Jörg Reuter

Es schneit, die Fahrbahn ist frei, der Radweg lebensgefährlich weil wieder einmal seit Tagen nicht geräumt. Ich steh an der Ampel, vor mir ein PKW. Steigt eine ältere Frau aus: Sagense mal, warum fahren Sie nicht auf dem Radweg?!" — "Weil da nicht geräumt ist." — "Was Sie machen ist gefährlich! Sie müssen auf dem Radweg fahren!" — Nein, da ist nicht geräumt, da fliege ich auf die Fresse. — "Völlig unmöglich was Sie hier machen!". Steigt ein, fährt los.

Und dafür liebe ich dieses elende Provinzkaff hier mit seinen Bewohnern, die wirklich alles, was man an Deutschland hassen kann, mit Hingabe pflegen und leben.

We checked out Tuesday morning, went to Fry's and then to the Hotel Bijou in San Francisco again. Spent some time at Barnes & Nobles and had dinner at Lori's Diner. More cable car riding and shopping on Wednesday. The choice in DVDs (or Bluray disks) even got smaller, and apparently nobody sells any CDs except new releases and best-of albums anymore...


Err, what?

Thursday was time for some hiking in Muir Woods National Monument, and we actually found space at the parking lot... It was a pleasant not too difficult hike through the woods, even though the trail was described as strenuous. Sort of like the Black Forrest with large conifers instead of spruces. Afterwards, we tried to visit the Point Bonita lighthouse, but it was closed. At night we were invited by Morani and Shimaron to the Pyramid Alehouse. It was a pleasure to talk to them in person again after a long time. The food at the restaurant was also excellent and the beer is surprisingly good when it comes from the tap.


At Muir Woods NM

Friday was the last day in San Francisco. We visited Coit tower and tried again to get to the Pt Bonita lighthouse. Open Saturdays and Sundays only. Hey, that sign wasn't there the first time!


St. Peter & Paul seen from Telegraph Hill

Next stop: Folkmanis factory outlet. Got puppets with only slight flaws for a bargain. By the way, if you want to know where Pixar is: across the street from Folkmanis. We then went to an electronics surplus warehouse in San Jose and finally went shopping for some missing items at the mall again.


Lionel and Lynard at Folkmanis HQ

The flight to Frankfurt on Saturday was uneventful. The folks in the row in front of us never flew before, which meant they had to be educated about the backrest etiquette... It took ages for our luggage to arrive on the belt in Frankfurt, but eventually it all appeared undamaged. I said goodbye to Furvan, Kayjay and Tioh and took the next train heading for Nürnberg with Lynard. Lynard departed in Würzburg and I arrived at my home at 3 pm, tired but satisfied. What a great vacation!

First of all, the Fairmont hotel is great. The staff is friendly and competent, the rooms are nice and well maintained, only the light in the lobby and conference center could be a bit brighter. The bar is quite expensive, unfortunately, but hey, I was on vacation. And except for their Manhattan the cocktails are excellent.

( The convention itself had its issues... )

Even though it may not had been the most rememberable FC, it was a lot of fun.

I know, it's been a while, but so much has been going on in the meantime that I just didn't have the time to update LJ.

The weather was slightly better on Wednesday, but with occasionally hefty showers, so we skipped Carizzo Plain NM and drove directly to San Francisco. No, wait, we didn't. As we were coming through San Jose anyway, we went shopping at the Great Mall of the Bay. I was wondering if it would be worth the time, but there were less empty or temporary stores than last year, which is a good sign.

We arrived at the Candle Stick campground at 10 pm and started packing and cleaning the RVs before going to bed.

Thursday morning we brought the RVs back to the rental station and Zlatko drove us to the airport, where we picked up our rental cars. Two shiny, new 2010 Dodge Grand Caravans, one only 30 mi and the other 400 mi on the odometer. I have to admit, the quality has certainly improved compared to three years ago, but there are still some parts I know will break after a short while.

While the rest of the group went directly to San Jose, I drove to San Francisco with Mendra and Zefiro. First, an unintentional sight seeing tour through Downtown SF. GPS navigation is not very reliable in an area with high buildings, and the current map was missing all no-turn information from the map. But we made it to the Golden Gate Bridge after I stopped listening to the Tomtom. The weather was terrible: cold wind and pouring rain, but the sight of the bridge is always spectacular, regardless the weather.

Afterwards, we went to Fisherman's Wharf for Pier 39 and Zefiro bought a cheap suitcase for all the dragon plushies he and Mendra purchased during the trip. We then had dinner at Johnny Rockets and drove to San Jose to join the others.

