Thanksgiving Trip
November 2017
Chicago
Chicago airport (O'Hara International Airport) was our first stop on the way north to spend Thanksgiving with Mark (56) and Beverly (82) Losh in Snohomish, supposedly the busiest airport in the world. There we ate the famous “Chicago’s Hot Dogs”: nothing extraordinary. I (67) took the opportunity to polish my boots and to call Sharon (58). We took a long time to take our plane to San Francisco, California and left one of the suitcases behind. It was terrible. We had to go back to where we had lunch and, fortunately, we found it.
The bad thing about the Chicago hot dog is the part of the dog they use
People thought I was Russian because of the hat I was wearing.
There is always time to polish our shoes
Chicago is the most populous city in state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,705,994 (2018), it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. The first years of my cousin Carmencita's marriage to Archie were spent in that great city.
San Francisco
We took the opportunity to visit San Francisco, a city to which one always wants to return. The flight to San Francisco was terrible. The plane was full, and we had to seat separately.
We stayed in a Travelodge near Chinatown, located at 1707 Market Street. It was nice, but it could have been better. The best thing about the hotel was that it was well located and close to the places we wanted to visit.
In that hotel, breakfast was included. We had our first and last breakfast there. We shared the cafeteria with a few locals who had a good taste for sagging fashion.
The first time I visited San Francisco was in the company of Panino and his family (Milagros, Momy and Ricardo Eugenio). It was in December 1965 (52 years ago), just at the time when the Beatles made the song "Help" fashionable, one of my favorites.
On that occasion we traveled by car from Spokane to the city of San Leandro, to spend Christmas and New Year's Eve with Milagros’ family, whose sister had recently arrived from Cuba. It was a wonderful experience and from that trip what I remember most was the visit to San Francisco Chinatown.
The second time I visited San Francisco was on our honeymoon, in 1974 (43 years ago). Of course, Siomi (63) and I visited Chinatown, Fisherman Wharf, The Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, etc.
This time we toured all the places that we had visited on our honeymoon ... and a few more that did not exist then.
We took the “Big Bus” tour to the city.
The bus took us all over the city. There we met a couple of newly married Asturians, who accompanied us on the tour. For them, it was the first time in San Francisco.
The Asturian couple on their honeymoon
Height Ashbury
We visited the sector of what at one time (in the 60s) was the heart
of the hippies in the United States.
Haight-Ashbury is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known for having been the birthplace of the hippie counterculture of the 1960s.
Union Square
Union Square is a 2.6-acre (1.1-hectare) public plaza bordered by Geary, Powell, Post, and Stockton Streets in downtown San Francisco. "Union Square" also refers to the central shopping, hotel, and theater district surrounding the plaza for several blocks. In the winter month there is an ice-skating area. The square got its name because it was once used for Thomas Starr King rallies and support for the Union Army during the American Civil War, earning its designation as a California Historical Landmark.
Pier 39
We didn't know Fisherman Wharf’s Pier No. 39. There we had extraordinary seafood in a restaurant called "Crab House". It was delicious...!
We toured the place to meet the sea lions (many people confuse them with seals) that have made their habitat in the rafts of that already-famous pier. No one knows why they chose that place.
At Pier 39 there is a lot to see. Is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, a video arcade, street performances, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides, and views of California sea lions hauled out on docks on Pier 39's marina. A two-story carousel is one of the pier's more dominant features, although it is not directly visible from the street and sits towards the end of the pier. The family-oriented entertainment and presence of marine mammals make this a popular tourist location for families with kids.
We also visited a great store where they sell Swiss chocolate: Trish's Chocolate - There is NOT a single type of Swiss chocolate that is not sold in that store.
We even saw many punk fashioned-weird people walking around Pier 39
The pier is located at the edge of the Fisherman's Wharf district and is close to North Beach, Chinatown, and the Embarcadero. The area is easily accessible with the historic F Market streetcars.
Fisherman Wharf
On our honeymoon, 43 years ago, this place was very different.
We found it totally changed.
There we had an extraordinary cheese soup. The place has grown to favor the tourism industry. When we visited Fisherman Wharf for the first time, in 1974, it was more “artisanal”. It was the place where fishermen's boats docked. Today is something else, but it is worth visiting.
