space Center.  I retired in 1996 with a total of 35 years as what I called an “Aerospace Nomad” having worked for eight different companies during my career in the U.S. aerospace community.

7jpg DiVoran and I enjoy our retirement, while living in the same house we bought new in 1965.  We stay so busy with the fun things in our lives now that I sometimes wonder how I ever found the time to go to work.  I am involved in the R/C model airplane hobby, and do volunteer work with a local Car Care Ministry, and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum at the TICO Airport here in Titusville.

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DiVoran is realizing several of her lifelong dreams as she uses her God given talents with her painting and novel writing.  We both are enjoying having our extended family near us so we can spend quality time with them as often as possible.

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DiVoran and I are looking forward to many more years of life together, filled with the fun and adventures that only God, family and friends can give us.

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Proverbs 5:18 (NIV) 

 

                                            

                           

 

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I was a 12 Year Old Businessman-Part 1

23 Jan

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

 

I was born in Dallas, Texas in 1938.  I lived in the big “D” with my parents until 1945, when we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

bsby boy

The trip from Dallas to Albuquerque was on an American Airlines DC-3, and I was hooked on aviation at age seven.  As it happened, there were two large U.S. Air Force bases left over from WWII in Albuquerque.  So, it was no wonder that one of my main lifelong interests, was airplanes.

plane

That interest was carried from small wood models, thru the years, to large gas-powered u-controlled flying models.

remote plane

I started cutting the grass at our house and the neighbor’s, during the summers, around the age of 10.  My parents helped by taking me to jobs outside our neighborhood.

old mower

By the time I was 12, I had saved enough money to by a Sears self-propelled gas powered mower.  During the next few years, I put so many miles on that mower, that I had to rebuild the mower engine more than once.

gasmower

 

My grass cutting business thrived so well that, by the time I was 14, I was able to obtain my unrestricted driver’s license and buy my first motorcycle.

At that time, New Mexico allowed a person to qualify for a driver’s license at age 14 because so many of the farmer’s children needed to drive to support their family farm needs.

I kept cutting grass until I was 16, when I got a part-time job in the local Furr’s supermarket.  I started out unloading trucks and mopping floors – then to bag boy and stocking shelves –and finally working my way up to cashier.

bag boy

stocker

This allowed me to be able to sell my first motorcycle and buy a new 1954 Harley Davidson 165cc motorcycle for more reliable transportation to work and school.

165cc

When I was 17, I bought a used 1940 Chevrolet coupe to customize, and ended up rebuilding the engine and repainting it.  I met DiVoran’s brother, David, at Furr’s supermarket, where I was still working, and she told me later that he was awed by a guy my age who owned a car and a motorcycle.  She said she decided right then and there she wanted to meet that boy.

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In 1955 I traded in my 165 cc motorcycle in on a new 1955 Harley Davidson Sportster.  This motorcycle would end up serving me faithfully for years to come.

sportster

 

At 18, while I was still in my senior year of high school, I joined the local NROTC and began my short career with the U.S. Navy.  I met DiVoran that year in typing class, and by the time we graduated, we were engaged.

young beloved

 

Senior picture

Not long after that, I shipped out on my first U.S. Navy shipboard cruise.  That 10-month cruise first took me to the many ports around the Mediterranean, back to the U.S. and then to stops on both sides of South America and at Panama, and finally to Bremerton, Washing ton.  We wrote to each other every day while I was gone, and just knew we were meant to spend the rest of our lives together by the time I was transferred to my next duty assignment.

 

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DiVoran and I were married when we were 19, and lived in San Diego during the 6-month stateside assignment to my next ship.   When I shipped out on my 8-month cruise to Hawaii, Japan and Hong Kong, DiVoran returned to Albuquerque to live with her parents and attend Beauty school.

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After I was released from active duty with the Navy at age 20, DiVoran and I moved to Los Angeles for me to attend Northrop University.  I started my engineering career in the aerospace field while still in college, first with Douglas Aircraft Company and then with North American Aviation.  We ended up staying in Los Angeles eight years because after my first two years in college, I went to work full-time while continuing my college classes at night, and I couldn’t always get the classes I needed.

salon

At first, DiVoran worked full-time as a beautician to help with our living expenses.  Then after our children were born, she stopped working to be a stayed-at-home mom.

baby girl

bsby boy

As soon as I graduating from college in 1965, we moved to Titusville, FL with North American Aviation, on the Apollo Manned Space Program.

Colossians 3:23

                                    —-To Be Continued—-

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Our Trip Across America Part 11

19 Dec

A Slice of Life

  Bill Lites

Bill

 

From there, we made a side trip to Westcliffe, Colorado, located in the Wet Mountain Valley, just east of the San De Cristo Mountains.  Westcliffe boomed in the 1880s with Silver mining driving the economy.  The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad ran through Westcliffe, at the time, making it the only rail link in the valley.  After the mining interests ran out, the Westcliffe portion of the railroad was finally closed in 1937, and the town began to settle into the quiet valley community it now is.

