Adventures in Santa Rosa...Two days can sure make a difference!

It was Saturday and sunny, so we thought we would take advantage of it and go see the Charles M Schulz Museum while we were in Santa Rosa for a few days.  Good Ole' Charlie Brown and Snoopy are my all time favorite comic strip characters, so there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to go see "Sparky's" memorabilia!  Seems he lived and worked the last 40 years of his life here in Santa Rosa.  He was a "regular man about town", building an ice rink, naming it Snoopy's Home Ice, so he could enjoy his passion of ice hockey, right here in California!  He grew up in St Paul MN, so was used to snow & ice, so to speak!  (we visited his home town back in Feb, 2013)  He would walk from his office (two blocks away) each day and have lunch in the adjoining cafe (Warm Puppy Cafe) and watch the local skaters, talk with friends, etc. then walk back and work until about 4pm each day.  He started his own hockey team for "seniors", people from 40 to 75 years!  From the looks of the pictures I saw, it appeared like they had a lot of fun.

His museum was wonderful, not only filled with fun statues and artwork, but some of the original comic strips from the 1950's when he began.  It was really fun to see the changes in his drawings.  I hadn't realized they "morphed" like they did!  It was also fun to read and learn the history behind the names of his characters and stories, like every one's name is an actual friend of his.  He said once in an interview, that to read his strip, is to know him, because everything he writes is about him, one way or another.  When he knew his days were numbered (he had colon cancer) he discussed the future of the strip with his family (5 kids/2nd wife) and they all felt very strongly that no one could/should carry it on.  That once he was gone, it was done.  HE was the only one who had ever written, drawn or created Peanuts, so no one else should ever even try.  (Merchandise, etc. however, was another thing!)  So, now we only have "reruns", and that's how it should be.

The following day we had planned to go see Point Reyes Lighthouse along the Pacific Seashore...and wouldn't you know it...it rained!  "Oh well", we thought, "we'll go anyway, how bad can it be?"  So, we drove the 2 hours out there, from the 101 to the 1 then along the bumpy Francis Drake Blvd.  All the while the rain kept coming down.  The scenery was nice, with lots of moss covered trees and historic ranches along the way, but the road was rough and long.  Well...we finally got there and found that you couldn't see the lighthouse from the parking lot (that would be to easy!), you had to walk another half mile, most of it up hill...in the pouring rain, to the lighthouse visitor center.  My good natured husband didn't send me out alone (after all, I'm the one into lighthouses, he's not!)  When we got to the visitor center, which was small, but warm, we found out that the lighthouse was still out and around and down several flights of stairs and down a path and out to a far point...in pouring rain and blowing wind!  Well...I went out and around and took a look and decided that my camera lens could capture it "just fine" from there!  We had done enough craziness already, we didn't need to do anymore!  So, back into the little visitor center I went to "thaw out" a bit, buy a souvenir post card & magnet and tuck my camera back into my coat and take a big breath and head on back to the car!

Once we made it back to the car, we peeled off our soaking wet jackets and sat and ate our picnic lunch while the car heater blasted full on to help warm us up and see if it could dry out our soaked pants.  While there, we had wonderful lunch entertainment watching couples drive in, park, start to get out, only to change their minds and get right back in again and drive away!  Smart people.  ;-)   Then, we drove another two hours all the way back to our campground in the pouring rain again...

Cows being moved across the street at the 1869 Historic E Ranch, Point Reyes National Seashore CA

Cypress lined pathway to the Historic RCA Building (c1929),Point Reyes National Seashore CA

Dare I say that we should have switched the two outings?  If only we had known... 

...kicking back in Santa Rosa CA,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip (I took much more at the museum!), you can at my Flickr account at:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/

Somethings that just make you go "Wow"!

Let's face it, the thrill of traveling is seeing new places, learning new things and visiting sights we may have heard or read about.  I'm constantly trying to research the cities and towns en route of where we might be going through or nearby, and have several books that I look through to help me with.  Then there is always our "interests" to throw into the mix!  Jack likes WWII museums and we both like factory tours for instance.  We also keep in mind our family and friend's interest as well, just in case (we always have to be prepared for "shopping ideas" you know!).  One such place came about when we were looking up a route through Minnesota.  I discovered that SPAM was made in Austin MN and that Hormel had a museum and tour there!  I have a son who loves SPAM!  He's crazy about the stuff, so how could we not go there? 

What a hoot!  From the moment you enter, you are inundated with the famous little can!  After you are cheerfully greeted, you enter through the cute "piggy" doors to the theater to view a short film giving you a nice over-view of how George Hormel came up with the idea for SPAM (using all the parts of the ham), how they came up with the name (an actor did, taking the letters for shoulder of port and ham). 

The museum does a great job showing you what an important part it played during the war because of it's ability to be shipped (and stored) all over the world, it supplied all our troops and our allied troops with the much needed protein that they wouldn't have been able to get otherwise.  Because of the way it's preserved in cans, it's become a staple in many overseas lands, with Hawaii & Guam being the leaders.  

Let's not forget the "real reason" we stopped...shopping!  Who knew there were so many kinds of SPAM?  Wow!  ...and so many things to go with it too?  What fun! The museum is closing Sept 28th until 2016 (building a new one) so we caught it just in time, phew!



Always another "Wow" find, are churches.  You just never know what your going to find when you read about a particular one, and "how spectacular" it's going to be, until you get there.  Such was the case with The Cathedral of Saint Paul, in St Paul MN.  I guess the word "Cathedral" should have tipped me off...but it didn't...other than I figured it would be big.  But "big" is relative, isn't it? 

This Cathedral isn't just big...it's huge!  It seats 3000 people, and that's without an unobstructed view of the pulpit and altar.  The Cathedral exterior measures 306 1/2' high to the top of the cross (interior - 186' to the apex of the inner dome ceiling).  307' long from the front steps to the sacristy door; and 216' wide from north to south transept.

The Cathedral contains 33 different types of marble, from 11 countries and 4 continents.  There are 97 different saints, prophets and patriarchs (several saints are pictured more than once).

All that is just "statistics"...what's hard to put into "words" is how very beautiful it truly is.  Several times I just had to sit, to take it all in, it was almost overwhelming.  I'm not sure what I thought was more beautiful, the inside with all it's statues & marble or the outside with the black domes against the white walls. 

As beautiful as it is, and as much as I love seeing these great works of art...my heart always aches a little afterward.  In their brochure they share that if built today, it would cost more than $1 billion.  The restoration project in 2000 cost over $35 million.  Yet all I can think of is how many poor people that could feed.  I love all the beautiful churches, of all faiths, I really do, but at what cost?  Are beautiful statues, art, robes, etc more important than the people inside?  Sadly it seems so...

St Paul also gave us a bit of whimsy as well...as guess who grew up there?  None other than Charles Schultz of the "Peanuts" gang!  So...they have lovingly added sweet bronze statues throughout the city of all his various characters!  Jack and I had a wonderful time tracking some of them down and "posing" ourselves with some of them!  We even found a few of Snoopy's Dog Houses that various companies took advantage of using as advertising space!  All fun!

...kicking back in Minnesota,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/