Well, I'm back .....

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The Super-Ultra-Mega-Silly-Tell-You-Nothing-Condensed Version

KAZ!:

I went on vacation and it was great.

THE END
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The Squished-and-ultra-condensed-version-of-the-condensed Version

Well, let's see. On the 20th of July, my family and I went to San Francisco by way of Vancouver Island. On the way to Vancouver, we hiked in the mountains and relaxed at a resort in Fairmont. At Vancouver, we met up with my great-aunt, great-uncle and my grandmother. After staying with them for a few days, we (now including my grandmother) went down to San Francisco, stopping many times to do thinks like hike in the redwoods, explore the Oregon Caves, and, of course, visit Ellmyruh. At San Francisco, we stayed with my great-aunt and great-uncle from the other side of the family. We did a lot of stuff in San Francisco and surrounding areas (and we ate a lot because my great-uncle cooks so well) and, after a few days, we came back to Edmonton, arriving late on the 9th of August.
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The Short of It. (a.k.a. The Log)

---------------Thursday, July 20, 2000---------------
We left our house at 10:20. We were supposed to leave at 8:00. Just after we left home we went to the beer store and had breakfast in the parking lot there. The parking lot is roughly 2 blocks from home. Right. Anyhow, it was a pretty boring drive until we reached the Rocky Mountains at 1:00. I mean, there was the occasional idiotic-driver-who-liked-to-eat-lunch-and-talk-on-a-cell-phone-and-drive-with-his-knees-at-the-same-time, but other then that the drive was uneventful. That's why I read a book for most of the time. Once at the Rockies though, I put away the book and looked at the scenery. The Rockies were quite beautiful, and the light greenish-blue tinge on Lake Abraham was a nice sight to see as well. The chemical plant (or whatever the heck it was) beside it though, wasn't. We stopped off to see the beginning of the North Saskatchewan River (at the North Saskatchewan Glacier, of course) and I must say that the water looks a heck of a lot better there then when it reaches Edmonton. At 3:40 we went to the Takakkaw Falls. The road just to get there was an adventure. It had some pretty steep, curvy roads, as well as a switchback for cars that should have been wider. I think I should point out that "Takakkaw" is Cree for "It is Magnificent". I'd like to dispute that a little. The falls themselves weren't all that big or great, but at least it gave us a chance to stretch out legs. After about an hour, we headed back down that silly little road towards Emerald Lake. When we got there, we went on a 5km hike around the lake. It was a nice hike as far as the scenery goes, but the deer flies got a bit annoying at times. We finished the hike just in time -- 5 minutes after we got back into the car it began to pour rain. We were planning to have a picnic dinner at the lake, but, due to the rain, we went off towards Golden, outran the storm, and ate dinner at Finn Creek. We got to out motel in Golden at about 7:40 that evening. *Phew* Well, that's one day. Only 20 left to go ;-)

---------------Friday, July 21, 2000---------------
We got up at 8:00 today. Besides the fact that the air conditioner didn't work right and the Trans-Canada highway was only about 15 car lengths away from the window, we slept rather well. At 8:30 we went back to Emerald Lake in order to do the 24km hike up Mt. Burgess. We started the trek at 9:30 and finished at 5:30. It was a very grueling hike. The hike can be divided into 3 parts: Emerald Lake to Yoho Pass (murder going up), Yoho Pass to Burgess Pass (awesome going across), and Burgess pass back to Emerald Lake (torment coming down). The first part was tough because we had to climb up the mountain and because we (stupidly) forgot to drink water ahead of time. Also, the person who made the path neglected to put a bridge over a rather wide river that we had to go across (although there were bridges over all the little tiny trickles of water). Once we got to the second part of the trek, the trail became much flatter. Although this part was the longest in length, it was an easy walk and quite scenic. We stopped off at Little Yoho Lake for lunch, at which point we found out that we probably should have brought along more water, or at least those water-purifying pills. At the end of this part there was a rather large snowfield and I almost got snow blinded, but this part was pretty awesome overall. The final part of this trek was, well, less then enjoyable. The two sections of this part were the get-all-muddy-and-wet section and the really-steep-switchbacks-that-go-on-forever section. I think that both sections are self-explanatory. I should also point out that, at this time, we were completely out of water and quite thirsty. Eventually, when I felt that I was pretty much dying of dehydration, I decided to drink some of the mountain stream water. That was probably a stupid think for me to do, but since I didn't get sick or anything I guess it was worth it. The entire hike, overall, was pretty good though, now that I look back on it. If nothing else, it gives me the pleasure of being able to say that I did it. If you decide to take that hike though, just be sure to bring enough water. Once we were done the mountain hike, we went off towards Fairmont. The resort was nice -- it was like an apartment -- but it wasn't worth $150 a night. (especially considering that it had no air conditioning!) Of course, we didn't PAY $150 a night, just $30 a night. My parents had to attend a buy-our-villa-time-share-thingmy-for-a-lot-of-money seminar to get that deal though. Anyway, we rented the movie "The Fight Club" from the resort's very limited selection. I apologize to anyone who liked that movie, but I personally think that it totally SUCKED!!! I'm amazed that I actually watched the whole thing. Then again, maybe I'm just partial to plotless, psycho-killer movies that made no sense whatsoever.