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DiVoran’s parents moved to Westcliffe after her father came home from WWII.  Then in 1946, DiVoran’s parents opened Min’s Café in downtown Westcliffe and she and her brother David spent many hours working in the family owned restaurant on Main Street.

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Later, her parents bought the old 1880’s Westcliffe train station, and converted it into their home, where DiVoran had an unobstructed view of the San De Cristo Mountains from her upstairs bedroom window.

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DiVoran remembers Westcliffe as a most wonderful place where she lived, rode horses in the open fields, and went to grades 2 thru 4 in a one-room schoolhouse, and where she made some lifelong friends. By the way, she still corresponds with one of those friends, and that very schoolhouse is still standing, and has been converted into a very interesting museum.

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One of our most memorable experiences during that visit was our trip from Westcliffe up the County 160/Hermit Road into the mountains to spend the night at Hermit lake.  As DiVoran remembered, the road had been maintained by the county, for the popular summer lake activities.  However, we found the road in poor condition as we headed up the mountain toward the lake.  The first part of the road wasn’t too bad as we came out of the valley, so we thought we could make the trip without any problems.  The picture below shows you how deceiving that road was.

 

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It wasn’t long before we realized we should be driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle like the other people we saw up there, not a Ford LTD station wagon pulling a tent camper.  In some places the road was so steep and bolder strewn that I thought, for sure, we were going to tear the oil pan out of the bottom of the car.  But, once we started up the mountain, there was no place for us to turn around, so we had to just keep going till we got to the lake.  The picture below of Hermit road is no exaggeration, I couldn’t believe we actually made it!

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It took us two nerve-wracking hours to travel the approximate five miles to the lake.  By the time we got there, it was starting to get dark and we were all hungry, so we leveled and set up the camper, ate dinner and spent a cold night in the lake parking area at near 11,400 feet elevation.  The next morning, we waited for it to warm up enough for to have a leisurely breakfast, then we walked up the trail, and took in the beauty of the lake.

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When we got ready to begin the trip back down the mountain to Westcliffe, the car wouldn’t start.  It seems we had developed tiny cracks in the sparkplug wires.  Now, with the air at this high altitude being so thin, the spark was jumping from the sparkplug wires to the block, and not to the plugs.  I removed the wire from each plug, cleaned and dried it, wrapped electrical tape around it, and reinstalled it.  That coupled with the rising temperature, seemed to do the trick.  With the car running, we now embarked on our two-hour adventure back down the mountain to Westcliffe.  WOW– What a trip!  I sure don’t want to ever have to make a trip like that again.

 

 

                                          —-To Be Continued—-

 

 

 

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Our Trip Across America- Part 10

12 Dec

A Slice of Life

   Bill Lites

                            Bill

The next major attraction we visited was the Great Salt Lake.  As we neared Salt Lake City, Utah we discovered the city is skirted by some of the most formidable looking mountains we had ever seen.  We swam (or I should say floated) in the super salty water of the lake, bought a package of freeze-dried brine shrimp, and took pictures of the famous Mormon temple.  That night at the campground, we were surprised to be entertained with, of all things, an outdoor movie, and even popcorn.

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The next day we headed Southeast, through the Southern Utah and into Western Colorado mountains.   After an overnight stay in Grand Junction, we headed East, on US-50, which runs along the Arkansas River.  This was familiar territory for DiVoran as she and her parents had made many trips along this route.  This leg of the trip took us through Montrose, Gunnison and Salida to Canon City, Colorado to visit some of DiVoran’s relatives. This was where she spent a lot of her growing up years with her grandmother and her grandfather who had worked as a guard at what was originally the Colorado State Territorial Prison.

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It became a Colorado State Prison in 1876 and operated as such until it was closed in 1988. At that time, it was converted into a very interesting museum, showing conditions at the prison during those early days.

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An aunt and three cousins and their families were still living there. We had some great visits with them, and enjoyed a wonderful walk along the Arkansas River that runs through town.

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Canon City is well-known for the America’s highest suspension bridge, which spans the Royal Gorge.  Amazingly, we discovered the total cost of building the bridge in 1929 was $60,000 and only took 5 months to complete.

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The railroad that runs alongside the Arkansas River, at the bottom of the gorge, was originally used by the Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) Railroad in the 1870s & 1880s as the transcontinental bridge between Denver, Colorado  and Salt Lake City, Utah.  Use of the Royal Gorge portion of the track system was ended in 1997.  Then a couple of years later it was purchased by a private corporation and reopened by the Royal Gorge Route Railroad to provide daily scenic excursion trips from Canon City to Parkdale and return.  On one of our many trips back to Canon City, DiVoran and I took that “Scenic Excursion Trip” and it was an outstandingly beautiful experience.  We can highly recommend it.

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Another less known attraction in Canon City is the Skyline Drive, located on the western edge of the city.  This is a 3-mile long road that runs, one way, along the top of a 800 ft. high ridge overlooking the city.  Skyline Drive was a prison project started in 1903, and was built entirely by hand by the prisoners.  The road has been improved over the years, and offers a glorious view of the city below.

