The Silent "I"

Argentina: Sheraton Hotel in Iguazu Falls

January 30, 2004

After an exhausting overnight flight, we finally arrived in Iguazu Falls in Argentina and checked into our hotel, the Sheraton Iguazu Resort & Spa. In order to get to the hotel, you have to enter the Argentine Iguazu Falls National Park and pay an entry fee. We booked our room four months in advance, but even so, were not able to get a room with a view of the falls, and had to settle for a "jungle view" instead.  From what I'd seen of the jungle flying in, that would be just fine.

We pulled up to the hotel, which from the outside looked like some kind of inverted cruise ship or space craft.  The building is a set of tiered balconies, so that every room has it's own balcony view of either the falls or the jungle. The main floor of the hotel features large windows so you can see the falls off in the distance.

We were completely exhausted, sweaty, and crabby from traveling so far on so little sleep. It was 5 pm, and the restaurant didn't open until 7, so we checked into the room, cleaned up a bit, and watched some Spanish language cartoons.  It was all I could do to keep my eyes open, but I knew if I went to sleep when we arrived, I'd be up at 3 am with nothing to do.  We walked around the broad lawns in the back of hotel and had a wonderful view of the falls. Somehow, I managed to stay awake until dinner time, even though one of the comfortable lounge chairs called my name repeatedly.

Argentina: Iguazu Falls or Bust

This is a retrospective series on our trip to South America in 2004. In this episode, we spend a restless night traveling, and finally make it to Iguazu Falls, Argentina.

January 29-30, 2004

On the first leg of our southbound journey, we boarded an American Airlines plane in San Jose for a non-stop flight to Dallas, Texas.  American had only recently added a Dallas to Buenos Aires flight, and we took advantage of that convenient route.  Our San Jose flight was delayed forty-five minutes on the runway when someone noticed a "smokey smell" in the cabin, which caused maintenance crew to come out to inspect.  Being plagued by unknown noxious fumes doesn't bode well for the start of a trip. Fortunately, they didn't find anything, but the delay made us nervous about our connection in Dallas.

We made it in time for our flight to Argentina, with a little time to spare. Alexander was very well-behaved on both flights, something I attribute to his bringing along a little traveling companion named Charlie. Charlie is a little stuffed bear (one of many in his collection) that was his designated buddy for this trip. On a trip to Japan the year before, we lost his beloved baby blanket "Becky" and noticed that traveling with him was something of a nightmare without a little bit of home along for the ride.  So, we picked out Charlie the Bear as his travel companion, and it worked like a charm.  Charlie didn't exactly replace Becky in Alexander's affections, but he was close enough to get Alexander to sleep for six hours straight on the flight from Dallas to Buenos Aires.

South America: Going South

In 2004, we traveled to South America and visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Easter Island (which is technically part of Chile, but a world unto itself).  It was one of the best trips we've taken as a family.  Alexander was three and a half, out of the "terrible twos" and growing up to be quite the little man.

We took this trip before I started blogging, so I haven't written about it yet, and I wanted to record it for anyone interested in traveling there, and to relive a great experience for us.  Like our Northern Adventure, I have notes and journals from the trip, and about 1,000 pictures to share.  Since I gave up scrapbooking a while ago, this is the closest we'll come to having a complete record of our trip south.

We started planning the trip in 2003, when Frank and I decided that it was finally time to live out our mutual life-long dream of seeing the ancient Moai (stone heads) of Easter Island.  That would have been enough for me, but Frank thought that it would be a good opportunity to see Iguazu Falls, since it was "in the neighborhood." 

Part of my fascination with Easter Island came from a TV show I watched in the 1970's called "In Search of..." with Leonard Nimoy as the narrator.  The show would go off in search of answers to ancient mysteries, and the episode on the people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) left me particularly enthralled.  How were these ancient statues built? What caused the demise of the Rapa Nui culture? Was it war? Or perhaps Visitors From Beyond? Space aliens always seemed to be a plausible explanation for the unexplained, according to this show. 

Both Frank and I had also read Thor Heyerdahl's books Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft and Aku Aku: The Secret of Easter Island as kids. His theory that Polynesians were decended from Incans has largely been discredited by anthropologists and DNA evidence since Heyerdahl built a raft and sailed from Peru to Easter Island. Still, Heyerdahl's spirit of adventure and inquiry was something both Frank and I were fascinated with kids.  Now, we didn't have to build a raft, but could hop on a jet and be there in less than a day.

