California Summer of 2009 trip

My husband, Tim and I went out to California this summer to visit our son, Jeff. We flew into LAX, he lives in Santa Monica. It was great seeing him and where he lived (I have never been any further west than the Florida Panhandle!) Also saw where he worked (Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne)
It was a whirlwind trip...so much to see and so little time to see it in!


After a couple days with Jeff, we rented a car and drove up the middle of California and Oregon to Portland. Here is where Tim's sister, Mary lives. She showed us around to the beautiful falls and wonderful art museum. Had a great weekend with her, filled to the brim with activities.







So then we head back to Santa Monica via the coast line, stopping along the way to view the ocean. And the way we walked (and drove) through the amazing Redwood Forest....
awesome!





Then we went over the Golden Gate bridge, stop in San Francisco and took a boat ride under

the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz.
Next we ran into a place that had a geyser in Napa Valley, way cool to see that go off.








After that we ran into an old mission, St. Miguel's Mission...felt very spiritual.









We made it back to Santa Monica and Jeff took us around to the local beaches, Venice Beach had some beautiful graffiti artwork.

We did the Hollywood Walk of Fame, then in the evening one night the three of us went to the Comedy Store and laughed the night away as we saw 16 comedians perform!
We went to his school, USC, where he's going for his Masters.
We also went to JP Getty Museum.

Those 10 days on the west coast were jamb packed and we loved every minute of it!
We took a ton of pictures, and have uploaded a few as you can see :-)