Ever since their first foray into snow two years ago at Big Bear Mountain when Uncle Darren & Aunt Suzy got married, Summer and Rachel have been desperate to ski and snowboard again.

We arrived at the mountain mid-morning with plenty of time to rent skis, boot, poles, and helmets and had just a short line for lift tickets.  Skies were sunny, snow looked good, kids were excited.  I said goodbye and hauled all their extra gear and shoes back to the motorhome and figured I’d have the day to myself.

Peter and the girls took the scenic Heavenly gondola up 2.5 miles (yikes!), then they (Peter) had to schlep all their stuff down a set of stairs and over to the ski lift…  Peter was exhausted before they even started.   As told by Rachel:  “I got off the lift and people were zooming straight down the mountain 90miles per hour”.  Yep, only one run was open.  An intermediate run.  It would have been fine for the girls if they had a small slope to gain a little confidence on first, or if Peter had only one kid to ski with.  It was impossible for him to handle the two of them.  Plus, with only one run open, it was packed.  They even saw a runaway snowboard zooming down the mountain that missed Summer by mere inches.

Needless to say, after trekking down the mountain, they talked to Customer Service, got a full refund and went back down the gondola for a late lunch.  Unfortunately, I still had their shoes.

We wanted to see what all the fuss was about and decided to check out Lake Tahoe, the winter getaway spot of our posh friends Janeen & Mike.  We had heard rumors that it was as pretty as Lake Winnipesaukee in NH.  They weren’t kidding.  The lake is beautiful.  The water is super clear, super blue, and super deep.  With the deepest point at 1650 feet, this lake doesn’t freeze over like Winnipesaukee does.

Since we are tourists, we had to do the touristy thing and take the self-drive audio tour around the lake.  For a mere $19.99 we were entertained  in our car (sporting the brand-new engine, of course) with a CD narrated by a lively fellow who regaled us with anecdotes and lake history and even a bunch of songs during our drive.  Yes, there is a Jimmy Buffett of Tahoe and we have him on CD to prove it.

One of our first stops on the tour was Emerald Bay and Vikingsholm.  Emerald Bay is reported as being the second most photographed spot in the US, behind Niagara Falls.  Not sure if I believe that, but I did get a bunch of pictures just in case.

Vikingsholm is a mansion on Emerald Bay built in the Scandinavian tradition in the late 1920’s.  Sadly, tours inside are closed for the season, but we did hike around the grounds.  We also took in the view to Fannette Island, the only island on Lake Tahoe.  There is a tea room on the island that the owner of Vikingsholm had built, just to take her guests out to for tea.  Must have been nice.

We took some better advice and visited Sterling Vineyard in Calistoga. The kids enjoyed the tram ride to the winery, Peter enjoyed the tour, I enjoyed the wine.

Sterling gates

Crush pit at Sterling

Barrels of fun at Sterling

Sterling Winery Tour & Tasting Rooms sign

View of Sterling from the castle

We thought that Sterling was pretty cool, but then we went to the castle. Castello di Amorosa. The $40 million dollar, 120,000 square-foot Tuscan castle built by a fourth-generation Italian winemaker. This guy didn’t seem to spare any expense in the 14 years it took to build the castle, complete with drawbridge, moat, dungeon, torture chamber, chapel, defensive towers, etc. etc. All of the stone was hand-chiseled, all of the iron work hand-forged. It was amazing. Also, you can only buy their wine there, or by mail order.

Castle cat – Sir Lancelot

The castle, viewed from Sterling tram

The castle

Rachel making herself at home at the castle

Puff the Magic Dragon

They lowered the drawbridge for us

Every castle needs a litter box

Weapons in the castle

More weapons in the castle

The torture chamber

The Grand Room, the largest room in the castle

The dungeon

Tasting room at the castle

Summer trapped in a room in the torture chamber

Suit of armor at the castle

Stall door in the ladies room of the castle

Spigot in the ladies room sink

Rachel terrified of the Iron Maiden

Rachel and her new bff

Ladies room at the castle

Girls enjoying their sparkling juice tasting

Fun chair in the torture chamber

Castle helmets

Castle hallway

Old wine that won’t be sold

Wine barrels in the Grand Room

We made the mistake of taking advice from a guidebook and visiting “family-friendly” Black Stallion Winery.  No tours were available, but hey, it was mid-day, mid-week, so what did we expect?   There was no family friendliness to be had and I was very surprised by the staff’s lack of congeniality.  Thankfully, Peter & I just shared the $20 tasting (remember when the tastings were free??) and didn’t waste a whole lot of time or energy there.  Since I’m writing this after-the-fact, I have a suspicion that tomorrow’s winery tours will be a whole lot better.

