Ten Years And Counting...

Ten years ago, August 31st, 2008, just retired, we embarked on our present journeys, leaving Missoula, stopping in San Francisco just long enough to re-group and say good-bye, and then winging west to Tokyo and then Beijing. Most of it is recounted in my original blog post, http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2008/09/en-route.html. We celebrated our ten years last night with a nice steak dinner and a movie...and a little champagne and Obidos liqueur. Interestingly, and coincidentally, we are in the Tetons, enjoying a few days of R&R en route to Missoula. Grand Teton National Park was our first love and still favorite among the great national parks. We found it in 1970 on our first cross-country road trip--we already had the travel bug--and have returned more times than we can count.

Eventually, I suppose, we'll stop traveling. But not in the foreseeable future. We're still having too much fun.

A room in our Missoula apartment, just hours before departure...all to be put in
storage, given away, trashed...

Sleeping arrangements the last few nights in Missoula, after our bedroom
furniture had gone into storage...

Final packing at Rebecca's

First picture of us together, embarked, retired, at the
Forbidden City

My first artsy blog post

The counter on our website attests to all this...

Celebrating ten years...we thought we'd compile a list of the 100 best sites and
experiences of the ten years...but we reached a hundred well before even the
first year was over...maybe we'll do a list of 1,000...later

Pinecrest, 2018

For the last week or so of the summer, we had planned on taking Penelope camping in Yosemite, with five nights in the Valley and three more at Tuolomne Meadows. Alas, big wildfires were encroaching and then burning in the Park, and eventually the Valley itself was closed. We drove instead to Pinecrest, in the Stanislaus NF, north of Yosemite but the same geo- and bio-system, a place we'd visited before, and spent seven pleasant days and nights there with our grand-daughter. In retrospect, Pinecrest was probably a much better choice anyway, much more kid-oriented, with a lake, swimming beach, boat rentals, fishing, big general store, and even a small lending library. Penelope enjoyed it and probably will want to return.

Just beyond Escalon, Le Sport's alternator went out; we drove back into town
and found the Main Street Garage, where owner Mike worked after hours to
get us repaired and back on the road; only in a small town...; above, an apparent
Art Deco church in town

P enjoying one of Grandma's home-made healthy popsicles

When we arrived at Pinecrest, smoke from the O'Donnell Fire thirty miles up
the road to the Sonora Pass, had invaded Pinecrest Lake; we retreated to the
camper to reconsider, research other options, reconsider some more...

By early afternoon, the smoke had blown off and stayed well away the whole
week we were there

Our campsite

P at the beach with new-found friends

Fortunately, our site had a natural stage; P needs to dance...

Fishing with Grandpa

Fishing can be very slow...

But still a fun experience

Between visits to the beach

Neat place

Among the big trees

Breakfast scene

Later, fooling around with Grandpa at Nordstrom's; photo
by Penelope

At a yakatori restaurant in Los Altos--her choice--
celebrating her first day of second grade

SFMOMA

We lingered just a bit at the SFMOMA--P likes the sculpture garden stuff--and I took a few moore pix.

Didn't we see this at the Guggenheim in Bilbao? And at Crystal Bridges in
Arkansas? Spider Woman: Louise Bourgeois

Didn't get the title or author for this, but it definitely belongs
here

Outside: Deco and Deco Echo everywhere: love this city

Posing with the sculpture; she has taken to calling herself
Penny in certain circumstances

Street scene

In the sculpture garden, with its humongous fern wall

One of the museum's first acquisitions, Frida's selfie with
husband Diego...1931...priceless...

And Diego's 1935 The Flower Carrier...gung ho in its original Chinese sense

Dali's Unsatisfied Desires, 1928

Work in progress

Jeff Koons, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1992; I know I saw this
in Bilbao

Magritte At The SFMOMA

Another day we drove up to The City to seen the extensive Magritte exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A great day, great museum, great exhibition, great 20th century Belgian painter...

Hegel's Vacation, 1958

The Cripple, 1948

The Human Condition, 1933

The Cut Glass Bath, 1946; Homage a Dali might also work

"It continues not to be a pipe": the original in the "this is not a pipe" series,
perhaps Magritte's most famous, was sadly missing from the exhibition

The Son of Man, 1964

The End of the World, 1963

High Society, 1966

The Enchanted Domain, 1953; one of a big series

Big exhibition, several rooms, scores of works

A Sense of Reality, 1963

The Kiss, 1951

And, of course, some digitally-enhanced Magritte fooling
around at the end of the exhibition; Penelope and Rebecca