That’s it For Sydney! Next up; Brisbane! Stay Tuned….

Blue Mountain Tour

The Blue Mountain Tour included Fantastic views of the Blue Mountains, the Hydro Majestic Pavilion, Scenic World, and a Zoo which had everything from Koalas to Kangaroos to a very large Crocodile!.

Hydro Majestic Pavilion

Beautiful views of the Blue Mountains on or way up.

Jan was particularly fond of this piece.

The views from inside were quite beautiful.

The color scheme and decor was quite “arresting”.

The billiards room with the biggest pool table we
have ever seen!

This place had quite a eclectic assortment of decor and furnishings!

I snuck a quick picture of the very elegant main dining room which we weren’t allowed to enter.

The main check in area. The is a living vine behind it!

Outside the building were ver beautiful landscaping and fantastic views of the Blue Mountains.

This fellow apparently can’t decide what color hair he wants!

Back on the bus with our fabulous guide Leonard and his little pal (I forget his name!)

On to Scenic World!

Our first mode of transportation was this Cableway

The glass floor was a bit disconcerting!

This formation is the famous Three Sisters

It was a beautiful ride but there seems to be an awful lot of slack in those cables!

The next mode of transportation was quite different. It’s a Scenic Railway Incline and you can choose how inclined you want to be!

Once at the bottom there was nice wide path to follow with things to see on the way.

Lots of displays depicting the mining operations .

This was the original Scenic Railway Incline, not quite as plush and comfortable as the current one!

Here’s my obligatory lawyer picture of the working of the cable car.

Now they show this after we’re trapped at the bottom and have to take the cablecar back up!

On to the Zoo

Of course they had plenty of these cute fellows & gals!

This isn’t a baby Kangaroo, its a Tasmanian Pademelon.

Native language hyrglyphs? Your guess is as good as mine!

Tasmanian Devil, perfect name for this odd creature!

Koalas sleep most of the time! Kind of like cats!

No Zoo is complete without a VERY large Crocodile! You’ll notice he’s in that tank all alone! Such a cute smile only his mother could love!

And we finish with monkeys doing what monkeys do: monkey around!

To be continued with a more in depth look at the Opera House…

Australia & New Zealand Adventures

Welcome back to the Casa de Ziegler II Blog! I know it’s been quite a while since we posted anything but we’re back now! We hope you enjoy our new adventure abroad in beautiful Australia and New Zealand. We spent the month of March there with our dear friends/family Joni Berg and Lane Hammond.

Sydney, Australia

Our Walking Tour of Downtown Sydney

This is the Garrison Church in Sydney, one of the many beautiful stone churches there.

This bridge arch was pretty cool with the vines growing right out of the stone walls on either side!

The message on the side of this rental bike cracked us up!

This was a walkway along our walking tour.

I saw this beautifully done drawing on our tour and, of course, I HAD to take a picture!

Another church and great old world architecture,

The skyline was impressive with the mixture of old world buildings and modern, very progressive design, architecture!

And of course the very iconic Opera House! (More of this later on in this post!)

The girls with the Opera House in the distance.

One of the many (MANLY?!?) ferries available.

An Australian White Ibis, a flightless bird.

Cameras, cameras and more cameras! Even Australia has Big Brother watching!

Some of the beautiful landscaping that was everywhere!

LOTS of steps from the pier up to the street above!

We’re now in the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney. This was an unusual art exhibit.

A view of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge from the gardens.

I zoomed in with my 300mm to catch the crazy people who choose to walk over the top of the bridge! They actually pay money for this honor!!

This exotic bird blends in quite well don’t you think?

This tourist lady asked Joni to take her picture and of course she obliged! As you can also see in this picture is a view of the opera house you don’t usually see, the front side where you enter the building!

This was a very “interesting” sculpture!

This wrought iron structure was pretty cool!

This was constructed using smooth stones and cement.

The Royal Government House (Estate, Mansion, ETC!!)

Another view of the downtown architecture from the Gardens.Jan especially liked the “LEGO” building on the right!

