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Big Trip â€“ Day 3 â€“ Yosemite National Park

May 3rd, 2007

Placerville KOA, Shingle Springs, CA. Tachometer â€“ 395 miles

It was a cold night but our heater did a good job and none of us froze. Ron had to pee in the middle of the night but other than that it was quiet. No bears came around either. We got up to a nice and sunny day.

After getting ourselves together we set off for a hike to Mirror Lake. The great part was that the hike starts from our campground. It is an easy 2.5 mile back and forth along a paved road, so we took the double stroller with us. Ten minutes into the trail we spotted a group of deer (â€œbambisâ€ in kiddie language) and of course everyone was ecstatic. The trail is beautiful. We walked along Tenaya creek, upstream, surrounded by tall pine trees and an occasional redwood. There was a fresh, just rained here, smell to the forest. Mirror lake is seasonal, which means it will dry up soon. When we got there, the kids had fun running around trying to chase birds, climbing on rocks and trees and trying to get to the water before we catch them.

On the way back Shir and Orr fell asleep in the stroller. When we got back to the RV, it was warming up so I stayed outside with them while Paola prepared a tasty lunch for us. We had lunch on the picnic table at the campground for the first time. So much easier for cleanup than inside the RV!

Later we debated staying another night at Yosemite or pushing on to our next destinations. Since some of the park is still closed due to winter conditions, we felt it would be wiser to get ahead with our long drive. On the way out of the park, we did drive to Hetch Hetchy though, but were turned back by the ranger because ourRV is over the 8 feet maximum width limit. We spent most of the late afternoon driving along route 49 at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. We are now camping not too far from Sacramento. Our plan is to cross Nevada as fast as possible to get to Utahâ€™s canyon parks. There is one park in Nevada that we hope to see along the way, but we have another 500 miles to go before we get there.

Going to bed now, a lot of driving tomorrowâ€¦

Hemi

PS – pictures will come soon, once we have a fast Internet connection

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Big Trip â€“ Day 2 â€“ Yosemite National Park

May 3rd, 2007

Yosemite Valley – Upper Pines Campground, Site 35 â€“ Tachometer 245 miles

We woke up to a cloudy day that promised to be cooler and wetter than we would like. After getting ourselves organized we set off from the campground to Yosemite, about an hour drive. It started to rain as we left, and rained on and off for most of the day. We did the Yosemite valley loop several times stopping at interesting viewpoints along the way, praying for a break in the rain. The most we managed was 10 minutes at Bridalvail Falls. In the afternoon we headed to Discovery Viewpoint and played with the kids in the RV. We then prepared supper as I set my camera on a tripod outside to try and catch some good light. The pictures came out nice but the clouds are hiding halfdome.

We drove to our campground for tonight which is in Yosemite Valley. Shir and Orr fell asleep before we even got here. As usual in national parks, no hookups. We hope the battery will last the whole night heating the RVâ€¦

Sweet dreams

Hemi

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Big Trip – Day 1 – Here We Go…

May 1st, 2007

Yosemite Pines RV Park, tachometer – 192 miles.

Today finally arrived! The moment most people dream of, is happening to us. We are at the end of our first day of our Big Trip, which will last until early next year. Paola and I still can’t believe we are doing this.

The last 2 weeks have been very hectic for us. We had to pack up our house for storage, prepare stuff for our North America RV tour, prepare additional stuff for the rest of our vacation afterwards, and prepare stuff that will go with us to Israel when we end our world tour. Tonight, all those worries are behind us, and we are settling in to our home for the next 3 and a half months.

On Friday the movers came and emptied our house, or so we thought. The amount of junk we still had to either pack, donate, or throw out was immense. If anything, moving is an exercise in cleaning out all the stuff you don’t really need.Â It took us most of the weekend to tidy up. Yesterday (Monday morning) Ron had a farewell at his preschool and then Paola and I went to pick up our RV.

Our RV is a newer model than what we had last month during our Pesach Trip, and there are some minor changes compared to the older one. Some are for the better, some are a little disadvantageous for our 3 tots configuration. Since we had the luxury of loading the RV from our house, we have about 3 times more stuff on this vehicle than we did last month. It took us 4 hours to load, and ever since yesterday we are working on fitting everything into the cupboards, closets and other nooks and crannies in the RV.

On Sunday and Monday night we stayed with Gal and Adi, as we no longer had enough furniture at home. It was fun for Ron to have a sleepover with his friend Roy. Although Roy is 2.5 years older, they got along very well and looked very cute sleeping together on a huge inflatable bed. LastÂ night Dan and Yael also came over to say goodbye and we had a long evening of laughs.

Benny really helped us out over the weekend, serving as primary entertainment for the kids, while Paola and I were packing up. Thanks Bro!

