We attempted to hike a little bit but gave up after 50 yards due to thick snow. We migrated down to the lower elevation and was greeted with much better climate and lots of flowers and even a snake. The little hike was enjoyable before we moved on to the Lehman Caves, one of the most decorated caves in the world. The caves can only be entered via a tour, thus we joined one. Five minutes into the tour, Kadia who just became potty trained recently wanted to go so Susan had to take her out which left me carrying Bryden with the front pouch. So always remember to put a diaper on the little ones for a cave trip.

The cave itself was impressive. It had a lot of stalactites, stalgmites, flowstone, popcorn, bacon and many other things I didn’t know the name. It was not big like the Mammoth caves, nor complex like Wind Caves nor unreal like Jewel Caves (other caves we visited later on during the trip) but it was beautiful with its abundant different formations everywhere; I especially like the draperies formation. I highly recommended the tour.

The last thing I remember from there was the night sky; the stars practically lit up the whole sky. There was only one other time I saw so many stars: there bound to be other intelligent beings out there.

In the 2010 Microsoft Streets and Trips, I was able to export the trip to a gpx file then I imported into Every Trail.

Click here to see it in Every Trail Map
Then I exported it out of Every Trail into Google Earth and from there saved it as a KMZ file then imported into Google Map. This has to be an easier way to do this though.

Click here to see it in Google Map

the smallest island in the 1000 islands region

Island House

A famous attraction here is the Boldt castle. We took a boat tour around the region which stopped at the Boldt castle for a closer look. Kadia got to be a captain for a few seconds.

Kadia as a captain

Power house at Boldt Castle

The region was lovely and would be nice to kayak from one island to another; however, most islands were private so it would have been impossible anyway so we soon left the area after camped at Wellesley Island State Park for a night with a beautiful sunrise view from our campsite. Where is that picture?

We arrived at Bruce Peninsula National Park early Friday morning to get a campsite and, to our surprise, it was full. We went into Tobermory and found a private campground instead. After set up the tent, we went back to the Park to do some hiking. We hiked out to the lakeshore on the Horse Lake trail and was greeted with a great view, crystal clear blue water and rocky shoreline. We hiked on the Bruce Trail (The longest footpath in Ontario) along the shoreline. It was beautiful and quiet.

There weren’t many people until we got to an area known as Grotto. There were lots of people down by the beach, either lying for a suntan or playing in the water. We had a great view from above. There were also many people diving off rocks into the beautiful Georgian Bay below. It must be refreshing to be swimming in a lake that felt like an ocean in size but without the smell of the sea.

The hike along the coast was rocky with the trail paved completely in rocks. The park was clean and the water was clear and warm for swimming. No wonder there were no camping sites left. This place looked like a great place for kayaking as well, a quiet lake with many beautiful rock formations. Next time when we come back, we will be doing some kayaking. We completed our loop hike along the Marr Lake trail back to our hiking starting point. It was a beautiful hike.

Korean War Memorial was up next. This was a war America and many other nations helped South Korea to fight off the North Korea. Although everyone may have defended the South Korea for its own reasons, it was still a noble cause. The memorial had a bunch of soldiers in their full military fatigues with their rifles. Korean War, if there is such thing as a good war, was considered a successful war. As a result, M.A.S.H. comedy was such a hit. There was also a wall with faces of 2000+ service men and women supporting the war sandblasted on it. It was not as a somber memorial as the Vietnam one.

Then there was another new memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. This one was my favorite as it told many stories through statues and plaques. Back in the 30’s and 40’s, lives in America were not so rosy. I can only imagine what the Great Depression was when people lost their life-long saving and unemployment rate was over 30%. That was a difficult time for FDR and everyone. Then there was the World War II. If we had lost the World War II, the world would be very different now.

Another new memorial, George Mason Memorial, was just beyond the FDR Memorial. George Mason is called “The Father of Bill of Rights”. The original Bill of Rights gave us the first 10 amendments of the United States Constitution. The freedom we enjoy and take for granted today came from the high price of American Revolution. We have so much to be thankful that sometimes we forget. All these memorials and monuments are a great reminder of past struggles. We all should come visit here every few years.

We finally arrived at American Museum of the Natural History. I was looking forward to spending some time at the museum but soon we discovered it was not a good idea. Kadia would run around and we lost the sight of her a few times. After about 30 minutes, we gave up and headed for our cousin Robby’s house. We will just have to come back to see all the museums when the kids are older.