Another impressive old government building near the gardens,

To be continued…….

Alaska-Part II

Seward, Alaska

After family and friends left, we packed up and moved down to Seward where we stayed at the Creekside Cabins. The cabins ere very rustic but they had a new building with an upstairs and downstairs apartment with all the amenities. It was fairly nice and in a very woodsy area. We were originally supposed to have the upstairs, but it wasn’t finished in time, so we were downstairs.

It was a nice place with good views (except for the fishing boat outside our window)

This was the view from the dining area window.

The area around the building was very lush with greenery!

Kenai Fjords National Park and Exit Glacier

The river you see here is melt off from the glacier. The grayish tint is from the silt of the glacier.

This is a close up (via my 300mm lens) showing the detail of the glacier including the hole in the middle that was created by once flowing water of the melting glacier.

Seward Kenai Fjords Boat Tour

We love boat tours and this one did not disappoint!

The combination of dark green foliage, snow and low hanging clouds is beautiful!

Minutes into our tour we spotted a few Orcas.

They were kind enough to put on a show for us too!

The shoreline was spectacular with lots of greenery and rugged rock cliffs.

When the captain spotted these guys he really got excited! He said it was the largest pod of Grey whales he’d ever seen! There were about 10!

There were also hundreds of gulls waiting for any scraps they might leave behind!

We passed this glacier in the distance along our tour. (Close up via my long lens)

Finally arriving at the captains destination, this beautiful glacier.

I couldn’t resist the shot of this passing gull.

This close up reveals the blue tint to this glacial ice.

Here are a couple of seals lounging on an ice flow to temporarily get out of the freezing water. It must be cold water if they consider lying on ice instead!

As we approached this chunk of ice “calved” off.

The captain had his crew retrieve a chunk of the ice and we all had a glacial cocktail!

Jan’s holding a piece here, it’s very clear ice!

Here are some sea otters playing in the ice field.

Two of the many waterfalls from the top of the glacial field.

Lots of summer foliage from the nutrient rich water and rock.

Farther down the coast we came upon these lounging seals.

Notice the marking on the big fellow, it’s an identification marking for the rangers.

This one almost looks like a ground hog the way he’s posed!

How do those little pine trees grow up there?

This map shows where we went as well as a couple of other tours from this company. We were on the Northwestern Fjord Tour.

On the return trip I enjoyed a Puffin Pale Ale, pretty tasty!

One last shot from the boat as we returned to port.

Seward-Mural Capital of Alaska

These murals are scattered all over Seward on various buildings. It’s a day’s adventure to hunt them all down!

This one is on the local Seward Library and Museum, which is a beautiful building in it’s self as you can see below!

The views around Seward are beautiful as well.

The town itself is quaint and pretty cool!

This little restaurant was very nice. Good food and locally owned.

Seward had a 4th of July parade and street party.

Day Trip to Hope, Alaska

On the 4th of July we decided to go check out Hope since we have a very good friend named Hope! This truck and water wheel grinding wheel were on the side of the road on the way there. Anybody have an axe to grind?!?

Shortly after we arrived in Hope and after Jan was able to buy a coffee cup for Hope from Hope, the proprietor of the shop ran out the door saying”The parade is starting, the parade is starting!”, We followed to see the action! One fire engine…

And a family on their bicycles, that’s it!

Oh, and a walker! Short but fun to watch, I’m sure everybody in town was either in it or on the side of the street watching and cheering!

This sign was in front of the store we bought Hope’s coffee cup in, pretty funny and great advice!

We stopped at this little restaurant/bar on the way out of Hope. Cute place and good food.

But they did have wine! Jan said it was actually okay!

The scenery on the drive up and back was beautiful!

Day Trip to Whittier

Whittier was a different kind of drive. The only way to get there is drive through this one way tunnel or by boat. we paid a roundtrip toll.

The tunnel is one way only, monitored by stop lights, AND shared by the railroad!

You can see the tracks in the tunnel here, they have that rubber plate they put between the rails at railroad crossings so you can drive on them. Before you freak out; they run the trains through at night and vehicles during the day!