This morning we loaded the last of our stuff onto the RV, ran some final errands and by noon were on our way. Our first stop is Yosemite National Park. We are now 22 miles west of the park in an RV campground that has full hookup. This means that we are connected to running water, sewage, and electricity. Unfortunately, these luxuries do not exist at the campgrounds within the National Parks (monopoly by NPS?) . So everywhere you go there is always the dilema of living in comfort or living where the action is.

That’s it for now, I am pooped after several weeks of poor sleep. Time to hit the sack…

Hemi

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Chongqing

April 30th, 2007

Hi dear children
We continue to have fun thru hard leg work.
Yesterday we visited the muslim quarter in Xian and their Minaret, which is totally different from the ones we know, it is more like a pagoda.
They have inscripts in arabic but the letters are caligraphed in chinese style. The muslim quarter has an endless market with all kind of pichevkes. I bought a bike “paamon” and a compass for pennies. We then went to a closeby Mall, with prices competing with “Kikar Hamdina”. We bought Chinese children books with chinese, english and phonetic spelling.
Then we had a dinner in a (chinese, how not) restaurant/theater, buffet style, including sushi and dumplings. So far we haven’t been using much of the food we brought for mom because she gets reasonable vegetarian food.
Next, an hour flight to Chongqing, the beginning of the southern part of china. It’s a city of more then 30 million poeple, on the banks of the Yangtse river. On the outskirts we saw very primitive living of the very basic agriculture and then next a city of thousands of skyscrapers Beijing style. We strolled the banks of the river, danced on a square with thousands of chinese people and now Mom is probably deep in …

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Greetings from China

April 29th, 2007

It’s our 4th day in China. The first 2.5 days we spent in Beijing which is stepping on the footsteps of Shanghai: A fast growing modern City with a lot of sky scrapers, highways, bridges, traffic jams and not so much bycicles. The old quarters are being wiped out, every bit of material (like bricks, iron etc.) are being recycled and new apartment hirisers are placed instead in short time. Our guide, Yehuda Shafrir, is himself surprised of the pace. We saw the New Olympic stadium in the last stages of building (from the highway) and it seems amazing, apart of the technological wonders according to Yehuda. We visited all the important sites like the summer palace, Tien an men square, the forbidden city and climbed the “Givat hapecham”. Mom climbed it very well to my big surprise. Maybe our morning walks contributed to that. Before leaving the Capital we went to the Great wall. It’s a steep piece of the wall and mom again did very well strolling up more than 200 steps. I continued another few hundred to reach a pagoda at the top point.
Yesterday we flew to Xian (where I am writing from), about 1.5 hours flight south west of Beijing. It’s the ancient capital of China. Today we visited the Terracota soldiers site, which is amazing when you hear the story and see the excavations and the huge amount of soldier figures natural size. Then we visited a terracote figurines factory (these are commercially being sold on every corner) and a Jade “factory” where we saw beautiful art works made of that stone. Mom bought earing, to complete her “sharsheret”.
This evening we had a dumplings festival in a restaurant in the city. we had about 10 different dumplings (mom eats vegeterian only and is sitting at a vegeterian table together with a few other tzadikim) and it was delightful. tomorrow a flight to chongching, after visiting here the muslim quarter and a mosque.
Please forward this message to Sarit, Benny and whoever you want. I cannot reach my contact list because of a computer problem here.
I also can not read the inbox letters. I hope further down the trip the computer conditions will improve.
Wish you a Succesfull start of your big American Tour.
Kiss the kids for us
Dad

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Greetings from china test

April 29th, 2007

Hi there
I am in Xian and the computer is a chinese one with chinese characters.
I am trying to send this message. If OK the next follows.
Dad

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Ch ch changes…

April 28th, 2007

Foster City, CA

As some of you already know, we have decided to take a year off and do some serious traveling. We are fortunate enough to be able to leave everything in limbo for the time being, deferring big decisions like where to live, what to do, etc… to next year. Our children are young enough to not really miss any schooling, and hopefully old enough to enjoy this great adventure. We packed up our house yesterday and it is now sitting in 4 large storage boxes in a warehouse. On Monday we are renting an RV, and early Tuesday morning setting out for a long, exciting journey across western US and Canada. We’ll be back in the bay area midsummer for a few days before taking off for the next leg of travel. I still can’t believe this is happening, but I’m sure we’ll get used to the gypsy lifestyle rather quickly. We plan to post blogs and photos regularly. Feel free to comment, email or call with questions, suggestions, and other mixed fruit.

Hemi (The Traveling Weingartens)

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Coast Trail Hike

April 24th, 2007

Tzach and I got up real early (3:30am) and drove to Point Reyes to hike a section of the California coastline known as The Coastal Trail. It is a beautiful 16 mile hike that winds along the cliffs and beaches between Point Reyes park and Bolinas.Â The weather was just perfect for hiking; we were lucky to get a beautiful sunny day in this usually foggy part of California. My highlight was Almere falls, aÂ 30 meter waterfall straight onto the beach. You can see some pictures by clicking here.