August 1, Friday - Newport Beach, California (near L.A.)
Betsi and I dipped our toes into the chilly Pacific Ocean in Newport Beach before the wedding later that evening. 
Chronic Tacos at Newport Beach served excellent, made to order burritos. We have the GPS to thank for finding a nearby Mexican food restaurant for lunch. Once we saw it was a hole in the wall with a line out the door, we knew great food was minutes away. 
Our reason for going to California for a long weekend was to see Michelle and Carter get married. It was a beautiful ceremony on a three level, glass boat that cruised up and down the harbor at sunset. Ashton stole the show a few times as ringer bearer. 
Ashton looked great is a replica of Carter's uniform. Carter and Michelle share their first dance as husband and wife. 
Carter and Betsi posed on the stern of the Destiny before Michelle arrived. Betsi and her Dad joked on the bow. August 2, Saturday - Rancho Mirage, California (near Palm Springs)After breakfast at the hotel, we said our goodbyes to family members from the wedding to drive two hours east toward Palm Springs. The Ford Mustang rental car surprised me when the gas gauge suddenly showed empty. We only drove two hours and I was surprised the tank was empty so soon. I was also surprised that I could only add 8 gallons to the tank. The car didn't have an owners manual, so we couldn't look up the capacity on the road. As we discovered later, the gas gauge would instantly drop from half to empty. We were excited about reaching our destination at Todd and Meg's house. Todd and their daughter, Lauren, were out of town for Lauren's tennis tournament. Jeff was able to meet some of Betsi's side of the family for the first time. 
Betsi's cousins and most of their families in Rancho Mirage at Meg's house. Back row (left to right): Fred and Day. Middle row of adults (left to right): Meg M., Nancy, Judy, Courtney W., Amy B. and Betsi. Middle row of kids (left to right): William B., Ellery B., Alexandra B. and Ryan M. Front row (left to right): Madeline W. and Caroline W.       
I took 12 successive shots of Alexandra (7 shown) and played them back on the camera. With the jog dial on the Canon 5D, I was able to scroll through all of the photos in one second to make a mini movie. The next segment of our trip involved driving 6 hours to Morro Bay to see Wally, Jonathan, Sharon, Mark and Michelle at a vacation rental home on the coast. We talked to Mark and Michelle the weekend before about making the trip and agreed to keep it a surprise for Wally, Jonathan and Sharon. The plan was to arrive between 10:00 and 11:00pm. Driving to Morro Bay was an adventure. We had the address of the rental house and our GPS. Meg had great suggestions about ignoring what our GPS said. One road was completely built, but GPS's still showed it under construction. Also, GPS's love to go right through L.A and add 3 hours to any trip instead of going around L.A. Google Maps projected a 6 hour drive, so we left around 4:00pm. With 107 degree temps, the roof of the convertible stayed up and the air conditioner was turned on. The rental car showed the same gas gauge problem again by going from half a tank to empty. When we tried to fill-er-up, the pump kept shutting off every 1/10 of a gallon. It took forever to add 8 gallons to the tank. Grrr. It was now cooler, so we retracted the roof and enjoyed the wind in our hair. The GPS insisted we go through L.A. instead of around it. It constantly wanted u-turns or back tracking on the next exit. Luckily there was a mute switch. Unfortunately, we weren't paying attention to it either and the highway divided without much warning. A quick back track on the next exit solved that, so we couldn't totally ignore the GPS. The story gets better. View Larger Map We traveled north on Interstate 5 instead of traveling through the congested L.A. and Santa Barbara highways to reach the Pacific Coast Highway. What a surreal experience after sunset driving through farm country. We past several manure trucks that carried organic fertilizer. They smelled funny. We also had to clean our windshield every time we passed one. Yeah. Fun. There also isn't much traffic at night. Scary. The story gets better. It's now 9:00pm. It's dark. The air is getting cool with the open roof. We ate sandwiches in the car. The gas gauge died three times, so we stopped for gas three times to refuel. We are getting a little panicked about trying to find a way toward the Pacific Coast Highway since the GPS said there really wasn't one. We get off the exit and travel for tens of miles with only seeing a car or two. We now sat at the beginning of another road stating the top speed is 35mph through mountainous terrain and the next service facility (singular, not plural) was 70 miles away. All we could think about was the movie, The Hitcher, where a serial murderer poses as a hitch hiker along a barren stretch of road. We called it quits and called Mark and Michelle on the cell phone stating we were several hours away and getting a hotel for the night. They told everyone what our plan was and Jonathan, who lives in San Francisco, said we were trying to go West too soon. If we continued north and then due west, the roads were flat and straight. He was right. A long two hours later, we pulled up to the house around 11:30pm. We talked for an hour and then crashed hard on the couches. All was good by morning. August 3, Sunday - Morro Bay, California
The kids were still on Eastern Standard Time and woke up early. They were quiet as Mark and Michelle bundled up for 55 degree weather for a walk on the beach with the kids. After everyone was coming to life around 9:00am, Remy practiced putting in pony tails. Betsi's hair was pulled a little too hard. 