---------------Saturday, July 22, 2000---------------
Today was really just a day of relaxation. I read quite a bit in the morning, and we walked to the hot springs in the afternoon. Since this "hike" was mostly along the sides of roads and beside villas, I didn't enjoy it all that much. The hot springs were nifty, but if you go to Fairmont, just drive to the beginning of the hot springs trail. That night we watched the movie "The Hurricane" in the evening and I thought that it was pretty good (Certainly a lot better then that pathetically stupid movie the day before). Hmm, well, I guess that's all I have to say about today. Days of relaxation don't make for very big log entries, do they?

---------------Sunday, July 23, 2000---------------
The first thing that we did when we woke up at 8:30 that day was make sure that the room we stayed in was VERY clean; the management slap on an additional $150 if they have to do any cleaning whatsoever (As I said before, I really don't think the room is worth $150). We were ready to go at 9:20, but we had to wait an additional 10 minutes for the storm to lighten enough for us to run to the car (which was parked right outside the door) without getting completely soaked. It was great weather, now that I think of it....if you're a mongoose or a duck.... Anyway, once we managed to get into the car, we headed towards Crystina Lake. We arrived there at 3:20. Now, one of my dad's associates said that the lake was really clear, but very cold. I found that he was wrong on both accounts. The visibility through the water was about 2-3 inches, I call that "murky", not clear. As for the water temperature, I that that it wasn't all that cold considering that it was a mountain lake. Anyway, we had lunch there and then my brother, my dad, and myself swam around in the lake for a while. We left the beach at 5:48 and took a slow, scenic drive around the lake. When we stopped to take a look at another part of the lake, we found that we couldn't start the car up again! Not a good thing. We thought that it might have been a problem with the fuel injector at the time, but it didn't really matter. The point was that the car wouldn't start and, after 2 hours of trying, we had to call a towtruck. After a pathetically long wait, the towtruck finally came at 9:00. The towtruck guy dropped everyone except my dad off at a local inn at 9:30. When we got to our room though, we found that it hadn't been cleaned. The first indication was that the light was still on. When we went in, we found that beds unmade, towels on the floor, herbage brimming over the garbage can, and a full cup of coffee sitting in the sink. It was pretty gross (and make me feel sorry for the cleaning staff). We, of course, complained and got another room. On the plus side, we didn't have to stay at the run-down motel that we were going to stay at, and we did get 2/3 of the amount we paid for it back. Luckily, the mechanic was fast and we didn't have to re-book our ferry to Vancouver or even tell my great-aunt that we would be late.

---------------Monday, July 24, 2000---------------
The first thing that my dad did when he woke up was go to the mechanic's shop and make sure they fixed our car first. When he came back, he told us that the mechanics were talking like out 1990 car was one of those "really new" cars. The sad part is that they weren't joking; the other 6 cars were all older. At about 1:00 they finished fixing our car and we were on out way. The fuel pump had to be replaced, because that was what wasn't working. We had to skip our tour of the Cominco Lead Smelting Plant, but other then that we were still on schedule. Good thing too, because that meant that we didn't have to tell my grandmother (who would be accompanying us from Vancouver Island onward) and get her all worried. The 7 hour drive from Crystina Lake City to Tsawwassen was rather uneventful. I read a bit and looked at some of the scenery to pass the time. We reached the ferry dock at 7:50 that evening, at which point we *finally* ate dinner. At 9:00 the ferry arrived (*gasp* it was actually on time!) and we left for Vancouver Island at 9:20. The first thing that I did on the ferry was go to the bow and watch the ship depart. After that, I stayed on the bow for a little while longer to watch the sunset. Sunsets are cool, especially when they're over an ocean with mountains in the background. I hadn't watched a sunset in a long time, and I almost forgot how nice they could be. It was great....until the ship speakers started to blab out a pre-recorded message that said something like "In case of an emergency, trust us!" and "Buy our stuff from the over-priced souvenir shop onboard!" I stayed on the ship deck until it was completely dark and then I just wandered around the inside of the ship aimlessly. We docked at Vancouver Island at 11:00 and it only took half an hour to get from the port in Victoria to my great-aunt's and great-uncle's house. When we got there though, we were all too tired to make any formal greetings, so we just went to bed and saved the greetings for the next day.