Fisherman's Wharf is a neighborhood and popular tourist attraction in San Francisco, California. It roughly encompasses the northern waterfront area of San Francisco from Ghirardelli Square or Van Ness Avenue east to Pier 35 or Kearny Street. The F Market streetcar runs through the area, the Powell-Hyde cable car lines run to Aquatic Park, at the edge of Fisherman's Wharf, and the Powell-Mason cable car line runs a few blocks away.
Golden Gate Bridge
During our honeymoon, we visit the Golden Gate Bridge, a must for every tourist, but this time we find its surroundings completely changed. There we took videos and many photos.
Near the Golden Gate Bridge is the Golden Gate Park, a place everybody
must visit in San Francisco.
Chinatown
For me, it was the third time I visited the Chinatown of San Francisco. The first time was in the company of Panino and family, in December 1965, when he was 15 years old: 52 years ago!
In 1974 we spent part of our honeymoon in San Francisco and, of course, we visited Chinatown, where Siomi had fun buying vegetables.
Of course, everything has changed a lot. Now the neighborhood is more tourism-oriented, however, it is worth visiting although it was unrecognizable to us.
We tried to visit the same places, but it was impossible. But in our mind, we went back to where we were 43 years before. The first night we spent in San Francisco, we wanted to eat real Chinese food as we did 43 years ago, but we didn't have any luck. We went to the most-recommended Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, according to Google, and it was no good at all: "Chinatown Restaurant", located at 744 Washington St., San Francisco.
In our honeymoon, we spent few days with the Chinese.
Of course, Siomi insisted on buying Chinese vegetables,
but this time it didn't overwhelm our enthusiasm.
We made other purchases. There we bought a very functional suitcase that accompanied us throughout the trip until we returned to Florida. We also bought Miranda a Chinese dress.
We were surprised to see a Catholic church in the Chinatown of San Francisco,
and we visited it.
We visited the WWII Pacific War Memorial Hall, located at 809 Sacramento St, San Francisco's Chinatown which included a tour through the horror of the Allied POW of Shenyang, also called "Mukden POW Camp", or "Hoten Camp".
Lombard Street
It is a must-see place for all tourists who pass through San Francisco. It is known as the curviest street in the world. We don't know how those who live in that small street do. We had already visited it on our honeymoon.
This time we found this street the same as when we visited it 43 years before. We were surprised by how many tourists were visiting it.
Sushi
It was in our honeymoon in San Francisco where we tried sushi for the first time in 1974. The night before saying goodbye to San Francisco, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, and we were pleased with a large amount of sushi they served us.
SWOAT Team
Our last night in San Francisco we went to the bay to see the SWOAT Team, a bunch of crazy people that swim every night, regardless of the weather. That night was very-very cold, (65°F), at least to us, and they were swimming like it was summer.
We also spent that last night taking videos of our favorite places. We were excited about getting North, but sad that we had to leave San Francisco, maybe for good.
Sausalito
For the first time, we visited this small town near San Francisco, where Clint Eastwood used to be mayor. A place worth visiting. There I bought excellent third-dimensional binoculars which I used the rest of the trip.
Sausalito is a city in Marin County, California, located 8 miles (13 km) south-southeast of San Rafael and 4 miles (7 km) north of San Francisco. Sausalito's population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to the building of that bridge served as a terminus for rail, car, and ferry traffic.
Centralia
From the Portland airport, in the state of Oregon, we headed to the town of Centralia, where Beverly lived, who we had to take to Snohomish to spend Thanksgiving with her son Mark. Beverly was living in a senior community. A very beautiful and well-maintained place. Her two-room apartment was comfortable and functional.We spend the night at Beverly's home. I had brought holy water to "bless" Mark's house and scare away all the demons that might be there.
And since I mentioned Flip Wilson, I thought I'd remember his most famous sketch:
"The devil made me do it...!"
Shari’s
At Shari’s we had lunch with Beverly. We did not know the place since it is a chain that is only known in the northwestern United States.
Safeway
Snohomish
Marky Baby was living in the town of Snohomish. It was already quite cold. He lived in a huge house, owned by a friend who died shortly after because he was suffering from terminal cancer. There we spent Thanksgiving. We headed to Snohomish from Centralia, where we picked Beverly up. The journey was very interesting. Snohomish is near Seattle, a city we passed by. We had already known Seattle, so we did not dedicate a day to visit it, because we prefer to know other unknown places.
During the Thanksgiving dinner, Beverly told the story of how the Loshes found me.