Remy (left) and Quincy (right) take a short break from playing on the couch. 
Michelle kept the kids's attention during story time after breakfast. 
Remy digs for gold while Mark reads one of the Dora the Explorer books. Betsi, Wally, Sharon and Jonathan look at some photos of Ryan and Ainsley on the laptop from TheFuhrmans.com. 
Jonathan, Wally and Mark on the beach with Morro Rock in the background. We left around 4:00pm for our drive to LAX for a 10:30pm red eye flight back home. This was our first west coast to east coast red eye flight and it wasn't that bad. Five hours of sleep is less than ideal, but we didn't have much of a jet lag effect. It beats an all day flight and loosing 3 hours because of the time zone change. See more photos. August 10, Sunday - Nags Head, North Carolina, Mile Post 16.5
August 11, Monday
Everyone enjoyed good waves as the tide came in. August 12, Tuesday
Ainsley chips out of the bunker at the Promenade chip and putt on mile post 1/4. After golf and lunch, we headed back to the beach where non-stinging jellyfish appeared in the water. Some guys next to us fished one out of the water with his kids' bucket. August 13, Wednesday
The day was mostly cool and breezy with occasional drizzle. Most of the beach goers headed for the outlet malls. We kept a low key at the beach house. August 14, Thursday
It's just a matter of time before these houses fall into the ocean during a hurricane. 
A race down the sand dune at Jockey's Ridge in Kill Devil Hills was easy. The return trip up the dune took much longer. The wind was barely strong enough for flying kites, but we managed to get a few off of the ground. 
The waves were unusually rough. They were about six feet tall and carved a shelf in the beach sand. The waves rushed over the shelf and reached within 10 feet of the sand dune over night. August 15, Friday
A full moon on our last night and the moon's reflection on the ocean. See more photos. August 19, Tuesday
Roll your mouse over the image to compare. I got excited when I saw a large, yellow moon over the tree line and grabbed the camera. What looks big in real life is tiny in the camera's viewfinder. The above image has been cropped and only 0.3% of the remaining pixels are shown above. The position of the moon is different than the January 15 photos. These moon shots didn't come out as well as I had hoped. They're blurry because I couldn't get the camera to stop shaking on the tripod. I locked the camera and lens on the tripod, the center pole of the tripod was all of the way down, the lens image stabilization was turned off, the mirror lock-up feature was turned on, the lens was set to manual focus, and I used a shutter delay. Unfortunately, I can't control the length of the shutter delay like I could on my old Nikon D70. I needed a 3 second delay after the shutter was pressed, but the default is two. Like I've said in the digital camera section: there is no such thing as a perfect camera. I suspect a cable release would have solved my problems, but that is an additional cost and an extra thing to carry. August 21, Thursday
August 27, Wednesday
We watched the Washington Nationals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-4. Betsi sees a coworker, Kim, in the stands. We sat on the right field line above the Nats bull pen with Nancy and Fred. 
Some highlights of the game include the Dodgers stopping a run to home and the home run ball landing on the grass covered roof. See more photos. August 29, Friday
August 30, Saturday
Guitar Hero, Legends of Rock for the Wii brings out the other side of Ainsley and the impersonation of Slash from Guns-N-Roses. Watch the video (0:24, 1.79MB). August 31, Sunday - Annapolis, Maryland
We joined a 2.5 hour walking tour through Annapolis, MD. It's a photographer's paradise. If this was a photo excursion, I could have taken a thousand photos of the tourists or a thousand photos of the houses and buildings. The walking tour was quite informative, but there isn't time to look for the best angle, add family members, and take a shot. It's pretty much take the same photo everyone else is taking. That's limiting and I only took about 100 photos instead of the typical 500 photos. I like the photos I did get, but there are so many more that were left behind. We'll just have to go back. See more photos. View Larger Map 
Our neighborhood has a Labor Day barbeque on the cul-de-sac and each year the kids participate in the pie eating contest. Ainsley dove right in. |
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