---------------Tuesday/Wednesday, July 25/26, 2000---------------
These are the two days that we stayed at my great-aunt's and great-uncle's house. The majority of both days consisted of relaxing on the way-too-soft furniture and talking to each other about countless random things. On Tuesday, we did go for a swim at Beaver Lake, though. It was a lot like swimming at Crystina Lake. After the swim we took a little walk around the lake -- not a very good idea for me because my sandals weren't designed to be walked in because they killed....well, ok, slightly maimed my feet. After the walk we just went back to relaxing and yapping. On Wednesday, we (no surprise here) relaxed and talked some more. Oh, we also shopped for some more food to take on our way to San Francisco, including some cookies for Ellmyruh :-)

---------------Thursday, July 27, 2000---------------
We woke up at 4:10. Bleh. That was way too early for me. Even waking up that early though, we had to rush to catch the ferry to Port Angeles that left at 6:00, as we didn't pre-pack anything (because the first things that had to go into the trunk were the sleeping bags that we were sleeping in). We finished packing everything by 5:15, 15 minutes behind schedule. The main reason that it was hard to pack was that we gained a person (my grandmother) and we had to stuff here things in the trunk too. Needless to say, 5 of us in the car was rather squishy. We got to the ferry dock at 5:35 though, because my dad drove pretty fast. Unfortunately, it was raining rather hard; so, we couldn't get out of the car to stretch out. Also, the clouds prevented me from seeing a probably awesome sunrise over the Juan de Fuca Strait. *Sigh* Guess I'll just have to see one later. Anyway, we got onto the ferry at 6:00 and it left at 6:15. Unlike the other ferry, there was no pre-recorded message. Instead, there was a very sleepy person (maybe even the captain) reading the safety regulations. Besides that, the ferry trip was uneventful. We arrived at Port Angeles at 8:00. I was surprised how easy it was to go through US customs. The entire conversation went exactly like this:
MY DAD: Hi.
OFFICER: Where're you headed?
MY DAD: San Francisco.
OFFICER: Okay, go.
Somehow, I thought it would be a lot more complicated. Usually, they ask things like "Do you have any [fruits, vegetables, weapons, bribe money, mixed nuts, donuts, furbies, etc.]," and "Show me your [passport, birth certificate, visa number, underwear, etc.]." Well, goes to show how secure the USA is ;-) At 3:30, we went to the Sea Lion Caves, 11 miles north of Florance, Washington. It was a big disappointment. Apparently, the elevator broke down so the staff wouldn't let us walk down the paths. They suck. We continued on towards Brookings. At 4:40 we stopped to look at the Oregon Coast Sand Dunes. I never thought that playing with sand could be so much fun! We walked along the dunes and the beach until 6:30, at which point we had dinner. We continued towards Brookings at 7:25. Sixteen miles out of Brookings, we got stopped by a police officer, who clocked us at 72 miles per hour on a 55 mile per hour road. We were sure we didn't go above 60. He probably clocked us when we were going down a hill; we don't like to use the breaks unless we have to because they wear out fast! Luckily for us, though, the officer was in a good mood and let us off with a warning.
At 10:10 we got to our motel. It was pretty nice, but nothing special. Erm, can't think of anything else to say for today. Onto the next...