Frank wanted to visit Iguazu Falls he had some grad school friends from Brazil who raved about the beauty of the falls.  To be honest, I'd never heard of Iguazu Falls until he mentioned it, and maybe saw the falls on an episode of Amazing Race.  It sounded like a nice place for a vacation, and hey, if we were in the neighborhood, why not?

California Missions: The Fourth Grader's State-cation

MomCentral is currently running a blog campaign on behalf of Holiday Inn to encourage people to get out and explore their own states-- a "state-cation," if you will.  I'm not a native Californian, so this idea intrigued me, since there is a great deal about the state I live in that I don't know.  I think I've hit a few of the high points so far (Disneyland, Hollywood, San Diego, Mono Lake, Yosemite, Napa Valley), but there's a great deal more to the state to be explored.

My son is in fourth grade this year, which as everyone who ever attended California public schools knows, is the Year of the Mission. Fourth graders across and up and down the state study California history. Many kids have to complete the dreaded mission project, which usually consists of making a model of one of the California missions from paper mache, matchsticks, salt dough or some other homespun material and drag it into school. 

I grew up in Ohio, where we made salt maps of Indian burial mounds, so I missed out on the missions.  One of my co-workers who grew up in California told me that it never occurred to her that anyone wouldn't study the missions, since it was a rite of passage for California school children.  She was shocked that I'd missed out on this rich cultural experience and instead had to study the eight inconsequential (with a few ignominious) Presidents hailing from Ohio, the two Harrisons (Benjamin and William Henry), Grant, Hayes, Garfield, McKinley, Taft, and Harding.

Thankfully, Alex's teacher isn't requiring the standard 3-D replica of Mission San Jose, but instead is leaving it up to the kids to come up with a project on the missions, whether it's a video, book, report, or scale model.  Maybe a blog would do.  Or a Facebook fan page. Or a series of tweets. It's a brave new world in education these days.

Since we're a family who pretty much uses any excuse to hit the road, this seems like a perfect opportunity to take a state-cation, starting with the most northernmost mission, the Mission San Francisco Solano in downtown Sonoma, all the way down to the Mission San Diego.  There are 21 missions in all, and each was supposed to be one days' ride on horseback from the next.

We're considering doing a Mission Tour (not on horseback, thankfully) this year, maybe for spring break, doing a day-trip to the local missions and then heading south to San Juan Bautista, San Juan Capistrano, and onward, until we just can't take any more.

If we do this Mission Impossible Tour, I'm sure there will be a Holiday Inn or two along the way, since they often have free wifi and swimming pools, two requirements for any hotel or motel we stay in, wherever we roam.  The wifi would be essential to logging in our progress via the blog, and the pool would be needed to knock the dust of history off of us at the end of each day.  We had good experiences last year on our National Park Tour with Holiday Inn Express, which were uniformly clean, comfortable, and affordable. 

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Holiday Inn. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Photo: San Juan Bautista, taken by me in 1998.

Friday Photo: Buddha in San Francisco

One of the many unique and wonderful pieces we saw at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco last weekend was this Buddha from China. I don't remember how old it was (old) or when it was made, just the serene facial expression that withstood the test of time.

For everyone remembering 9/11 today, I wish you peace.

For more blissful travel photos, check out Delicious Baby's Friday Photo. And say "ommmmm".

Napa Valley for Kids: What to Do (and Not Do)

The Napa Valley Wine Country isn't really known for kid-friendly venues, since the emphasis there is primarily on adult beverages. Nonetheless, for Labor Day weekend, we decided to do a day-trip to Napa Valley, which is about a two hour drive from our house.   Even though it's not that far from where we live, we rarely go up to the Wine Country unless we have visitors who want to see it, mainly because I didn't think there would be much appeal for our nine year old son.  We decided to spend Saturday up in the wine country, exploring fun activities for kids in Napa Valley.

Castello di Amorosa Winery

Several on-line guides recommended the Castello di Amorosa, a re-creation of the 12th century Tuscan castle on the hillside near Calistoga.  The guides said that this would be fun for kids, since there is a tour that includes a dungeon and castle turrets to run around on.  We made our way down the Silverado trail and pulled up in front of the castle, which from the outside, did not disappoint.  Alex exclaimed, "Where there battles here, Mom?"

