Friday, February 1, 2013

Day 5- Fresno, CA to Redwood City, CA!

Even though we didn't get up as early as we had been, I was tired this morning.  my sleep was constantly broken through the night because of all of the water and tea from the day....:-(.  We ate break and headed out on our Day 5 adventure- Redwood City, California.  Scootard was still sleeping while eating his breakfast....


and then my road buddy and myself continued on down the road to face the day together...:-).


We were a little disappointed with breakfast though and I thought to myself that we should have tried this place since it was right next door.


Anyway, it was time to hit the super slab again and get on down the road to our next destination....
I was getting pretty excited....:-).  It was supposed to be a 3 hour trip from Fresno to Redwood City....



I was amazed at the orange trees and lemon or grapefruit trees that were in peoples yards just dropping fruit everywhere.  California is a very rich state....which happens to be almost bankrupt today.....how can that be???

 

Our breakfast was unsatisfactory, so we dug into our dates that we picked up at our last location...
the orange things in the package turned out to be apricots.  Yeah,  don't do it!  They were so sour that I let out a scream and my eyes crossed!!  hahaha


gotta love those velvet hills.......ahhhhh...



we saw a sign that said "B.F Sisk Dam" and decided to stop there for a bit.  We had not gotten very far at all and were already distracted....But that's what we love about our trips.  We may have a destination (or not) and no specific time to get there.....:-).

  

there was a memorial set up for these two men who died here doing some diving for the state.......


Here are some other shots of the area.  I loved it here.  But then I love being by the water and mountains.......:-).



Scootard was off to the adventure inside.....I was dragging along because I wanted to stay outside....


More pictures of the great out doors around the Sisk Dam.....



When we got inside, the building wasn't that large, but they had some interesting things inside.  Scootard was drawn to this huge burger...:-).  There was a sign on the wall telling how much water it took to make each part of the burger.  It takes huge amounts of water just to do every day things that we never think of.



I went back outside.....:-).


we were either surrounded by velvet hills.........


or beautiful water......


ok...  we haven't made much progress.  time to hit the super slab again!



and what do you know, that we come across this "place" that was called "Casa de"........ Well everything!  You'll see what I mean in a minute.......



they had all kinds of trees.  this is an olive tree......black olives...



Scootard decided to pick a couple for us to eat.   BIG MISTAKE!!  They were soooooo bitter that we spat all the way to the front door of the place and asked the lady to give us something to wash our mouths out with....hahaha.  She had never tasted them because she had been told that they were very bitter.  We on the other hand never got that memo!  YUCK!



the inside of this particular building was called "Casa De Fruite"



they had all kinds of stuff inside......a little something for everyone....:-)



something for the ladies, although a little to "girly" for my taste.......:-)



this hallway was called "Casa De History" and had pictures of the holders of the property and the history of the business; which was all family owned and operated for the past 100 years.

  

 more pics of the inside of the store......


one of the other buildings featured wine that they grew on their own premises along with other things like dishes, plates, and other decorations for the window like stained glass, etc....



they even had a building that specialized in candies and sweets.  We didn't go in there!  haha



this building is the restaurant....or better known as "Casa De Restaurant".....ha.

seriously....see the sign?


this is a shot of the side of the building.....and Scootard taking a shot of......"me"....(I'm shaking my head)....haha


and this throw rug greeted us when we walked in......



We met a guy named "Rob" that talked to us quite some time about the history of the place.  He was a "tech guy" for the business and was very knowledgeable about the owners and how things came to be. They talked...and talked.....and talked.....and I was ready to order my food!


While I waited for them to finish...I decided to see if there was a WiFi signal.  And guess what?  They even had a name for that!  Yep.  That's right folks....Casa De Coffee....hahaha
but, alas!  It was locked and I couldn't check my mail.


Well, I survived that and we finally ordered our food.  Scootard was taking pictures for his blog..:-).



When we finished eating, we took a quick (not really) walk around the place to see what else was there....


There was all manner of machinery sitting around that had been artistically placed to reflect (I guess) the past 100 years of work done on the grounds....Scootard wasn't really working as hard as it may appear....ha.


There was all kinds of honey.  Mixtures that would have never crossed my mind, like honey with Rosemary, or honey with ginger and things like that.  Very cool, indeed.  But I didn't buy any.

 

there were also vintage cars and trucks that littered the property as well.....



I thought this thing was very cool too......:-).



uh oh......haha....What is he doing in there??


and they had the biggest jelly bean I had ever seen in my life!



And at the corner of this building there was this big sluice thingee...that they called....(wait for it)....
Casa De Sluice" and if you wanted to you could go and buy some dirt and pan for gold.....


                                  

The idea of "buying dirt" didn't make sense to me.  Especially since the holes in the bottom of the pan where the size of a kitchen collandar...I decided to see about the dirt that was already there...ha



but I left without any gold....:-(.  Oh well.  Hey!  there's a train thingee.....and there is Scootard inside.....:-).



my turn....:-).



the grounds were quite large....this was one of my favorite spots, though....


and I made friends with a duck that I named "Chuck the duck"....:-).  I think he was expecting some food from me, but I didn't have anything to give him.....:-(.



So, he headed back toward the water....:-(.  User!!.....



he went to meet up with his friends...who seemed to be getting food from people across the way from us.....



hey looky there!  yeah, it was closed.....:-(



There is Scootard again...."Choo Choo"!



ok, so we're not making much progress in regard to our destination.  So, we decided it was time to go.  But then we spotted these!  And Scootard starting making these wierd sounds and got their attention.....


and this one started coming right at me!  I thought this might be a good time to depart...haha...



But I wanted to take this last shot before we headed for the car...



We met the lady that had just been hired to oversee human resources and she was kind enough to offer to take our picture.



So, there we were on the super slab once again. Geeze, we spend a lot of time in that car...



We FINALLY got to our hotel in Redwood City, Ca and realized that we could not pull through the parking space like we had been able to do in other places.  So, Scootard got the idea to secure the trailer to this ....whatever this thing is so that we didn't have to drag it everywhere we went.

  

After we got checked in, Scootard went out side and took a picture of me taking a picture of him!  hahaha.....too funny...:-).



The hall way was kinda cool.  It has these huge planter boxes with trees growing out of them in the center.  I have only seen something like this in Vegas...



Well, now it was dark and time to find dinner somewhere.  We set out for a Persian restaurant, but couldn't seem to locate it.  But we did find this along the way and decided to give it a whirl...



Scootard was trying to find a signal, but there was none to be found....


and here is dinner....


fried chicken, masked potatoes, and collard greens with a jalapeno cornbread muffin thingee


Scootard had crawfish bisque ........


and some fried oysters......



and since it wasn't that crowded, I decide to try to take a shot of things......


here is desert.  I didn't have any as I was too stuff to eat it.  Scootard did just fine.....:-).



the food was excellent and I hope that if you are ever in the area you will go and check them out.


here is a shot from outside as we were leaving......


We got back to the room and I spread out on the bed all of the information that a parking security guard gave us in our travels about San Fransico and the Bay Area.  It's time for our Big City Adventure- San Francisco which we have been planning for 2 years now.



See ya in the Big City!!