---------------Friday, July 28, 2000---------------
I woke up at 8:00, at which point I had a shower and ate breakfast (which consisted of a HALF GALLON of milk for me alone -- I felt bloated after that). We started towards the Redwood Forest at 9:20. Upon going into California, we had to go through an agricultural investigation, which was as easy to go through as customs was. We also passed by a "Shark Petting Tank"...and decided that it probably wasn't a good idea. At 11:00, we got to the Redwood Drive-thru Tree. It was pretty impressive. After taking a whole bunch of pictures (to get our $2.00 entrance fee worth) we headed back up highway 101 to go on some hikes through the Redwood Forest. Walking through the forest was pretty cool. Every single thing in there seemed to be larger than normal. Even the clover was huge; it was about 10 times larger than I'm used to! As for the Redwoods themselves, "wow!" just about describes them. After spending about an hour, we continued towards the Oregon Caves. We reached the caves at 2:15. We got our tickets, but we had to wait for the 3:15 cave tour. In the mean time, we watched a person giving us a lecture about the biodiversity of the area. Judging by the way he talked, I'd guess that he was trying to study for a university or college test (which is to say, he was not the most interesting thing I've ever listened to). By the time his presentation was over, it was time for the tour. The cave was rather cool inside; about 5°C. The tour guide showed us various cave formations and talked about them. Um...if you're in the area, go to the caves and take a look at them firsthand. I'm not sure if I can convey how incredibly nifty all the stuff in that cave was in writing. I guess it suffices to say that the caves TULE! After the 1.5 hour tour of the caves, we went on some of the nature walks in the area. We saw a lot of great scenery (as we got to the top of a small mountain or large hill) as well as a really big Douglas Fir tree (with a sign saying how big it was). It wasn't as high as the redwoods we saw earlier, but it was much fatter; 40 feet in diameter. Once we got back to the parking lot, I bought myself a little souvenir and we had some ice cream. It was 7:15 before we left towards Redding. Again, we had to go through an agricultural inspection; all we had to do was say 'no' twice and we were through. What amused me was the sign hanging above the booth that read "Declare! Declare! Avoid fines! Declare!" That sounds like Yanik on the game Zork: Grand Inquisitor or something.... Once we got to Redding we...well, I had a 'fun' time trying to find where exactly our motel was! The directions in the tourbook that we got from the American Automobile Association really suck. All it said was "Exit I-5 Cyres Ave E; 0.3 mi n." I mean, would it really be that hard to change that into something that made sense; something like "From I-5, exit East. Turn north onto Hilltop drive; the motel is located 0.5 miles from that turn." Once we got to the motel at about 11:15 though, we were okay. The motel was the best one that we had been to, seeing as how my brother and I got a room all to ourselves. In fact, the only problem was that the air conditioner took forever to cool down the room. Oh, well. It was a good room nonetheless (and it came with a free continental breakfast).

---------------Saturday, July 29, 2000---------------
Today was the day that I got to visit Ellmyruh! Um...but that happened in the afternoon. I'd better keep things in order. Let's see then. I woke up at around 8:00, (freezing, because the air conditioner was on full blast all night,) we packed up the car, and then we went to the complimentary continental breakfast. They served it buffet-style, so we kind of took advantage of it. In addition to eating all the stuff we could, we grabbed a bunch of bagels and Danishes to have for lunch and snacks on the road. Then again, maybe they expect you to do that kind of thing, given the facts that at least ¾ of the people were doing it, and the hotel clerk person caught me with two bagels and two Danishes and just smiled when I walked out with them. After we had everything we needed, we headed towards Lassen "wow, nice active volcano *pat* *pat* *Owwww!*" Park at 9:15. When we arrived at the park, we went straight to Hell. Well, the Bumpass Hell nature trail. Overall, the experience was okay. The actual walking part and the various formations were really nice, but the problem was that I don't like the smell of pure sulfur. Anyway, we were done the hike at 1:30, then we headed off to Davis (yay!). We got to Davis at 4:45 and Ellmyruh was waiting on the hill in the community park. She was a lot like I expected; it tuled that I got to see another Rinkydink. I left my bazooka at home, but I did remember the arsenic and the cookies! (Ellmyruh told you all about that meeting; http://rinkworks.com/rinkforum/view.cgi?post=21871) We all talked for a while, snapped a few pictures, then left. My parents were quite surprise4d that Ellmyruh didn't try to kill us or anything. After that experience, I don't think my parents are as paranoid of us "scary bazooka murderer internet people" now. Once we left, we went to Albertson's to get something for dinner, as we were out of food. Since we were way ahead of schedule (the original plan was to visit Ellmyruh at around 6:00), we decided to have a picnic dinner. I found it quite ironic that we ended up eating in pretty much the exact same place that my family and I talked to Ellmyruh, not half an hour earlier! (We couldn't find any other place to eat). *Sigh* if we knew that we were going to do that earlier, we would have invited her for dinner. Oh, well. We finished dinner at 7:00, half an hour *behind* schedule. (Go figure.) We got to my relatives' house in San Francisco at about 8:30. The house looked like the kind that I would expect to find in China -- it's high up and has two other houses squashed on each side. I guess that it saves on landscape costs (no yard).... The thing I liked the most about the house though was that they had a computer; a computer that probably cost upwards of $10,000. I took a quick peek at the message forum and I popped into Rinkchat for a few seconds too. I didn't get time to read what Ellmyruh had to say about meeting me (wow, she was fast writing that), nor did I get a chance to say anything in Rinkchat besides "Hi, I'm in San Francisco!" before I got called on to navigate my dad to where my grandmother would be staying (which happened to be with other relatives in a city about 45 minutes away). Getting there was fairly easy, but coming back was tricky, due to the one-way streets. I managed to get my dad and I back safely though because, well, that's sort of my job when I'm the navigator. Some of this stuff should probably have gone in tomorrow's log entry because it was 12:30 by the time we got back. Hmm. I guess I'll get around this little problem by saying that the beginning and end of a log day is at 3:00 am J

