The good, the bad and the ugly

Toyo and I crossed into California over Memorial Day weekend … or as our friend Dan put it “Nothing says Memorial Day like Vegas and Death Valley.”

It has been wonderful to smell the salt air again, see some incredible sights and catch up with friends and family. We spent all of June in California and had a lot of ups and downs the first half of the month — thankfully more ups than downs — but I’ll start with the bad news so we can move past it and get to the good stuff.

The Bad: Car trouble and not-so-nice people

The Toyomobile got real, real sick in early June. While driving happily down Interstate 680 from Napa Valley to Moss Beach, it suddenly stopped forward momentum and started coasting. Toyo pulled over, instantly suspecting a transmission problem and we called our pals at AAA.

AAA dispatched a tow truck and informed us that they couldn’t tow the RV.* No problem! We have tow coverage for the RV through our warranty, so we called those good folks and arranged a pick up.

The AAA tow truck driver arrived about 20 minutes later and informed us that we both had to go with him per California law … so we locked up the RV, left her on the side of the road awaiting her tow, and began our three-mile trek to the mechanic.

About 45 minutes later, I got a call from the RV towing company informing us that they were at the RV and ready to tow, but it had been robbed. I fought back the tears and reminded myself that I’m an adult and that you just have to roll with the punches.

Then came the details of the Toyomobile’s illness and cost for treatment. Ouch. I’ll spare you the details and say it was a new transmission and then some.

All of this made us, and our savings account, real sad. However, as my brother pointed out, we were pretty lucky with the RV robbery — they didn’t get into the living space or take anything irreplaceable, and since we weren’t there, they didn’t have a chance to rob us. Silver lining, I guess…

Now, that’s enough singing the blues — here are some of the awesome things we’ve done lately:

The Good: California’s many incredible places

California is so diverse and beautiful, it surprises and amazes me every time I visit. Death Valley was such a perfect example of this.

We initially planned to stay only a night in Death Valley, essentially just making a point to drive through and see it from the window so we could check it off the ol’ National Park list. Boy would that have been a mistake!

The landscape there is unlike anything else we’ve seen, and there’s so much more to it than the flat sea of sand we envisioned just by hearing the name — there are mountains, salt flats, water, even some greenery. Pictures will tell the story better than I can, but I will add that it was 110 degrees when we were there, with still more than a month to go until the peak of summer. At night, the air is cool and lovely but the ground still radiates like hot coals. Extraordinary.

There is water in Death Valley … it’s bad, but not toxic.

Salt flats

This house is partially made of glass bottles and sits a few miles outside the National Park.

Solar panels outside Death Valley

And wind turbines …

From there we headed to the Los Angeles area. We visited LA a few years ago, so rather than stay near the city, we found an awesome camp site right on the beach in Ventura. This allowed us to meet our friend Erin for dinner in West Hollywood, and explore Ventura and Santa Barbara. All wonderful … but we failed to take many pictures.

Coast from the Santa Barbara pier

View at our campsite

From there, we headed north to Napa Valley with a stop at Hearst Castle — a sight highly recommended by the McLamores, family friends who shared the highlights of their RV trip and helped us plan ours.

Hearst Castle was nuts! It was huge, ornate, unique and really visionary – a several-decades-long building partnership between William Randolph Hearst and Julia Morgan, a leading architect of her generation and trailblazer for females in the field.

We chose the grand rooms tour, so we saw four rooms on the main floor plus the grounds and pools. Sadly, the iconic Neptune Pool was undergoing restoration while we were there, but it was still impressive. I think my favorite part was the indoor Roman Pool, though. Look at all that gorgeous tile!

Napa Valley

Napa Valley is one of those rare places to visit that actually lives up to the hype. It not only has great drinking and scenery, but the people, towns, shops, and restaurants are all wonderful as well!