Cuban Coffe
As we knew Mark liked espresso coffee, we brought him an Italian coffee maker and Siomi taught him how to make Cuban coffee.
In return for teaching him how to make Cuban coffee, Mark taught us how to sharpen knives: an art he learned from his late father, Norman G Losh.
Deception Pass
Mark accompanied us on a fabulous tour of extraordinary places we didn't know, like Rosario Beach, for example.
Very close to Rosario Beach is Deception Pass, a place that every tourist should visit. There we made an extensive stop and took many videos and photos.
Deception Pass is a strait separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island, in Washington state. It connects Skagit Bay, part of Puget Sound, with the Strait of Juan de Fuca. A pair of bridges known collectively as Deception Pass Bridge cross Deception Pass. The bridges were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
In the waters of Deception Pass, just east of the present-day Deception Pass Bridge is a small island known as Ben Ure Island. The island became infamous for its activity of human smuggling of migrant Chinese people for local labor. Ben Ure and his partner Lawrence "Pirate" Kelly were quite profitable at their human smuggling business and played hide-and-seek with the United States Customs Department for years. Ure's own operation at Deception Pass in the late 1880s consisted of Ure and his Native-American wife. Local tradition has it that his wife would camp on the nearby Strawberry Island (which was visible from the open sea) and signal him with a fire on the island's summit to alert him to whether or not it was safe to attempt to bring the human cargo he illegally transported ashore. For transport, Ure would tie the people up in burlap bags so that if customs agents were to approach he could easily toss the people in bags overboard. The tidal currents would carry the entrapped drowned migrants' bodies to San Juan Island to the north and west of the pass and many ended up in what became known as Dead Man's Bay.
Puget Sound is a sound [an ocean channel] of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of Washington state. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and two minor connections to the open Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Juan de Fuca—Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and Deception Pass and Swinomish Channel being the minor.
In 2009, the term Salish Sea was established by the United States Board on Geographic Names as the collective waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. Sometimes the terms "Puget Sound" and "Puget Sound and adjacent waters" are used for not only Puget Sound proper but also for waters to the north, such as Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands region.
Stevens Pass
On our way to Stevens Pass, we stopped in a small town to see something incredible: stripper serving coffee. Expresso is very popular in Washington state, and there are sheds selling expresso everywhere. Mark liked to buy his express in this shed where the girls are topless. I wasn't supposed to take video, but I did it anyway... with al little help from Marky Baby.
In this ski resort, we were able to enjoy the incipient snow. I took a video in which I am promising Miranda to take a snowball with me to give her. It is a lovely and very picturesque place that we really enjoyed on the way to Wenatchee and finally: Leavenworth.
The Stevens Pass Ski Area is a ski area located at the crest of Stevens Pass in the Cascade Range of Washington state. The base elevation is at 4,061 feet (1,238 m) with a peak of 5,845 feet (1,782 m). The Mill Valley "backside" of the resort drops to a minimum elevation of 3,821 feet (1,165 m). Total skiable terrain includes 37 major runs covering 1,125 acres (4.55 km2). On August 15th, 2018, Vail Resorts closed on its acquisition of Stevens Pass.
Stevens Pass offers a variety of alpine ski runs ranging from beginner to advanced. Because there is no lodging at the base, Stevens is a day resort drawing heavily on skiers from the Seattle area. Night skiing is offered until 10 pm most days (except Mondays and Tuesdays) during mid-season.
Wenatchee
Walking with Mark the surrounding mountains,
we pass the Wenatchee River: a spectacle!
Wenatchee is a city located in north-central Washington and is the largest city and county seat of Chelan County, Washington state. The population within the city limits in 2010 was 31,925. In 2018, the Office of Financial Management estimated the population at 34,329. Located at the confluence of the Columbia and Wenatchee rivers near the eastern foothills of the Cascade Range, Wenatchee lies on the western side of the Columbia River, across from the city of East Wenatchee. The Columbia River forms the boundary between Chelan and Douglas County. Wenatchee is the principal city of the Wenatchee–East Wenatchee, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Chelan and Douglas counties (total population around 110,884). However, the "Wenatchee Valley Area" generally refers to the land between Rocky Reach and Rock Island Dam on both banks of the Columbia, which includes East Wenatchee, Rock Island, and Malaga.
Leavenworth
We really enjoyed the visit to Leavenworth. It reminded us a lot
of La Colonia Tovar in Venezuela.
