Chicago = Family

Who needs Airbnb when you have R's Auntie A and Auntie J? Ever since we moved to California almost 17 (wow, 17!) years ago, we would stay with his brother K in the basement apartment of his aunties' two-flat when we came back to Illinois to visit. There would always be a stocked refrigerator and pantry waiting for us, thanks to his aunties. Even though K passed away in 2015, we are still staying at "K's place" and still being well-taken care of by A and J!

Youngsholm

The final stop of our trip to the Buckeye State was Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce. Because this unit was only designated in 2013, it's still a work in progress. They aren't open for regular visitation, so several weeks ago I made arrangements for us to visit the site at 10:00AM today.

The Cincinnati Kids

Since I'm clearly stuck in re-runs from my childhood, here's another YouTube clip related to our activities today...

WKRP in Cincinnati

Yep, this is what immediately popped into my head when I was thinking of how to title today's blog post.

If you don't get it, you haven't taken enough trips around the sun.

If you do, here's a visual to go along with the earworm that I just planted in your head...

On the Menu

Monday, July 17

Breakfast:

Char siu bao (steamed BBQ pork buns) and nai huang bao (steamed custard buns)

Lessons from the Pro

A few weeks ago, J asked GongGong if he would show him how to play golf when we came back to visit. So this afternoon my dad took the boys to Lick Creek. Rather than let them try to kill the ball on the driving range, he started them off on the practice green with putting.

J lining up his putt

River Road

Since we didn't have far to drive this morning, I let the boys sleep in until 9:00AM, which is really late for our usual road trip schedule. (I hate burning daylight on vacation!) After breakfast, we checked out and drove a short ways over to La Salle, IL for (wait for it) an I & M Canal National Heritage Area passport cancellation. The Lock 16 Cafe and Visitor Center on First Street had the stamp. Too bad we didn't have time to take a mule-pulled canal boat ride on the "Volunteer"!

Rene-Robert Cavalier de La Salle

Double the Fun

Yay for summer vacation! Time for another entry in the Saiki-delic blog!

However, this trip is a departure from our modus operandi.

R flew out on Thursday to meet his parents in Hawaii on their trip to attend his uncle's 88th birthday party and serve as their Uber driver for a week. From his posts on Facebook, it looks as if he is really suffering in paradise - forcing down saimin, reluctantly shopping at Crazy Shirts, and enduring gatherings with ohana. What a good son!

As for me and the boys, we left LAX this morning...

We're Baa-aack

After leaving Point Reyes NS yesterday, we headed down towards Santa Clara. According to Waze, there were a couple of options for ways (haha, see what I did there?!) we could go, but instead of taking the quicker route around the Oakland-side of the bay, M chimed in that he wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Then he promptly fell asleep.

And couldn't be roused when we actually crossed the bridge. *sigh*

So, we crawled our way through San Francisco in late-Saturday-afternoon traffic on Highway 1 for naught. Ugh! Torture for the driver, not so bad for the nappers. 

Get to the Point

Of the 28 NPS units in the state of California, we have visited 26 of them. Today we checked Point Reyes National Seashore off our list, leaving only Redwood National Park and Castle Mountains National Monument to go.

College Shopping

M is now in his junior year of high school, so over the past year we have been exploring various colleges just to give him an idea of what each campus is like. Of course, the standard was set with the first one we visited - the University of Illinois! We have also taken tours of UCLA, UC Irvine, and Cal Poly. Since the boys had a four-day weekend for Easter, we left right after school on Thursday for the 5.5-hour drive up to Berkeley.

All Aboard!

Riding the rails in 2009

In talking with our friends, we figured out why the airfares leaving Portland were so much more expensive: schools in Oregon start their spring break this weekend. That's probably also why our train fares were less expensive departing on Thursday as opposed to Friday.

To get home, we took Amtrak's Coast Starlight, which runs between Seattle and Los Angeles with an overnight on the train. In 2009, we took the California Zephyr from Sacramento to Chicago, spending two nights on board, and the boys still rank that vacation as one of our best trips. So, they were very enthusiastic about taking the train from Portland on the condition that we get full-size berths and a private bathroom in the sleepers. (On the California Zephyr, we had a family room with smaller child berths and a shared bathroom down the hall.)

They barely fit back then!

Keep Portland Weird

Today was our last day in Portland. After breakfast this morning, we decided to walk over to Powell's City of Books. This bookstore is enormous - it takes up several floors on a whole city block!

Books galore!

Wonderful Waterfalls

As I was looking into things to do during our short time in Portland, a segway tour of the city sounded it could be really fun. But a segway tour of Portland in the cold and rain?

Not so much.

So, we moved on to Plan B for today: driving the scenic Historic Columbia River Highway. 

Change of Pace

This trip has been a departure from how we typically travel on vacation. That is to say, I didn't do as much planning ahead of time, and we have not constantly been on the move. Other than a lunch date at 1:00PM and a basketball game tonight, we had nothing else on our agenda for today. So, after finishing breakfast (the free hotel breakfast was actually served at the Denny's across the parking lot), we decided to check out the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville.

C Is For...

Cold coast.

After we checked out of our hotel, we headed over to Fort Stevens State Park to see the wreck of the "Peter Iredale," a cargo ship which ran aground in 1906. It was super windy and cold this morning so we didn't stay very long!

Hey, You Guys!

We were blessed with another day of sunshine today, so we decided to head down the coast this morning. First we stopped in Seaside to see the Salt Works. In order to make salt for their return journey, the Corps of Discovery boiled seawater here over a furnace, 24 hours a day, extracting about 3.5 bushels (or 28 gallons) of "excellent, fine, strong & white" salt.

Seaside, OR

Rain or Shine

When I asked the family where they wanted to go next, J immediately said, "Portland."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Nike and Adidas are there. And there are a lot of food places that look good."

Fair enough.  So, when I found a cheap one-way airfare ($59) from LAX to PDX for spring break, we were set. But since the return flight was $340 (ouch!), we will be getting home another way. More on that later...

All-State Weekend

Do you know the way to San Jose?

We do, but a huge storm dumped several inches of rain throughout Southern California on Friday, flooding roads, creating sinkholes, and causing mudslides which had closed lanes on both of the freeways (US-101 and I-5) that we could take to San Jose. The three of us left just after 6:00AM on Saturday morning and decided to head up the 101, only running into scattered rain on the way.

Only three? M didn't come with us because he had flown to San Jose on Thursday to participate in the All-State Honor Band - thus the reason for our weekend road trip...