---------------Sunday, July 30, 2000---------------
I woke up late; around 10:00. The first thing that I did was read the forum post that was in the cache. Hmm. Memo to self: Do something evil to Jimmy at some point. Anyhow, after reading that, I played Minesweeper for a while. Sad, I know, but there were no other games on that computer. (Did I mention that it had a 32MB GeForce video card?) We had breakfast after that, and what a big breakfast it was! My relatives made hash browns, bacon, eggs, toast, Chinese melon, grapes, corn, and a whole bunch of other things that I can't remember. It was all quite good, as well as filling. Once we were done, we went to the Coit tower. We didn't actually go in it, but we took advantage of the view from the top of the hill. Unfortunately, some fog decided to so some sightseeing around the Golden Gate Bridge, meaning that I still didn't get a chance to see it. The next place we went to was Lombard Street (a.k.a. Crooked Street). It was cool because it scared my mom so much as we went down :-) After that, we headed to Chinatown to take a walk. There were a lot of stores selling things on the sidewalk; anything from live, flopping fish to rather expensive jewelry. After walking for a while, we stopped off at a little Chinese restaurant for lunch. I think that they require a better Chinese --> English translator. They made a whole bunch of bad translations; the ones that I still remember are "Slice Fish" (for "swordfish", presumably), "Dumpling w/ hot oil" (deep fried dumplings?), "Mixed Fried Ride" (fried rice), and "Fried Paper Chicken" (I have no idea). Once we looked around most of Chinatown, we went to Pier 39. We looked at a few shops there, one of which had majorly overpriced items. If you wanted a small soapstone statue, you had to be prepared to pay $22,500. I mean, I know soapstone is expensive, but it's not *that* expensive. Needless to say, I didn't buy anything there. We left and went to the end of the pier and we saw a bunch of sea lions! Very playful animals they are, and cute too! We watched them play for a while, then went off to dinner at the Fisherman's Wharf. After dinner, we tried to go for a walk, but always ended up going into one store or another. Right. We decided to go back to the house after visiting 5 or so stores. Once we got back to the house, I booted up the computer and headed to the Rinkforum to make a few 'corrections' in Jimmy's post.... Only to find that Sam already deleted the thread. Nooooo! *Sigh* Next time, Jimmy.

---------------Monday, July 31, 2000---------------
I woke up at around 8:00 and, due to overnight downloading, I was able to play Unreal that morning instead of Minesweeper. Once again, we had a HUGE breakfast; all good food, too. At around 10:40, my aunt and my grandmother came (remember, they slept in a different city). Once they were here, we all went to the cable car museum. To get there, we took a cable car, of course. It was an interesting place, partially because it wasn't just a museum, it also housed the machines that worked the cables (meaning that we got to see it all in action). Of course, the down side of going through a still-working museum was that the sounds of the machinery pretty much drowned out any other sound in the building, including the video about how the cable car works and its history. It was a pretty good visit, though, even though it cost us $28 (all of which was for transportation;/ the museum itself was free). After the cable car museum, we went off to Alcatraz at 2:15. We spent the first 45 minutes listening to Ranger Sam (no, I don't think his last name is Stoddard) talk about the history of the island and how much money the government wasted on the rock. For example, one of the government projects involved making the rock into a citadel. It took 8 years and millions of tax dollars to build and, as soon as it was completed, it was obsolete. Right. It was quite an interesting and amusing presentation. The next thing that we did was take the more-serious audio tour of the inside of the penitentiary. It explained everything about the place, living conditions of inmates, events that occurred, and other such things like the guy who dug his way out of Alcatraz with a spoon and was never heard from again. If you're going to Alcatraz anytime soon (as a tourist, I mean), I strongly suggest that you pay a little more when you get your ticket in order to get the audio tour. After snapping a few quick photos, we headed back to the mainland at 3:45. We took a quick stop at the Geridelli Chocolate Factory before heading back to the house. The chocolates cost a lot, but when it came to the taste, it ruled mightily. I think that it was the best chocolate that I've ever tasted. We only had a little though -- we're saving most of it for later (and hoping it doesn't melt). Once we came back to the house, my mother's uncle decided that we should go out to a Chinese restaurant that night, so we did. Dinner was served as it is in most Chinese restaurants, meaning that you get 15 or more plates of food that you share amongst everyone at the table. Most of the stuff we had was pretty good, although some of it was a bit...weird. I tried at least a little of everything though...well, everything except the raw slugs. I somehow didn't like the idea of eating one of those things. After dinner, I took a quick peek at the Rinkforum, had a shower, and began to write the log for this day. I finished the log at...11:22?!?!? Well, erm, that's all for this day, everyone!