Leavenworth is a town in the purest German style. There we had an exquisite German meal and toured the place taking many videos and photos. It was worth the trip.
Coming back was danger. We had to drive at night and through the snow.
Thank God that Mark is as good as a driver as his late father - Norman - was.
Leavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington state. It is part of the Wenatchee−East Wenatchee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,965 at the 2010 census. The entire town center is modeled on a Bavarian village as part of a civic initiative that began in the 1960s. The area is a major tourist destination during the wintertime. The railroad construction was completed during the winter of 1893. Lafayette Lamb arrived in 1903 from Clinton, Iowa to build the second largest sawmill in Washington state.
Leavenworth was officially incorporated on September 5, 1906. A small timber community, it became the headquarters of the Great Northern Railway in the early 1900s. The railroad relocated to Wenatchee in the 1920s, greatly affecting Leavenworth's economy.
Coupeville
On the way to Coupeville, we pass through several interesting places,
such as Rosario Beach and Deception Pass.
In this small town, Mark's wife, Sheryl, lived a large part of his teenage life. A very interesting place that transported us to the 30's. There we had a wonderful lunch, and we were able to walk its few streets full of shops for tourists. Coupeville is famous for its mussels.
Coupeville is a town on Whidbey Island, in Island County, Washington state. It is the county seat of Island County. The population was 1,831 at the 2010 census. Coupeville was laid out in the 1850s by Captain Thomas Coupe, and named for him. Coupeville was officially incorporated on April 20, 1910.
Fort Casey
We pass through Fort Casey where, in reality, there is not much to see,
but it is a must for the return to Snohomish.
Fort Casey State Park is located on Whidbey Island, in Island County, Washington state. It is a Washington state park and a historic district within the U.S. Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve.
Keystone is a small unincorporated community on Whidbey Island in Island County, Washington, in the northwestern United States. It is near the Coupeville Ferry Landing, a dock for the Washington state Ferries route to Port Townsend that provides a maritime link for State Route 20 across Admiralty Inlet. It is located about 3 miles due south of Coupeville near Fort Casey State Park and Ebey's Prairie National Historic Preserve.
Onalaska
The Losh family moved from Deer Park and landed in a small town called Onalaska. There they set up a homemade restaurant and lived many years. When we left Venezuela, in 2004, we spent a few weeks in Onalaska. 13 years later, we returned to that little town and toured it. We visited the former Loshes' home, and spent a day with Sharon, who lives a few miles from the small town.
Beverly & Norman in Onalaska - 2004
We took a video of old Deer Park pictures.
The Bower's house is fabulous: spectacular! There I came across the piano that was in the basement of the Loshes' home in Deer Park, where I practically learned to play it. Of course I gave them a small concert.
Sharon asked me to play the favorite song of her late father,
Norman: Tennessee Waltz.
Sharon took us to the Onalaska store, which was not the same one we had known in 2004, anyway it was interesting to visit it.
Onalaska is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Lewis County, Washington state. Onalaska is located along Washington state Route 508. The name for the community comes from the poem, "The Pleasures of Hope" by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell. Onalaska, Washington, Onalaska, Wisconsin, Onalaska, Arkansas and Onalaska, Texas are all historically connected to one another through the lumber industry.
Oregon
Just as we arrived at Washington state, we returned via the state of Oregon, where I was amazed by a musical group called “Jellyroll Society”, whose music I used in many of the edited videos of this trip.
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region on the West Coast of the United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. The parallel 42° north delineates the southern boundary with California and Nevada.
"I ain't gonna give nobody none of my jellyroll"
Houston
Returning to Florida from the state of Oregon, we stopped at the Houston Airport, where we had two Bloody Maries and some sandwiches that were delicious. We ordered everything through a "robot", as there were no waiters to take the order. We found that worrisome. Every day the world will no longer need the participation of human beings. Of course, it was always required of a person who brought us what was ordered. We made the payment through the "robot" with our debit card.
Houston is the most populous city in the state of Texas, a fourth-most populous city in the United States, as well as the sixth most populous in North America, with an estimated 2018 population of 2,325,502. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat of Harris County and the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the second-most populous in Texas after the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, with a population of 6,997,384 in 2018.
Fort Lauderdale
Finally, we flew back home, from Portland to Ft. Lauderdale. As we waited for our luggage, we sat next to this Mexican who was high on something. He was talking on his cell and while he taled he laughed and cried out loud. It was weird and funny at the same time.
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