I had to tell him that it was highly unlikely any battles were fought here, except maybe the Great Chardonnay Wars of '07, which resulted in casualties. Unfortunately, many grapes were crushed in the incursion.  He rolled his eyes, because he's smart like that and knows when I'm pulling his leg.

Two things the guides failed to mention: 1) On the weekends, it costs $15 per adult/$5 per child aged 5-20 to go into the castle, and the guided tour is $30 per adult/$20 per child; and 2) the wine is not good. Kids under 5 get in free, and the entrance fees are slightly less during the week.  The only way to see the dungeon is to pay for the full tour. I didn't think was worth $80 to see a fake dungeon, when we'd seen real ones in Scotland, plus the next available tour was four hours after we arrived.

We plunked down our $35 for the three of us, and proceeded to look at the Great Hall, which was a recreation of a medieval banquet hall.  The walls were painted from floor to ceiling in scenes that looked like they could have been on some 12th century tapestry or another, and large metal chandeliers hung from the ceiling.  There was nothing going on in the Great Hall, and it was a little dark and foreboding.  Alex peeked in, and promptly ran away. 

Lincoln MKT Test Drive Review

 

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to test drive the new 2010 Lincoln MKT, thanks to the people at Ford.  The car arrived Thursday morning, a stylish black ride with three rows of seats (the third row folds down to make trunk space).  I'm not sure if this could be described as an SUV or a luxury station wagon or maybe a mini-limo. When it first pulled up, my thought was "hearse," but that quickly changed once I got inside the plush interior with warm tan leather seats and high-tech gadgetry that would stymie James Bond. I tweeted my friends that all it needed was a mini-bar to complete the limo-feel  (for the passengers, of course).

The first test I put it to was piling five of my coworkers in to take them all out to lunch.  When we walked out to the parking lot, my co-worker Mary exclaimed, "It looks like a spaceship!" 

We all piled in, set a course for a Singaporean noodle shop, and were off. The first thing I noticed was that it was hard to see out of the back window with two heads in the way. No worries, though...the MKT came equipped with back-up camera, so I could see what was happening in the rear without needing to look out the window.  The two in the back said it was rather cramped, and we could not figure out how to move the seat up.  They remarked that it would be comfortable for kids, but there was not quite enough legroom for adults.

On Saturday, we drove up to San Francisco to visit the Asian Art Museum, and try out the car on the highway and in city traffic.  Even though it is considerable longer and wider than the car I normally drive, I thought it handled well, and was easy to drive.  One feature that I liked was the collision warning, which is a small yellow light on the side view mirrors that light up when a car is approaching your blindspot. 

Asian Art Museum San Francisco: Samurai, Swords & Sculptures

This Labor Day Weekend, we decided to explore the San Francisco Bay Area a bit, starting with the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, specifically to see the Lords of the Samurai exhibit on display there through September 20.

Long weekends are always a challenge for us: should we stay or should we go? This Labor Day weekend, we decided on a mini-staycation, opting to do things we could do in a day.  Each of the three of us got to pick a day to do something we wanted to do.  Frank chose going to San Francisco to see the samurai exhibit, so we loaded into the loaner Lincoln MKT, and off we went, up the peninsula toward the city.

We were a little reluctant to go up to the city this weekend, since we had heard that traffic was bad due to the closure of the Bay Bridge.  We didn't encounter any major problems, and even found parking on the street across from the museum.

Frank and I were members of the Asian Art Museum a years ago, but it was at a different location, in Golden Gate Park.  It's now housed in the former main library building, near City Hall. They moved to the current location near City Hall in 2003, with help from a bond measure and a $15 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur Chong-Moon Lee.  

Fleur de Lys San Francisco: An Anniversary to Remember

Frank and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary last week.  Instead of the flower parade or spa treatments of years past, I asked if we could go to Fleur de Lys, Top Chef Master Hubert Keller's restaurant in San Francisco. I booked it about three weeks ago, and let them know that it was our anniversary.  On Friday night, we went, and it did not disappoint in the least.

We drove up to the city in style, in our loaner Lincoln MKT that the nice people at Ford graciously let me test drive for the weekend.  The Valet was very appreciative of the car and said he "loved the new Lincoln" and wanted to have his picture taken with it.  I told him not to take it too far, and he promised to take good care of it.

Lincoln MKT Test Drive

I am getting a Lincoln MKT to test drive this weekend.  We're going to Napa Valley and taking a few day trips around the Bay Area to see how this baby handles.  Alex has already asked if we can keep it.

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