Is it because the recession is really cutting down on travel? Or maybe it’s that Hillary is cracking the whip at the State Department. Either way, I was very surprised to receive my new passport just 12 days after turning in the form at the local post office. Yet another nice change from the days of GW (when it was taking 2-3 months).

We stayed at Madrona Manor in Healdsburg a couple of nights ago. Grand old mansion with a few outbuildings, one of which was the garden cottage we slept in. Really pretty, comfortable, private, quiet, with a fireplace, and no tv. Really setting the place apart was what went on in the bathroom:

A claw-foot jacuzzi tub. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but there it is, bubbles and all.

And then there’s the commode, funny at first, but then slightly disturbing:

Definitely anthropomorphism gone awry.

On our way somewhere else, we made a stop in Santa Rosa  to see the home and gardens of the great plant hybridizer, Luther Burbank. It’s a lovely place, right near downtown Santa Rosa. If you’re thinking of visiting, admission is free, guided tours are available as well as a cell phone audio tour.

One thing I like about places like this is that the plants are clearly labeled (for the most part.) Here are few of the interesting things we saw:

And just a couple of notes:

• I don’t usually like roses that don’t have much scent, but the Moonstone’s prettiness almost makes up for that defect.
• The same goes for shrub roses…I sort of just don’t ‘see’ them. The Gourmet Popcorn, however, is one I could definitely like in our garden.
• They had the giant burdock next to the artichoke’s close relative, cardoon. Their thistle-like flowers look very similar.
• Luther Burbank was developed elephant garlic. It was surprising how nice (and not stinky) the flower head is.
• Burbank worked on a spineless and edible cactus hybrid, which could be used as forage for cattle in desolate areas and as human food (both the paddles and prickly pear fruit). It’s kind of an unstable hybrid and the spine do come back after time.
• The lemon verbena tree was the biggest surprise for me because I’d never seen a tree form, being used to seeing them as bushes.
  

I’ve been thinking that with the global financial crisis, something had to be going on with currency exchange rates. Not surprisingly it has, according to several newspaper articles. We’ve been avoiding going back to Europe for quite a while because of the unfavorable exchange rate (who wants to pay ten bucks for a cup of coffee, really?). The good news for us then is that the Euro is at its lowest point in two years and heading further.

How did I find that out? Yahoo Finance has a very nice Forex page where you can not only get current exchange rates, but get history going back five years. Also good is a little thingie in the top right corner of the graph that flips the currency exchange rates (useful when the other currency is worth more than one dollar).

Some of the other common currency exchange rate sites also have history, but I like the Yahoo graphs the best.

Yahoo Finance Currency Exchange

Now this is something you don’t see every day and certainly not something that would happen here in drought-threatened California. This week, the waterfalls in New York City were turned on. A public art installation by Olafur Eliasson, there are four humongous man-made waterfalls: underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, above the Manhattan Bridge at Pier 35, between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn, and on Governor’s Island. They’ll be dripping away until this fall.

Above is an early video of the Brooklyn Bridge running. Below are pictures taken during a test run by NY Times photographer Vincent Larforet:

It’s an ideal time to take a Circle Line tour.

Video via Gothamist

Pictures and article at the New York Times

Leaving Olancha and Gus’ Really Good Fresh Jerky, we drove east into the Panamint Mountains, the western border of Death Valley National Park.

(Just a reminder that you see larger versions of the pictures below by clicking on them. Hit your browser’s back button to return here.)

Our first “sight” was the Father Crowley Outlook on the edge of Rainbow Canyon and with quite a view of the Panamint Valley. (There’s not much in the valley except for a funky motel/campground at Panamint Springs where they were charging $5.40 for a gallon of gas.)

According to what we read, Death Valley’s name is more a ruse than a statement of fact. There was a bit of gold and silver mining here and miners used the names to keep competitors away. The first resort built in the valley was at Stovepipe Wells, not far from the descent into the valley, sitting right at sea level. Just to the south was the our next “sight”, Mosaic Canyon.
Getting there meant traversing a 2.5 mile gravel road, very bumpy and slightly disturbing in my still slightly new hybrid.   The discomfort quickly proved to be worth it.
In places the canyon narrows so much that only only one person can pass through.     Very cool place!

As I said, this was a birthday trip so we splurged a bit and stayed at the very upscale Furnace Creek Inn (where we were pretty much the youngest people there). The Inn was built by the Borax Mining Co. over 75 years ago to house visitors. It became a somewhat glamorous hideway for the denizens of nearby Los Angeles.
The hotel had originally booked us into room 207, Marlon Brando’s favorite when he stayed there, but it was just too noisy with an air conditioner compressor just outside and a bulldozer hard at work nearby.
Their very generous solution was to give us the hotel’s only bungalow, Room 199, right above the pool and tennis courts!
The stone bungalow was hand-crafted by the mine’s very talented  stonemasons.
The name, Furnace Creek, refers to the spring water nearby, certainly the only reason they can afford such lush grounds.
There’s a pleasant dining room with a good wine list. The food was just adequate. Tom fared better with his nicely-cooked venison.
Even I was impressed with the spring-fed pool at a constant 82 degrees in such a spectacular setting.
As you can see, we were pretty happy with our stay here!

Tomorrow: the real reason(s) for our visit…

One of Tom’s birthday presents last month was a trip to Death Valley, which we did last week. (That’s Tom over there–>>) As usual I took hundreds of pictures over the four day trip. To make it easy for me and to make the posts easier to read, I’ll be doing these photo posts over a couple of days.
From here to there it’s a 9-10 hour car ride if we’d have done it straight through. Rather than doing that only to arrive in Death Valley dog tired, we overnighted in the unfortunate town of Mojave.
There was a picturesque abandoned library across the street from our (thankfully clean) motel.
One of the reasons we stopped in Mojave is because it gave us a chance to drive through Red Rock Canyon State Park the next morning.
The canyon, which apparently has seen movie and commercial shoots, proved to be pretty impressive, a good prelude to the big show to come.

Just before we turned east to head in the Panamint Mountains, Tom had to stop for snacks here in Olancha.

Tomorrow: Panamint Valley, Mosaic Canyon and the Furnace Creek Inn…

(p.s. If you want to see a larger version of the pictures above, just click on them. Click the back button in your browser to return to this post.)

Making reservations at smaller or boutique hotels in Southeast Asia can be very frustrating. Part of the reason is that a lot of these properties don’t belong to an international conglomerate and don’t exist on the the big travel booking systems.

more after the jump