We arrived there by Metro on a Friday morning. The first place we visited was Washington Monument. I noticed there were as many people there as last time we visited when there was a long line to go to the top. Soon I realized that tickets were required to go up to the top. Unfortunately the tickets for visiting the monument was all gone for the day. I didn’t remember that we had to get tickets ahead of time for Washington Monument the last time I visited the place. Perhaps it was due to the impact of the 9/11.

As we headed toward the Lincoln Memorial, there was something different from what I remembered. Right before the Reflecting Pool, there was something new: World War II Memorial. It was opened in 2004 and it honors the 16 millions who served in World War II and over 400,000 who died defending freedom. It has a pool in the middle with two half circles of granite columns enclosing the pool on two ends. Each stone column represents a state or a territory of United States who had people participated in WWII. It was a beautiful architecture piece and it was special because I felt peaceful there unlike many other memorials.

We next visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. A simple V shape granite wall with names of military people who died fighting the Vietnam War. One wall points toward the Washington Monument and the other points toward the Lincoln Memorial. There were over 58 thousand names on the wall and there were still many names listed as MIA (Missing in Action). I felt for all of them. It was a war that cannot be won just like the current Iraq war. I understand the need to defend freedom and hard to watch others suffering but we need to find a better way than interfering with the business of other countries. There probably will be an Iraq Memorial the next time we visited there with thousands of people dying needlessly and. So sad.

One thing we missed on the trip was the availability of Chinese food. Although we like to eat many different types of food, Chinese food and snacks are still among our favorites. Therefore, whenever we had a chance such as in New York Chinatown, we would restock some of our favorite Chinese snacks, things that did not require refrigeration and wouldn’t go bad easily. Luckily tofu, my favorite food, has become popular enough to appear in almost all the supermarkets. I couldn’t imagine making through this long trip without having tofu at all.

The mall reminded me of some malls in Asia but of course, although the largest in North America, it was still relatively small. We enjoyed the food court there and munched on some of small shop dishes there. They even had my favorite Tofu flower however it only came in sweet flavor not salty. The owner said when he first started out with salty flavor but business was bad until he found out Cantonese liked sweet kind so he only had sweet flavoring now. It was a welcome change from our own cooking. We also visited a Chinese snack shop there to pick up a few of our favorite snacks: dry plum, mango, tofu jerky, beef jerky, haw flakes and balls for example. However, there was a big shocking surprise.

Most of us know that Asia is known for its lack of control on copyrighted materials. Over there, one can buy a pirated DVD for less than 1 US dollar. Some software costing hundreds of dollars in US can be obtained for less than 10 dollars there. The quality varies: you get what you pay for it; it wouldn’t work at all sometimes. It is illegal but governments there usually don’t do much about it. However, here in the Pacific Mall, there were a couple of stores selling pirated DVDs in the open. I thought Canada has the same kind of tough laws on piracy but they somehow must tolerate this to allow it to operate as such. I asked Harry about it and it seemed that there were occasional crackdowns but never seriously enough to shut down the business.

We were happy with our newly acquired Chinese food and felt like the trip was just beginning again. I know for any future trips, we need to plan our route so we will visit a Chinese grocery store at least once a month to satisfy our craving for food that we grew up with.

We ended up leaving around 2 PM. We stopped by at both of our parents houses to say goodbye. We thought that this trip would be hard on them because they wouldn’t get to see their grand-children for a long time. As we left the Bay Area, it started to rain. This was highly unusual as the Bay Area hardly ever rain from May to October. Some might have interpret it as a bad omen but we welcomed it and treated it as a harbinger of many surprises we would encounter on this trip.

We stopped by for a visit with our friends, Steve and Sylvia and their new-born son, Tyler in Sacramento. It was dark by the time we left their house, heading for our first stop at Lake Tahoe. It rained hard for most of our drive up to Lake Tahoe. The visibility was bad at times and I almost wanted to stop and find a place to stay. We pushed on because we knew highway 50 well from many years of skiing trips. We finally arrived at Lake Tahoe around 11 PM. Originally we had a plan to camp the 1st night but it was too late and wet so we found a Days Inn for the night. Both kids were asleep already.

It was a good first day as it taught us that it might not be a good idea to drive at night. We made a conscious decision not to drive at night to reach our next destination and we didn’t. Also, as we already had to change our plan just on the 1st day, we no longer had to abide by our plan. We were free to explore and let the trip to take us places instead of us taking the trip. Both decisions were crucial for our trip as they provided safety and flexibility we needed for the trip.