Sunday, April 25, 2010

Mom went on a trip.

March 12 to 16 I traveled to Northern California to take the California Supplemental (Architecture) Exam.  It was a lovely trip and I got to see some friends and do a little tourist action while I was at it.  I arrived late evening on Friday.

Saturday I was pretty jet-lagged but I did get to have dim sum with R. and his wife S. who are from the same city in China that one of my daughters is from. They have done many nice things for our group and I wanted to meet them personally and thank them.
  We went to Cupertino Village which is quite close to the hotel I was at. We walked to the restaurant and the dim sum was awesome.  Ray and Sue and I found quite a few things in common and it was hard to part.  Sue has a website where children can self-publish their writings and drawings.  Evening was spent with Mark and his wife (after a refreshing jet-lag nap), brother of two good friends here in southwestern Virginia.
After church services on Sunday I got invited to someone's house for lunch and to wait out the time until I could check into the lovely hotel pictured above.  It is in Burlingame and is on the edge of the flight path for the San Francisco Airport.  (I flew in and out of San Jose, FWIW).
There actually is a tiny tiny airplane in the photograph just above the middle and to the right of center.  Planes were flying in and landing in pairs.  It was awesome watching them land.  There was a great walking path to stretch out my legs on and to relieve some of the stress and anxiety of the up coming test.

The test was over first thing on Monday morning and I checked out and headed up to Sacramento to visit an architecture friend and meet his family.  On the way up I went to a Deseret Book store in Sacramento and on the way had a minor fender bender. If had been my home car I wouldn't have worried about it but it was a rental.  A cute Versa.  The key thingy said it was red but clearly it is not.  Can you see the bump?  Here is a close up.
I hope it was pretty minor.  The car had less then a thousand miles on it.
Here I am in front of the State capitol of California.  I was born in California and lived in California a good portion of my life but had never been to Sacramento until this day.
We went to "Old Sac."  The two yellow pillars in the background is the Golden State Bridge.  The middle section rises up on the two pillars and lets boats pass through.

One of these is the model of the ship we were on - it is beached but impressive.
Old Sac railroad station.
More Old Sac.
When I got to J.'s place I got to meet his delightful daughter M. for the first time.  What a cutie!  He and his wife have an infant son as well.  Next time I will get a photo of the whole family.
Then I spent the afternoon at the Oakland Temple.  I enjoyed lunch in the cafeteria and spent most of the afternoon there.  After I finished I had a great time photographing around the site.  It is situated on the side of a hill.
 And has lovely gardens all around.
Camilias,
 Tulips - I've had a thing for tulips this year as I am growing my own at home.
View from the roof terrace.
Close-up of a tower.  After I finished I headed back to the San Jose Airport to return the car (and make the accident report) and to catch my late night flight home via Atlanta.  (Even though I found out later I did not pass the test, I did feel especially blessed and well taken care of my whole trip.)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Background

Followers