Our friends and San Francisco residents, Lindsey and Brendan, joined us for a day and night and showed us around the wineries in Calistoga, where we stayed. Everywhere was wonderful, but if we had to choose a favorite so far, it was probably Frank Family. We were not good about taking pictures these days because we were busy doing much more important things, such as learning, talking, enjoying the scenery, and maybe trying a little wine…

The alcohol had us thinking the “Brannan” history in the area was way more exciting than it actually is …

Sam Brannan cottage

Tony’s brother, Sam, claims to be “about half of those things.” We’ll let those of you who know him judge for yourselves.

Frog’s Leap winery. Probably the loveliest grounds we saw.

At Robert Mondavi with a delightful rosé.

Robert Mondavi … thanks, Seph!

San Francisco

Toyo’s side of the family joined us in Moss Beach, just outside of San Francisco, so we got to see a lot of the city and surrounding bay area, which was cool. We also went to a Giants game, which I’ve wanted to do since I heard about the beautiful stadium years ago. The stadium didn’t disappoint but I’ve never been so cold at a game. Thankfully, they gave out some sweet Giants blankets, about half a dozen of which will forever reside in the RV … nothing like a complimentary and functional keepsake!

This little forest is atop a cliff that overlooks the Pacific. I just thought these trees felt magical.

Biking to Sausalito.

Note all the orange blankets people are wearing …

Monterey, Pebble Beach and Big Sur

There’s a gorgeous and apparently famous scenic drive through Pebble Beach, but the drive before and after it boasts outstanding views, too. Sadly, most of Big Sur State Park was closed due to a rock slide, but we still got to see much of California’s beautiful northern coast.

Monterey

Pebble Beach scenic drive

Pebble Beach golf course

Same bad selfies as always …

The ugly: Manzanar, the remains of a great injustice

Death Valley is not far from the Manzanar National Historic Site, which was a Japanese concentration camp during WWII. Not knowing much about this place, but wanting to see it while we were nearby, I read a few books about it earlier this summer, and it broke my heart.

The short story about Japanese internment is that after the Pearl Harbor attack, more than 100,000 Japanese immigrants and American-born citizens of Japanese descent living in the west coast and Hawaii were rounded up, forced to sell or abandon most of their possessions and businesses, and imprisoned for years in 10 camps, one of which was Manzanar. Very few of the prisoners ever stood trial, no one was ever found guilty of espionage, and more than half of people imprisoned were natural-born American citizens.

I remember first hearing about America’s internment camps in middle school and was deeply disturbed. When a teacher explained that they were more humane than Nazi concentration camps, I took comfort and didn’t think much of them again. Now I realize that if you have to compare something to Auschwitz to make it seem ok, it must be pretty bad.

Manzanar was bad. Though very few of the original structures remain, the property is vast and some bunkers, bathrooms, and a dining hall have been rebuilt. It felt every bit like a prison in the desert, and it’s hard to face that this place was created by the American government with little objection from American people.

I’ve hesitated for weeks to write about our trip to Manzanar for fear that whatever I write would sound “too political” given all that’s happening in the U.S. and world right now, but then I realized that saying something is wrong shouldn’t be considered political. Hating and mistreating people because of their heritage is wrong; the injustice and shame of it are palpable when you stand on Manzanar grounds.

I’ll spare you the additional 500 words I’d like to write about how disturbing it is to know that Americans were robbed of their rights because of their heritage, how absurd it is that U.S. public school curricula generally ignore America’s concentration camps, and how disappointing it is to know that upstanding friends, neighbors and peers gave in to fear and allowed these atrocities to occur unchallenged. Instead, I’ll just say that this experience was a lesson in how much more deeply we understand and mourn history when we see it, rather than just reading it.

Bathroom

Zero privacy in the bathroom was particularly miserable for the women in the camp, according to the books I read.

Rebuilt bunk house.

Names of Manzanar prisoners.

Remaining foundation of a building.

Watchtower

The climate in Manzanar was incredibly hot in the summer and extremely cold in the winter. Look at all the snow still on those mountains.

*We have since learned that AAA has an RV-specific membership, which covers towing the vehicle and RV. Needless to say, we upgraded.