Black Stallion Winery. At least the entrance was pretty

After the meager sips of wine, we headed to Oxbow Public Market, home of the famous Three Twins Ice Cream. Yeah, I had to ask, so here’s the story: the company was founded by three people – twin brothers and a woman who is also a twin. She happened to marry a twin too. Too many twos. Since the girls and I are also three twins, we just couldn’t resist.

Three twins at Three Twins Ice Cream

Absurdity

Yeah

What trip to San Francisco would be complete without a visit to Alcatraz Island? Definitely a place to bring the kids, and not only as a not-so-gentle reminder to stay in school, but because it was pretty cool. And a little educational too.

We had a great tour guide who was dressed in Civil War garb, complete with a replica musket rifle. We learned that Alcatraz Island was originally named La Isla de Los Alcatraces (Island of the Sea Birds) by a Spaniard in 1775. Our guide had some interesting stories about life on the island when it was a military fort and prison, as well as the infamous federal prison. During the military era, the soldier’s wives wished to beautify the island and had some military prisoners bring soil from nearby Angel Island in order to plant gardens on Alcatraz.  Originally, there had been no soil there, just rock.

Rachel was particularly intrigued by the great escape of 1962. As re-told by her:  Four inmates devised an elaborate escape plan and spent almost a year using spoons to chip away the concrete around the air vents in each of their cells to create escape tunnels. The night of the great escape, they used some of the crumbled concrete, soap, and stolen hair from the barbershop to fabricate fake heads to hide under their covers to fool the guard doing nightly headcount. They used an idea from a mechanic magazine to make a boat and lifejackets by using raincoats. One of the inmates was unable to tunnel out the last remaining few feet because an iron pipe was in his way.  His co-conspirators looked at each other, and took off without him.  No one knows what really happened, all of this information came from this 4th man.  The boat was found, as were the three lifejackets that the escapees used, but to this day, the inmates have never been seen or heard from again…

Alcatraz from the ferry

Flowers at Alcatraz

Pretty view from Alcatraz

View of Alcatraz from Coit Tower

Former social hall at Alcatraz

Apartments for the prison guards

The Hole

Not the Ritz

Alcatraz view from below

One of five guard towers at Alcatraz

View looking toward Bay Bridge at Alcatraz

Warden’s house on Alcatraz

Another guard house on Alcatraz

Mugshots at Alcatraz

After serving our time at Alcatraz, we decided to hoof it up to Coit Tower.  And do I mean hoof.  It was A LOT of steps.  Like 400 something, we lost count.  It was cool to walk the steps rather than drive on the road, because we got to see some houses that are only accessible by the steps.  I guess those people don’t move very often.  Certainly, no one plays the piano.

Coit Tower

This was after the 200+ steps we had already climbed

Are we there yet?

Cute dogs on the way up the steps

Houses only accessible by steps

Lots and lots of them

CLOSED!

We found  Point Bonita lighthouse near Marin Headlands that was very cool to see. Sadly, the tunnel to get there closed… literally minutes before we got there. But hey, we are used to that and it didn’t stop us from checking things out.

Since only one of the four of us has ever stepped foot on or in a submarine, the girls & I thought it was pretty cool to check out the USS Pampanito at Fisherman’s Wharf. The tight quarters, tiny bunks (many perched precariously above torpedos), and lack of sunshine or fresh air doesn’t seem like a lot of fun.

USS Pampanito

What a crew

Watch out for the Liberty ship behind you!

Summer the Riveter

Rachel the Riveter

We also toured the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, one of only two surviving operational Liberty ships. This ship was built in South Portland, ME in just 56 days! We were able to see the engine room, which was used for filming the Titanic.

Summer particularly enjoyed seeing the laundry room.

We then ventured on to Pier 39 for the sea lion show. Be sure to check out the video on Rachel’s page. We decided to call this territorial sea lion by the name of Rufus.

This tree has seen better days. But, it was still pretty cool to see. Sadly, we couldn’t drive the car through (not with a roof rack and kayak on top) and the motorhome couldn’t even fit in the parking lot, so we ended up just walking through.

This tree, like several other drive-through trees in the area, are either in or near the Redwood National Forest or State Parks. We drove along the Avenue of the Giants to get up and close and personal with some of these big guys.

Rachel and Summer on stump at Shrine Drive-Thru tree

Rachel and Summer at Walk-Thru Stump