---------------Tuesday, August 1, 2000---------------
When my brother and I woke up this morning, we found that my mom volunteered us to make breakfast. Oh, joy. She claimed that we were really good and like to cook. That's wrong. Baking good dessert with a cookbook is easy enough -- I just have to follow the instructions and it turns out. Cooking a breakfast with stuff that I have never worked with before (and no instructions) is something else entirely. Suffice it to say that we tried and sucked majorly. Personally, I don't like to be volunteered by someone else, especially when you have to eat the result. After that...experience..., we went down to Pescadero Beach. We went on a little walk there. At the end of the path, I found what I thought to be a slippery rock, but it turned out to be clay. Just beyond that there was an entire cliff face of rather flat clay, which a lot of people had engraved their names on. I decided to have some fun, and deeply engraved "Rinkworks Tules!" followed by www.rinkworks.com. I think it was the most obvious writing on the cliff. Anyway, after we left the beach, we went to lunch, then headed to Carmel to go shopping. My mom wanted to buy a $2,400 wall decoration (and she still wants it ) and a $15,000 picture made by Thomas Kinkade. My dad and I pointed out that there was no way we could get either home without wrecking them, and that we would have to save up for a while. We got my mom to settle on a $3.99 magnet instead :-) We went back to the house after that and had a big dinner as usual. This time it consisted of a salad (which I didn't have much of because I didn't like the salad dressing -- I don't think I like any salad dressing, come to think of it), spare ribs, potatoes, meatless wontons, rainbow trout, catfish, Chinese broccoli, and lemon meringue pie for dessert! (I'm sure some of you are hungry now.) After that, I played minesweeper and actually won on "difficult", but it took more than 999 seconds. Still, that's a "Yay!" for me. I went to bed right after, since it took until midnight to do that.

---------------Wednesday, August 2, 2000---------------
When I woke up today, I accidentally turned on the music for the clown clock that was in the house. It was LOAD and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Ironically, my mom's uncle's wife could never figure out how to turn the thing on! Between the two of us, though, everything worked out :-) Subsequently, we went out for brunch. This time it was only a 7 course Chinese meal, but still filling. After that, we took a walk around the China Beach area. From the coastal trail, we got a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge so we took our first (yes, first) pictures of it. (The fog had finally gotten tired of sightseeing at the bridge, I guess.) We also checked out a small cave at the end of the trail, next to a former swimming pool (that was lying in ruins). The cave was short, but cool nonetheless (as all caves are -- cool, not short, I mean). Later, we took a quick stop at a flower store and then headed to the cemetery to pay respects to my mom's uncle's parents. Upon finishing that, we went to Burger King for milkshakes and then went back to the house. I changed a printer ink cartridge (easy, even though I had never played with an ink jet printer before) and then tested it by scanning, then printing $20.00 bills that said "sucker" on the back. It even fooled my dad for a whole half second (before he looked on the back)! We went to dinner after that; not much to say about that except that I (amazingly) got full. Anyway, back at the house, I had more fun with the scanner. I got a whole bunch of pictures, scanned them at a high resolution, then printed them out on photo paper. They all turned out rather well. I was going to give a few of them to Sam to put on the Regulars page, but I found that .jpg and .gif killed the quality and .bmp was about 5 MB each. Sorry, no new pictures. Once done with the scanner, I took a quick peek at Rinkworks, and hit the hay, as the saying goes, with an ugly stick.

---------------Thursday, August 3, 2000---------------
This morning we had the biggest breakfast that I have ever seen. Get this: two pounds of jumbo shrimp, two rainbow trout, a plate of hash browns, six eggs made into a huge omelet, four salmons, eight home-made biscuits, about twenty strips of bacon, six pieces of garlic bread, and a big bowl-O-melon. All good food, yes, but way, way too much. We finished all that we could, which was probably about 80% of it. During breakfast, our hosts gave us each a good luck charm -- a real jade heart. Wow. We packed up all of our stuff after that and headed towards Napa at around 11:00. We went to a winery at 12:30 just to take a look at what they were like. Ummm...it looked like a big house with wine barrels inside and vineyards outside...and a gift shop attached. We headed to the Bale Winery at 1:30. I thought it was cool that we actually have a winery (my last name is "Bale", and I'm kind of distantly related to the guy the winery is named after). When we arrived at the area at 2:35, we found that we even had a state historic park named after us! Because we were "part of the family", we got a special tour where we got to see things that no one else was allowed to. Our first stop (with a newly acquired tour guide) was at the Bale Grist Mill. The miller/tour guide showed us about the mill, and even did a demonstration of the grindstones and water wheel ("Not to Fifty!" Really, the mill looked a lot like The Machine with the water wheel, gears, pumps, and a lever that controlled the water flow...and it would be quite torturous if you were corn.) After the demonstration, he gave us a very good presentation of the Bale history. We all got "Bale Stuff" from the mill -- I got a T-shirt. At 4:30, we went to the vineyards where everyone except my brother and I tried all sorts of wines for about an hour. Once they were finished with that (and I was finished with standing around, which was about all I got to do), we checked into our motel and went out for pizza. When we got back, I took a quick shower and went to bed.