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—-To Be Continued—-

 

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Our Trip Across America – Part 9

5 Dec

A Slice of Life

   Bill Lites

Bill

 

As we headed East for the beginning of our return trip we decided to camp at the famous Donner Pass camping area along the Truckee River at over 7000 ft altitude.  It had been pretty hot on the drive from Fort Bragg, so we didn’t even think about the altitude being a factor.  We cooked supper and set around a campfire enjoying the beautiful scenery.  It started cooling off as we began cleaning up the supper dishes.   We kept thinking, “Hey, it’s mid-July, how cold can it get?”  Well, let me tell you, when the sun went down, it got COLD.  We ended up running our little electric heater full blast all night and sleeping in several layers of clothes and we were still cold.

Sign

   

I don’t know how cold it got that night, but the next morning a half glass of water next to my bed was frozen solid.  You would have thought that experience would have caused me to research our campsites a little better the next time, but of course, it didn’t, because back then we were young and indestructible.

 

Statue

Our trip East took us across the high desert to our next stop in Lovelock, Nevada, near the Ute Indian Reservation, where DiVoran was born.  We toured the small town and enjoyed a picnic lunch in the city park.  As we were leaving Lovelock, we passed a group of people riding turn-of-the- century big-wheel bicycles.  What a sight that was.

 

Mts

 

Then it was on East through Winnemucca to Elko, Nevada where we experienced our firs family style Basque dinner (including French fries?)at one of the local boarding houses.

 

boardinghouse

We later learned that Elko was the site for one of the annual “Cowboy Poetry Gatherings” and was honored on the Johnny Carson Show.  We recorded the show where Johnny was impressed, as we were, with some very unusual Cowboy poetry.

cowboys 1cowboy 2

 

 

 

This inspired DiVoran to write a poem of her own, and paint a picture to illustrate it.  The poem was about an experience that took place later in Colorado and goes something like this:

 

Bridget’s Mustang

  By DiVoran Lites

Horse trader come down the draw

In a boil of red-powder dust.

I saw he had three stallions,

And own that one, I must.

“I’ll take the paint;” I say,

“He looks like he’s got soul.

The mare’s in the corral.

Next year we’ll have a foal”.

“You keep an eye on him.” the trader says.

“He’s mustang through and through,

a wild one from the range.”

Foal next year? Maybe two.

“You’ve got fine boys and pups,” he said.

The trader wasn’t done.

You need to jaw around these parts.

It’s all that makes life fun.

“My little `un,” says I, “he’s four.”

My boys are twins—them two

I can’t keep clean clothes on their backs,

Nor none will wear a shoe.

“The pups? Well, one’s part wolf,” I said

“You see those pale, cold eyes?

He has to play the alpha.

Now that ain’t no surprise.”

“You ever want another horse,

I’ll bring one out this way.

Now, watch him close, don’t leave him

For at least a night and day.”

The pups dance all around,

The boys run to and fro,

the horses mill in the corral,

And oh, the dust does blow.

painting

 

—–To Be Continued—–

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Our Trip Across America-Part 8

28 Nov

A Slice of Life

  Bill Lites

Now we headed North, up the beautiful California coast on California Hiway #1. We stopped to tour the famous Hearst Castle in San Simeon, which is one of the largest private residences ever built in the United States. It was built by the newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, and is absolutely amazingly beautiful.

 

 

We were told it was started in 1919 and work continued until around 1947.  At some point during the construction Hearst named the project “La Cuesta Encantada” but it is now commonly called Hearst’s Castle.  Most of the elaborate furnishings were collected by Hearst during his many Worldwide tours, stored for years, and were then painstakingly incorporated into the design of this huge construction project.

 

 

 

   

 

 

We continued up the California Coast Hiway to Monterey Bay, CA and visited the Monterey Sea Aquarium.  What an unusual and informative place that is.  The tide pools are home to many sea creatures who come and go with the high and low tides.  The Kelp Forest Feedings of the multi-variety of fish was most interesting and we all loved the show.

 

 

 

Then it was on up North to San Francisco where we ate seafood at the famous Fisherman’s Wharf, took a tour of Alcatraz Island, and DiVoran’s favorite visit, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was to visit with DiVoran’s folks in Fort Bragg, CA about halfway to the Oregon border from San Francisco.  That visit was what I considered an epicurean delight.   Her father, Ivan, showed us how to pick the kind of wild mushrooms that we could eat with our charcoal grilled steaks..yum!  We also ate fresh salmon caught by Ivan (the master fisherman) during an ocean-fishing trip on his commercial salmon fishing boat. Then there were the driftwood and Jade rock hunts on the beach, lead by DiVoran’s mother Dora.  To top it off, we were treated to fabulous 4th of July fireworks display.  What great fun, and a wonderful visit.

 

 

 

         —–To Be Continued—–

 

 

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