 | We drove the miata to Tucson for Thanksgiving by way of Zion National Park. Actually, there was an intermediate overnight in Wells, Nevada that we both would prefer to forget. A motel we should have cancelled (I left my socks on) and no place to eat dinner. Aargh! But Zion was fabulous, we stayed in the lodge in a suite. I really wanted to dive into that gorgeous bed with the bamboo sheets!
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| The red canyon walls were so amazing. We went for a walk around our end of the canyon and just kept staring. So red, so gorgeous against the blue sky. |  |
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We should have taken more pictures, but it was like seeing close-up whales on the island -- you just want to be in the moment and not lose any of it with a camera! But was so beautiful that when we diverted to go through Sedona on our way to Tucson the next day, we weren't impressed. |
| We had a great time in sunny, warm Tucson. We celebrated our 37th anniversary on the 20th with Peter and Meredith and some adorable friends of theirs, then we had Thanksgiving dinner at Marcia and Dick's. Gorgeous house and beautiful garden, all in bloom. We watched a lot of sunsets from Peter and Meredith's deck. |  |
 | On our way back, we both visited Death Valley for the first time. We stayed at the Furnace Creek Inn resort, which wasn't nearly as cool as the lodge at Zion. Well, it was way cool on the outside, but the room was not a 4 star room. And the toilet made noises all night. |
| But we had a great time exploring around the valley. Hawk made us go to the lowest point in the U.S. (of course). Here he is showing me the salt that was everywhere down there. |  |
 | And that little white thing you can see in the cliff above me and my miata is a sign showing where sea level is. |
| We went on a 10-mile drive in a canyon that was full of amazing colored rock slides. |  |
 | We couldn't believe all the colors. Then we went to watch the sunset at Zabrieski Point, a famous overlook. Luckily, we were almost the only ones there. We had these truy delicious cactus margaritas and a pretty good dinner in the restaurant. We left for Gilroy the next morning. |
| We hung out with Bill and Matilda for a few days, then we had dinner in Santa Cruz with Ray and Jenny and Mimi and Dirk and spent the weekend with Jim and Jonee. We stopped at Santa Cruz harbor to get fresh crab from Frankie (still there) and saw this amazing metal work on the gates of a guest house by the harbor. |  |
| We also stopped at an abalone farm in Davenport and got info about raising them. Permits are first!!! But we might be able to do a small scale operation in Hawk's cove with a cage... | We left Santa Cruz for Mendocino and a night with Bill and Sandra. First time ever at their house, which is truly magnificient on the coast with a view of Mendocino. We had great food and a wonderful time. We left at 6 the next morning driving north on highway 1. That was the day they had huge rains and winds that closed I-5 at Chehallis, which we discovered about 2 hours south of that. We diverted east toward Yakima to get around the flood and ended up spending the night at Hood River in the very cool Columbia Gorge Hotel. Really really good, and we found it by accident. We had dessert and Meredith-mix in front of their fire, great after a very long day driving in conditions we don't like to be in, especially in the miata. |
| So good to be home after almost three weeks! We got our gorgeous noble fir up and decorated, and finished our shooting stars outside this afternoon. We really like them! |  |
 | And here's how it looks when it's really dark. So Cool. |