The light at the end of the tunnel! Even though it’s one way traffic and trains only run at night, it’s still a little weird driving through it!

Oh, and when you exit the tunnel be sure to make that left jog or you’ll end up driving onto the tracks at the other end!

Once in Whittier there wasn’t much to see, it’s strictly a fishing port!

The drive there and back was pretty despite the drizzle.

Homer, Alaska

After Seward we moved on to Homer where we stayed in this lovely B&B, Juneberry Lodge. The couple who ran it were wonderful hosts! We had the room on the right of the red door overlooking their beautiful property and the bay and mountains in the distance.

This was the view from our window; this picture was taken at 11:15PM!

This is a zoomed close-up of the glacier from the previous picture, one of the many glaciers on the Kenai peninsula.

Here are a couple of more shots from our drive around Homer. We spent some time down on the spit you see in this picture. It was cool, nothing picture worthy but fun to explore the various shops.

Homer-Rainbow Connection Tour Boat to Soldovia

While in Homer, we did yet another boat tour, this time to a small town across the bay called Seldovia, population 265. There are no roads to this community, so the only way to get there is by boat.

This is one of the water taxis that goes there regularly.

Here is another familiar shot; another glacier!

Here’s an Alaskan seagull taking a little siesta!

From this angle the hole in this rock formation appears to be a heart!

I got a couple of shots, not the best, of a Bald Eagle landing on one of the channel markers.

Another Bald Eagle in the top of a pine tree.

Here is a Bald Eagle feasting on a piece of fish on the beach. We didn’t know until the guide told us that Bald Eagles are quite the scavengers!

Here you see a fixer-upper boat and beach house!

The locals call this “Frustration Point” or, our favorite, “Man Banging his Head on the Wall”.

A family of Sea Otters enjoying a lazy float.

We ate at this Boardwalk Pub & Grill; this was behind their bar!

There were some great wooden sculptures here.

The interesting thing about satellite TV in Alaska is all their dishes seem to point at the ground, but the receptor is low on the dish so it reflects the signal from the top of the dish. It actually makes sense since the satellites are near the equator of earth! In researching this I also read that satellite dishes near the equator point straight up versus to the south as they do here in the US!

Cooper Landing, Alaska

We didn’t take any pictures in Cooper Landing since it was pretty steady rain the entire 3 days. We had planned a float trip and wildlife center trip but canceled both due to the rain. We did make a trip out to Kenai and got a few natures photos along the way though.

Alaska with Family and Friends

Anchorage

We took Reeve To the Anchorage Alaska Museum of Science and Nature. Reeve really enjoyed all the interactive displays including this one where you can create a bubble ring around yourself!

And of course we stopped at the gift shop on the way out and Reeve got this awesome Star Wars kit. He put it together in record time!

Denali National Park Trip

We went to Denali via train; it was a 7 hour trip but lots of great scenery along the way.

Here you can see remnants of the old teletype wires along the route

They obviously get lots of rain here, everything was very lush!

If you notice, this river water has a grey cast to it. That’s silt from the melting glaciers.

Ferns, ferns and more ferns everywhere! They have a short growing season, but with almost constant daylight things grow fast and abundant! They hold many world records in the size of pumpkins, melons and other produce!

Some remnants still remain along the way of the old trains too.

While in Denali, we stayed at the Denali Bluffs Resort. Very nice resort just minutes from the entrance to Denali.

VERY Large Mosquitoes here! On the way up the entrance to Denali Bluffs they had many of these whimsical signs along the way. I didn’t take pictures of them all, but of you go to their website you can see all of them, pretty fun!

Mary and Joni braved the wind for a photo-op with the scenery from the resort deck.

The wildflowers were everywhere, sometimes growing right out of the rocks like these hardy ones!

Reeve, Joni and Mary hamming it up with their new furry friend in the lobby!

Jan and I are enjoying a cocktail on the deck.

This is a Yukon River Scow from 1915 used to haul freight during the Gold Rush.