---------------Friday, August 4, 2000---------------
We got up at around 8:00 that morning and had our complementary breakfast. They had little compared to the Comfort Inn, but it wasn't bad. I only managed to sneak out 4 slightly overcooked cookies that time though. We went to the Sterling Vineyards when we left the motel. It was cool because it had a tram to take people to the winery. It was even cooler because the tram broke while my relatives (but not me) were halfway there and it took them about ten minutes to fix it. Once at the winery, we took a self-guided tour about the winemaking process, after which everyone but my brother and I (again) got to taste four different wines. We decided against buying any. The next stop was at *another* winery, a winery specializing in sparkling wine (a.k.a. champagne). We took the 1:00 guided tour about how wine is made. At the end of the tour, everyone had *another* wine tasting, except my brother and I, of course. At 2:15, we went to a wine club's outdoor picnic area for a somewhat late brunch. We were rather surprised when we got there. Apparently, my Dad's sister's boyfriend (who was with us) was a member of the club and told them that we were coming. Before we got there, the club reserved the best picnic table for us, put on a table cloth, and set up wine glasses for us (well, everyone but my brother and I) to use. I was quite impressed. After we finished our picnic brunch, we went into the club and all tasted...I don't really have to say this again, do I? Anyway, once that was over with, my brother and I woke up (there wasn't really anything exciting to do there if you're underage), and we went to St. Helene to mail some postcards before we went on the I-80 to Sacramento (by way of Davis). No, we didn't stop to talk with Ellmyruh again, partially because we wanted to get to Carson City in Nevada by the end of the day and it was 7:15 when we were in Davis. We reached Carson City at around 10:05 that night, at which point I watched the Discovery channel for a bit then fell asleep because the show had a boring narrator.

---------------Saturday, August 5, 2000---------------
When we went off to Reno as soon as we woke up because my grandmother wanted to deliver a letter to a person at a monastery. We got completely lost along the way. Eventually, we asked someone at a dental clinic for directions. We found out why we couldn't find the street earlier -- a tree covered the street sign and the road looked like someone's driveway. We *finally* got to the monastery at about 11:15. My first impression of the building was "That's a monastery???" I always thought that a monastery was a really big building, grand in appearance, and made of stone, preferably with lots of arches and stained glass windows. What we saw was a tiny one-story concrete...uh...square that was about half the size of the surrounding houses. Well, whatever. My grandmother delivered the letter and then after a quick stop at Albertson's to get food we headed back to Lake Tahoe. We stopped at the Tahoe visitor center once we were in the Tahoe area to decide what we wanted to do. The visitor center was rather odd -- it was full of weird little games like guess-the-activity-from-the-sound and spin-the-wheel-to-see-what-you-want-to-do-today. The one that I played the most was a thing where you try to guess of the coin in a cage will turn black side up or right side up when you spin the cage really fast. They claimed that the results would be about 50/50 each. From 25 flips, I got 3 black, 3 red, and 19 side. Interesting results, no? The visitor's center gave out free lemonade, though so it was still cool. I had at least 20 cups of the stuff. After leaving the visitors center, we had a picnic lunch and then went on the Cascade Trail. It was listed as an 'easy' trail. It might have been if the trail went all the way to the falls. It sort of stopped after about half of a mile. Like many other people, we wanted to see the falls. We walked around on the rock on the mountain, without finding the waterfall until we got the brilliant idea of following the river. We eventually reached the Cascade Waterfall -- still, no path anywhere -- and we stayed for a while, as the view was spectacular. We went back to the car shortly after 4:30. After stopping off at a few other areas, which were of little consequence, we got back to our motel in Carson City at 8:40. We ate supper and then watched the movie "Deep Blue Sea". The movie was okay except for a few scenes where a shark rips up dummy look-alikes that didn't fool any of us. After the movie I had a half-hour shower. I t took so long because the stupid drain wouldn't stay open and I consequently had to use my toe to flick and hold down the switch that opened the drain. If I removed my toe, or if the switch thing found its way around my toes, the drain would close up again. Eventually I fixed the drain (temporarily), finished my shower, and went off to bed.

