Elvin needed to fly down to California to pick up a car to drive back home, and decided to take Eliana along and make this a road trip. Eliana was game and so they flew down on a Thursday night.
Then Yeh-yeh whipped out his iPad so that he could show us pictures from their recent trip to Spain and Portugal. They visited various cities and also visited an old friend in Lisbon.
While in Lisbon, they went up to a high point to get a picture of the city in the background. Do you happen to notice who is sitting next to them? Yes--that's Rick Steves! Elvin recognized him from the picture. However, Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai had no idea they took a picture 3 feet away from this famous tour guide. When asked of there were any video cameras around, they did say, "Oh...yes, now that you mention it, he was followed around by four or five people with video equipment."
And then it was time to go browse at the local mall. It was a little drizzly, which was very unusual for California in June. It seems that we brought some Pacific Northwest rain down with us.
At the Stanford Shopping Center, we had to look up a store and, very apropos for Silicon Valley, instead of a normal mall map, the map was electronic and controlled with a touch screen.
One of the highlights of the visit to the mall, and actually of the whole trip, Eliana recounted, was feeding the pigeons in an attempt to capture them. She was not successful.
Then after visiting the Gap, we went to the American Girl store which was the whole reason we were at the mall. Nai-nai was kind enough to buy gifts for both girls. Here, Eliana is explaining to Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai the backstory to this doll. Every doll represents a character and has a biography and tons of costumes and accessories that go along with them.
Cousin Elliott also came along. He really enjoys tinkering with all the miniature toys and sets that are on display. Here they taking a picture in front of the Josefina stand, which is the doll that Eliana has.
After that, we went to a neat ice cream shop with lots of interesting and unusual flavors. Eliana had vanilla, which came with two eyeballs and a smile.
Elvin had earl grey tea flavor which was very yummy, and everyone else had some ice cream too.
And then we went to a stationery store, where Eliana, in wonderment, said that the paper looked like bolts of cloth.
In the evening, we joined up with Elvin's aunt and uncle who happened to be visiting from Brazil. It'd been a few years since they had seen Eliana and were happy to see her. They spoke to her in Portuguese and she was mostly able to understand well and speak back some too.
We went to a Japanese restaurant called Chikara where you grill thinly sliced meats on a grill at the table. It was very exciting for Eliana to start cooking (and Gabriel will probably be very jealous when he sees this picture.) There were traditional cuts of meat such as sirloin. There was also pork belly and beef tongue, which was tasty but a little bit chewy.
And the next morning, Saturday, we bid our farewells and hit the road.
Our first stop right outside of the Bay Area was none other than the Jelly Belly factory.
We all had to wear these silly hats while in the self-guided tour which was actually quite interesting.
They made the insides of the jelly beans, poured them into a mold and then left them to rest overnight in the bins you see in the picture. One tray holds about 25 pounds of beans...so the beans pictured here are a lot of beans! We got some samples and also bought a bag of Belly Flops. The jelly beans that are misshapen, so they sell for cheaper.
Then after several more hours of driving north, the brown grassy landscape gave way to mountains and we made it to Mount Shasta. We hiked a little bit to get to Hedge Creek Falls.
It was a neat little waterfall with a trail where you could walk behind the falls (and get a little wet.)
If you follow the trail a little more, you get to this area with a viewing platform and a little granite hill behind, which Eliana enjoyed scrambling up.
Then she got the idea to grab loose rocks, big and small, to toss into the river below. This was another highlight of the trip!
And we ate dinner at Black Bear Diner. There are hundreds of these across the country (including one in Vancouver), but apparently the Mount Shasta Diner was the first one. And also, the portions are YUUUUUGE! Eliana ordered the kid's meal, which came with a dinner plate sized pancake, a huge amount of hash browns, a big pile of eggs and 6 slices of thick cut bacon. Elvin ordered the small portion of ribs, which came with a bunch of ribs, a huge baked potato and some green beans.
And we stayed the night in a little hotel called Strawberry Valley Inn. Eliana really liked the room. We shared a bed, which was an interesting experience for Elvin because it turns out that Eliana rolls around in her sleep--numerous times--at night.
The next day, we went to Lake Shasta to get on a ferry that would take us to the Shasta Caverns. These were the highlight of the trip for Elvin.
After the boat ride, a shuttle took you to the entrance of the caverns.
The caves are thousands of years old. The guide explained that the little stalactites hanging from the ceiling grow when a drop of water rolls down and deposits a minute amount of calcium on the surface. And these grow at a rate of one inch every one hundred years. And we saw ones that were many feet long!
They formed many interesting shapes...in the picture the form sheets coming off the walls which they call drapery, and the ones that just out just a little and are thin, they call bacon--because that's exactly what they look like.
After that, we kept driving north...and made it to the In-N-Out in Medford, Oregon. The line was out the door and this was the most crowded Elvin has ever seen an In-N-Out. The animal style double double plus milkshake was worth it though.
We then visited the Raptor Center in Eugene, Oregon, where they take in injured birds and nurse them back to health. The ones that can't be re-introduced into the wild live at the Center permanently.
The neat thing was how close you could get to the birds.
Eliana thought this place was neat because she'd learned about lots of these birds through the nature show Wild Kratts that the kids watch.
This is a turkey vulture. Elvin thought he was cute and the vulture must've had a mutual attraction because it kept following Elvin around.
After a dinner in Eugene, the forged ahead and made it to Vancouver just as the sun was setting--around 9pm. Here is a picture of the Columbia River with the Portland airport's air control tower barely visible.
So after many miles of driving, we finally made it home!
The next morning, the kids descended into the living room, very curious to see all the treasures and gifts that we brought back from California!