Another view of the magnificent scenery all around us!

Denali National Park

Our van, the only available rental vehicle we could find!

Here we see a Japanese tourist doing what they do, take pictures! Sorry, Joni, I couldn’t resist!

Despite the fact we had a limited exposure to this park and did not see any animal life, the flora and fauna was spectacular!

Reeve, Bryce and Laura did a short hike around the lake near the train station.

Denali National Park Sled Dog Kennels

We think one of the top highlights of the trip for Reeve was our stop at the National Park Sled Dog Kennels! It got especially great for him when he was told he could pet the dogs!

Royal enjoying the lazy warm days of summer!

One of the retired sleds, it appears to have had many hard miles put on it!

The cart they use in the warmer months for training of the dogs.

This is as close as I’ll EVER get to riding on a dog sled!

The modern day sled and cold weather gear they use.

As you can see by his face, he hated coming here! More like he hated leaving I think!

Drive to Seward and the Marine Wildlife Tour

Bryce drove us down to Seward to take the Marine Wildlife Tour, so I was able to get these few pictures of the trip down. Although it was drizzling for most of the trip, the scenery was still gorgeous, maybe even more so!

This was our vessel for the tour; we’ll ignore the misrepresentation of the current weather conditions in it’s name!

Despite, or maybe enhanced by the weather, this harbor is beautiful!

Reeve with his new digital camera ready for the adventure!

One of the many “parking lot” style campgrounds here! You better like your neighbors!

This was an apparatus used to load cargo (cement I think ) onto ships. The guide told us that the cruise ship’s captains would tell the passengers arriving here that it was a new slide for quick dis-embarkment of the ship!

Our first wildlife sighting; a mother and calf grey whale! The guide explained that she was teaching him/her how to breech!

There were hundreds of Alaskan sea gulls everywhere you looked on these rocky shores!

There were lots of these nests they built for their eggs too.

These strange looking birds are called Murres. They kind of look like Penguins, but are not even related to Penguins. According to Reeve, these birds can fly and Penguins cannot!

This was one of Reeve’s favorite sightings; a Mountain Goat and her baby.

This was my only useable picture of a Puffin, they’re very small and hard to photograph.

Here’s an elderly seal (according to Brandt) enjoying the sun. Jan thinks it’s an older otter.

This is one of the many waterfalls from the melting glaciers above.

Mary insisted I should be in one of my pictures sporting my new beanie from our boat! A little free advertising for the cruise company!

Jan loved this shot; silhouetted rocks in front of the foggy backdrop!

The girls! Jan, Joni, Mary and Laura, trying to stay warm and semi-dry!

This was the only Bald Eagle we spotted close up, hanging out on a buoy on our way back to port.

Palmer, Alaska- The Reindeer Farm and Sanctuary

This was most likely Reeve’s **favorite** stop on the entire trip; the Reindeer Farm!

One of the many Reindeer they have. The reindeer are their business and all the other animals are rescues, mostly donated from the park service.

Some very impressive antlers! We learned an interesting thing about these! The reindeer loses his antlers every year and they regrow in the spring. The interesting thing is, the individual reindeer can be identified by their antlers because when the regrow, they come back in the exact configuration they were! It’s kind of like their “fingerprint”!

Here Jan and Laura are feeding the reindeer.

One of the larger residents was this Moose. He’s been here since a baby, so he is very friendly!

As a matter of fact, if you hold a small branch in your mouth, he’ll give you a “kiss”!

Reeve is giving this little guy some love!

This Bison was another interesting resident, he’s also a rescue who’s been here since he was very young! He’s not so small anymore!

Here’s a portrait of this handsome dude!

And of course they had two Yaks! They are very furry beasts!

They also had Elk but they were not as friendly, so they were in an enclosure all by themselves away from people and other animals!

This was one of my favorites; an old Ford tractor that they are still using today!

Reeve couldn’t resist petting the resident friendly Calico cat on our way out!