I didn't find the time sorting pictures earlier. Here's a small collection I'm going to add added to the individual journal entries later.


Looking at the pacific ocean from CA-1

( more.. )


Meep meep!

I woke up on a murder of crows walking on the roof of the motorhome. And did I mention last night's coyote? We saw two very tame roadrunners at the visitor center. One even tried to get into our RV...

The weather isn't that nice anymore. Quite cloudy and even some rain. Most roads in the park are
closed due to flooding and reconstruction, thus we only visited Zabriski Point and the sand dunes.



On the way to Mojave we took the byway as it is easier to drive in bad weather, except for the flooded streets in Trona and Ridgecrest. On the other hand, rain in the desert is good weather, and not everyone can say that he has seen Death Valley in the rain.

And of course, we couldn't resist having dinner at the Sierra Cocktails in Inyokern. Thanks to Goldie insisting to store the location into my Tomtom two years ago we quickly found it and had an excellent steak. If you need a reason to visit the Eastern Sierra, this is a good one.

Zefiro and Mendra went back to the Excalibur hotel on their own and came back with a lot of dragon plushies and figurines. The rest of us had lunch at the Golden Gate hotel on Fremont Street. The huge display of the Fremont Experience was not running, but it's an impressive construction even then. We saw the Martin Luther King Day parade, which was also very entertaining.


Look what we found when we returned to the RV...

The rest of the day was spent shopping at Fry's and driving to Death Valley. I wouldn't have stayed awake if I hadn't had an Oreo milk shake at Jack in the Box before (which I didn't finish). The weather here at Furnace Creek is very nice: clear sky and 16 °C. Let's hope it stays that way. And there is even a coyote roaming the campground.

It's always interesting to observe the reactions of people who come to Las Vegas for the first time... We were at the Venetian and Forum malls, the fountains of the Bellagio, briefly went to the Coyote Ugly (a silly, funny place... Just too loud for me), ate an awful chili hotdog, and took the bus back to the campground.

We got up quite early, well the Early Bird crew and Kayjay at least. I walked down the 200 meters to the Green River Overlook and enjoyed the solitude of an early morning there. This place just doesn't stop to amaze me.

After a much too long breakfast we took off for Arches National Park. The first stop there were The Windows and the Turette Arch. Very nice, but I've been there before. Next, Delicate Arch. For the first time I had the chance to hike all the way up there. Of course I didn't tell the others how far and especially how high it was, otherwise I'd had to have to go alone... Which would have been a pity, even though the hike is a bit strenuous and they way quite slippery due to ice, it was more than worth the effort. It sure is a spectacular view up there.


At Delicate Arch

Unfortunately, nobody wanted to do another hike, so we just stopped at Balanced Rock, went back to town for propane and gas, and hit the road to Las Vegas, skipping the originally planed visit to Bryce Canyon. We arrived at 2 am at the KOA Circus Circus.

How to make a dragon speechless: drive to the view points of Canyonlands National Park. But the incredible view did not only impress Zefiro, but everyone of us. Even though I had been there twice before, it didn't lose it's breathtaking appeal to me. You may have seen photos, but they don't capture the beauty of the scenery.


Scenic Canyonlands

And thus we stay on the campground up here for the night, even though we are quite low on propane. Let's hope it won't be a chilling surprise in the morning. But for now it's warm and cozy, and Lynard has the bratwurst on the BBQ.

I wanted to see the Navajo bridge for years and today I finally did! In fact, there are two bridges: the historic (one lane) bridge, and right next to it the new wider one. The new one has a very similar nice design. The bridges aren't exactly impressive from a technical point of view, until you take into account the time the historic bridge was built, that is.

Afterwards we drove to Page for a hike through Lower Antelope canyon. For those who never heard about it before: it is a narrow canyon with extremely interesting sandstone formations and light conditions. Not for people with claustrophobia.


Lynard and Zefiro at Lower Antelope Canyon

Unfortunately, we spent way too much time shopping for groceries, so we had to skip the Monument Valley view point. A short stop during fading light at the border between Arizona and Utah had to do.

At the campground in Blanding we got stuck on the icy underground. Funny how this happens to us every single year at some point. Fortunately, a nice elderly man with a 4-wheel drive car pulled us out.

Fortunately, the weather was good until we departed, but that's when it got a bit annyoing: a mix of rain and snow on the drive back. But during the day, it was fine. We visited Mather Point, Yuvapei Observatorium and several view points along the road to Hermits Rest. At the latter, we saw a spectacular sunset.