---------------Sunday, August 6, 2000---------------
Today, we woke up at 7:30 and we drove. And drove. And drove and drove and drove some more. While we drove, we ate breakfast and lunch in the car and listened to the CBC version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. We also found a tape in the glove compartment that we never listened to before. It was titled "Got Questions?" but it boiled down to something along the lines of "So you want to be a network marketer?" It was so stupid! It was so stupid that it was funny! I'm thinking of transcribing it so that you can all read it, but not promises there. We drove even more after that. When we got to the motel in Grangeville, Idaho, we ate a late dinner, watched a bunch of TV, then went to bed. Hmpth. Days of pure driving are about as exciting as days of relaxations, aren't they?
Note: Each appearance of the word "Drove" in this log entry (including the one in this sentence) represents slightly more than an hour of driving.

---------------Monday, August 7, 2000---------------
We actually ate cereal for breakfast that day. I think that was the first time I've had cereal for breakfast in, like, months! I think I'll stick to less boring food in the future. Anyway, after breakfast, we went to visit the Dworshak national fish hatchery. We went on their self-guided tour, which consisted of looking at fish (considering that it was a fish hatchery, this is probably not surprising). I think they had Rainbow Trout, Chinook, Steelhead, and Salmon in the hatchery, but I'm not entirely sure. After we finished the tour, we drove up to the Dworshak Dam, the second largest straight axis dam in the world. Why you'd want to make a straight axis dam seems odd, though, since curved ones are stronger. We took a look at the various activities inside the visitors center (where they had a model of, of all things, a flying turkey!) before going on the 1:00 guided tour. The tour comprised of going through the various parts of the dam and watching exhibits, some of which had happy-sappy-cheesy music to go along with them. On the tour I found two things that were rather odd. The first was that there was no one in the main control chamber when the sign said that there was always supposed to be someone in there in case of an emergency. The second -- and more amusing -- thing was that someone decided to put a basketball net inside the generator room. I hope that everyone who uses the net is a good shot -- miss the net by enough and the ball falls down a story in to the turbine generator area (which probably has some sensitive equipment). We arrived slightly after 8:00, had dinner, and then everyone but me went to bed. I stayed up and watched the Discovery channel for a couple of hours 8·Þ

---------------Tuesday, August 8, 2000---------------
We found that the motel we stayed at gave a good, but small breakfast. To get anything, though, you have to ask the person at the main desk for it. The good part about this was that everything was made fresh. The bad part was that they took about half an hour to make anything. I had a waffle and a few pieces of bread. About an hour and a half later, we were on our way to Radium. At 11:30, we got into the line-up for going through Canadian customs. They asked a whole bunch of questions, but surprisingly enough, they didn't make us fill out a form! I was also surprised that they didn't ask to inspect the trunk, especially after my dad slipped up and said that we were carrying two seven hundred and fifty litre (not milliliter) bottles of wine. Well, all the better for us; it only took five minutes for us to go through. We stopped off at Fairmont on the way to Radium, and guess what we did? Remember that "hike" on July 22nd? Well, we did that AGAIN! Oh, joy. At least this time we parked slightly closer to the hot springs, but when we got to Radium we found that our motel (well it was more of a cottage, really) had a barbecue! We decided to take advantage of that so we went to measly grocery store and bought fillet mignon for dinner. It was the first really good dinner since San Francisco. When we were done, we watched the movie "The Running Man" and then went to bed. (Most of you have probably watched the movie since it's so old, so I won't bother to say anything about it).

---------------Wednesday, August 9, 2000---------------
Well, this is the last log entry. That must be a relief of all of you that read this from the beginning. Anyway, we woke up at around 7:40, and ate Cheerios for breakfast. (I didn't have a choice in the matter.) We then went canoeing down the Columbia river, from Invermere to Radium. Canoeing rules! Since we had a lot of time, we went into a few of the river inlets. We got within 6 metres (20 feet) of a heron (before it flew away) and about a metre (3 feet) from a little cluster of ducks. We also went into a wetlands area that was pretty nice too. After the 2½ hour journey, we went on a little hike. It wasn't long because of the vicious horde of bloodsucking monsters (a.k.a. mosquitoes). We decided to just go home after that, so we headed off to Edmonton and had lunch in the car. We got to Edmonton at 6:50, so we decided to have dinner at Pizza Hut. My brother and I each got a cup of 7Up with unlimited refills. Usually, restaurants make lots of money on pop, compared to what it costs them. Not with us they didn't! Between the two of us, we drank 171 ounces of 7Up, because we were thirsty. We figure that that ended up costing the restaurant 60 cents more than they spent on the pop. Yeah, I felt pretty bloated after that, but oh well. Then we got home. Well, the house didn't burn down while we were away, but my ISP did. *Sigh* Nothing works without me around to watch over it. So, um, anyone else know of a free Canadian ISP with no ads?



32 handwritten pages, 13 typed pages (Font size 12, Times New Roman, single spaced), 8194 words, and 60 paragraphs.

-Ka"My fingers hurt....Did I get the longest adventures with post yet?"z!