North & South Dakota (and a tiny bit of Wyoming)

Devil’s Tower, Wyoming

Jan and I made a day trip with her sister Carolyn and her two grand daughters, Renae and Ziann to see Devil’s Tower, it’s not far across the border from South Dakota. They live in Belle Fourche. It was a bit misty and cloudy, but I think it made the tower pictures more interesting!

This picture with the two rangers gives you a sense of the tower’s massive size!

Renae is on the right and Ziann in on the left.

A couple of days after our Devil’s Tower adventure Jan and I had lunch with Caroyn in Spearfish.

Ta’Tanka Story of Bison Museum- Deadwood, South Dakota

This museum was put together by Kevin Costner over many years. It is the story of the Lakota Indians who he got to know quite well while filming “Dances with Wolves”, and their relationship to the Bison. Ta’Tonka means bull bison.

Ta’Tanka is the third largest bronze sculpture in the world! It consists of 17 individual pieces depicting the ingenious way the early Lakota Indians were able to kill so many large Bison with only bows and arrows riding horses bareback, it’s aptly named “the Bison jump”. I’m sure there were plenty of Indian and horse casualties as well in the process! They would herd them toward a cliff and drive them over the edge! It sounds cruel and inhumane to us, but it was a matter of survival for them at the time. If you’re interested you can learn more at storyofthebison.com .

Theodore Roosevelt National Park- North Dakota

This park is beautiful! The terrain is varied and there’s a multitude of colors in the rock set off by all the green of the prairie grass and trees! The views seem to go on forever!

But the main attraction for us was the abundance of wildlife, including these Bison!

This poor fellow didn’t make it. We saw him on one of our hikes. It’s obvious he didn’t die in vain though, the scavenger animals make sure of that!

Just past the dead bison, we saw “evidence” that there were also live bison on this trail!

And critters that make use of said evidence! The Dung Beetles!

Our favorite though were the wild horses! So majestic!

Don’t panic, the colt is not dead, he’s just napping!

Some of the lesser in size wildlife, but still interesting!

The fields were teaming with these prairie dogs!

And of course ending with a purple flower!

Enchanted Highway- North Dakota

This was the brainchild of a local artist who thought that putting up a series of giant metal sculptures randomly alongside the byways of the North Dakota rolling plains would entice tourists to venture further into North Dakota. As is obvious by this post it has worked at least once!

As you can see in this picture with our truck in the background, they are quite large!

By this one of the deer, he also constructed this maze for people to enjoy!

We saw one of the locals checking out the giant fish!

These rolling hill plains seem to go on forever: it’s like a gigantic rolling lawn!

As you can see, these are made from whatever scraps of various metals he could find. According to what we read, before he decided to do this he had never built or welded any thing in metal before! He was self-taught!

This picture Jan took of me was the last picture my trusty Nikon D7000 took before it decided it was done. Not to worry, I’ve replaced it with the newer model D7500; I figured 10 years and 60,000+ pictures was pretty good for one camera!

Quick Spring Trip to Southern Arizona

Hotel Gadsden- Douglas, Arizona

We stayed in Douglas Arizona at this great old hotel, The Gadsden Hotel! This was their grand lobby. We were there checking out different RV parks while our trailer was in the shop.

From the grand lobby this was the even more grand stairway to the second floor!

Amazing detail! This hotel was originally opened in 1907. It was recently purchased by a young couple who are slowly bringing it back to it’s original glory.

The original shoeshine both and telephone booths

There was a beautiful grand piano in the lobby as well!

The all original ornate entry to the lobby tavern.

The dining room! They had good food too.

The breakfast room fireplace. The fire has been updated to a modern gas unit, but has kept the old charm.

They had framed copies of the original floorpan drawings that were hung in the rooms.

And pictures of how it looked back then.

This was a mosaic the original owners wife had done for the dining room. The picture was inspired by a postcard she had picked up in Italy.

Hotel McCoy-Tucson, Arizona

While in Tucson we found this quirky little hotel. It was run by a young couple and was very 60’s-70’S! We will be staying at a near by park Sept. 29th-Dec 19th. We suggest you visit us and stay here!