Grand Canyon view

For me, Grand Canyon was surprisingly impressive, more than the previous two visits. The only mystery that remains: why does always a busload of Japanese tourists show up shortly after we arrive?

Tioh and Furvan posed for some photo and video fursuit shots at the Ryan rock. Lot's of fun and hiliarity. We then went to Keys Point view, admiring the view in the sunshine, and proceeded to the Barker Dam trail. The lake was dry, but a bit of water still at the reservoir. The dragons were climbing on the rocks and the dam, the rest of us shooting photos, of course.


Kiras at Ryan Rocks, Joshua Tree

We had perfect light for photography at the cholla cactus garden and spent way too much time in the park. Arrived at the KOA Grand Canyon near Williams shortly after 1 AM.

A significant reason for delays is trouble with credit cards. No authorization possible, one gas station attendant even trying to authorize our cards through a call center - which I furiously interrupted after 20 minutes and numerous questions about home addresses, drivers licences and passport numbers. This is ridiculous. The most expensive gas station in the area and the customer gets treated like a con man. Sorry, they will not get our business again.

The RVs have some minor technical issues. Our stereo broke after 100 miles, the water pump of the other works only spuriously, filling up gas completely on both vehicles often doesn't work, probably due to a wrongly designed air vent, to name just the most annoying ones. On the other hand, the new models have a much better layout and numerous improved details.

After a nice breakfast on the bench outside the RV in T-shirt we took off for California 1. A lot of fog, but I finally got to see Big Sur at day. And we saw elephant seals. Very impressive animals, and we got really close to see them.


Elephant seal with calf

And did I mention the fog? Got some great shots of fog on the ocean!


Looking at the pacific ocean from CA-1

After way too many photo stops we arrived at Joshua Tree Nat'l Park at two AM and found two free spaces at the Ryan Rock campground.

Zlatko arrived at 6:50 this morning to pick us up. We, that are f_u_r_v_a_n, Kayjay, lynard_, mendra, tioh, zefirodragon, and myself. My crew, dubbed Early Birds for a reason, quickly finished breakfast and I called the Fire Dragons (Kayjay, Mendra and Zefiro) on the phone to get their behinds out of bed... We got the two RVs and hit the road at 10 am. On the agenda for today: Monterey. After visiting the Wharf we had lunch in an Italian restaurant and went to the aquarium afterwards. It's quite expensive, but worth every cent. Unfortunately I left my photo camera in the RV and was only recording video. Hence, no pictures for this journal.

After shopping for groceries with a bill of USD 622, for both parties of course, we proceeded to the Laguna Seca campground for the night. It's nicely located at a motor race track. But not only does it have a great view on the track, it's also embedded in a very scenic landscape and well maintained. I almost falling asleep over my beer now and will call it a day soon.

Despite ice and snow and all the media reports about the supposedly dangerous weather my train arrived in time at Frankfurt. Lynard joined me in Würzburg, Furvan and tioh were already at the Gate, and we met the others in front of the United check-in desk. Boarding started on time, however we had to wait half an hour for delayed or re-booked passengers and another hour for a slot to take off. The flight itself was quite pleasant, immigration and customs friendly as always (that's what I like about SFO). We arrived at the hotel around 7 pm, checked in and went off for a ride to Fisherman's Wharf with the cable car. Unfortunately, we spent too much time shopping and Lori's Diner was already closed for the day. Instead, we grabbed a burger at In'n'Out. We went to bed at 11 pm.

I'm back from Suhlvester. It was a very nice party, I met several people I never met in person before, Andre was dancing on the counter, Uncle Kage mixing drinks at the bar, the other hotel guests being very nice, the food excellent, the fireworks impressive... A great way to welcome the new year!

Personally, this year wasn't bad for me. In fact, I had a lot of fun: a great California roadtrip, Megaplex and Florida, Eurofurence, and numerous other great events. However, it was a hard year for many of my friends, which made the year much less enjoyable as it should have been. I'll depart to Suhlvester soon, to kick this weird year and decade out of the door. Have a safe New Year's Eve everyone!

And this year the dream comes true, at least on Christmas Eve at my parent's place:



Merry Christmas, everyone!

Many thanks to Lynard and TaniDaReal for inviting everyone to their birthday party. I had a blast!

Unfortunately, I lost my glasses. While I can see without them, I'm required to wear them while driving. And I didn't find the old (spare) glasses. Fortunately, Eisfuchs drove us home on Sunday. Would be a major PITA if I have to buy new ones, did anyone find them?