An old school motel from the 60’s reborn!

The most interesting part of this Hotel was the beautiful artwork murals everywhere!

This one was outside our room. Even though it’s a GM truck (Chevy or GMC), it’s still appropriate I suppose!

Colorado Stay Beginning July 2020

Paint Mines Calhan, Colorado

It’s pretty easy to figure out why the name is “Paint Mines”!

It was amazing to us that this was out here in otherwise mostly flat or rolling hills and grassland of the Colorado plains!

Black Forest Equestrian Competition with Aneka

While we were staying at Falcon Meadows out east we attended Aneka’s performance at the Black Forest Saddle Club competition. This is Jan and Mary giving Aneka some last minute pointers (haha)!

Aneka doing what she loves most; going fast!

Pikes Peak with Steve & Mary

While at Falcon Meadows with the Bergman’s we decided to make a day trip up Pikes Peak. It was a perfect early fall day for it!

On our way up we saw this accident. Somehow this poor fellow’s car fell down the mountain to the street below. It appeared that he had parked near the edge and didn’t secure his parking brake or something; ruined his day I’m sure!

The extensive new additions to the top of Pikes Peak and the tram were still in progress. It’s supposed to be done now so we’ll need to check it out before we leave Colorado!

Cherry Creek Reservoir Campground

After Falcon Meadows we went to stay at Cherry Creek Reservoir, one of our favorites! Bryce, Laura and Reeve came to visit us there. Reeve and Laura had fun playing Corn Hole.

Reeve sporting his new dinosaur bike helmet we got him!

We also had some other visitors while staying there.

These guys were definitely not shy or afraid of us campers!

And they were very friendly with each other too! The Magpies obviously liked hanging around the deer!

USAF Academy FamCamp

After Cherry Creek we moved to the Air Force Academy, which ended up being all winter, not what we had planned but this primo spot we ended up with made it much more bearable!

Day Trip to Victor and Phantom Canyon

The fall colors were starting to show. For some reason I like RED!

Downtown Victor was pretty much deserted. We suspect due to Covid and end of their season.

Here’s a nice fixer upper mountain cabin!

When we left Victor we decided to go out the back side and check out Phantom Canyon. As you can see it was a dirt road, I saw truck dusting in my future!

The dirt road through Phantom Canyon also involved a couple of sketchy tunnels!

We made it through both unscathed, other than lots of dust!

Our (Unplanned) Winter Stay in Colorado Springs

The end of October gave us our first taste of winter at the Academy.

We passed the time and kept sane by doing day trips to Cherry Creek, Chatfield and Pueblo State Parks! It made our yearly pass a bargain!

The geese don’t seem to mind the lake being mostly frozen over!

Sunset on our way down 83 to the Springs.

Casa de Ziegler II Update, sheltered in place.

April 16, 2020

Hello friends and family. We hope all of you are safe and healthy.

We arrived back in Santee just before the virus outbreak. We were fortunate to have friends from Colorado and Pasadena come visit the first weekend we were here. And a nice visit with Lane, Ron, Lynn, Lee and Anderson early on. Now we are waiting to be able to see others and our doctors as well. The day park and front gate (where we were working) of Santee Lakes closed and we are now being tasked with other jobs to earn our free spot. We feel very fortunate that we planned to be here for three months and not moving each week as we did most of last year. As you all know, most of the state parks and many campgrounds are closed. Definitely not anything we could have imagined when we chose this retirement lifestyle!

Unfortunately, we have learned that the rodeo in Cripple Creek where our granddaughter was going to perform was cancelled mid -June. So we decided to push out our departure and leave Santee July 1^st. That will give us another month to hopefully see family and friends that we haven’t been able to see since we arrived. We will be moving to another spot and do not plan to work that month. Time will tell when the day park will open up and we can receive guests. We are certainly anxious to see everyone when the time does come.

Also, given our limited (aka almost non-existent) connection we cannot post any pictures at this time! So we have a bit of catching up to do since we were in Tyler, TX!

Love to all,

Jan and Brandt