Down the Rabbit Hole

Another slow Sunday. Another crisis of activity. After the successful IKEA trip , I had to think up another location that would engage both parties. Anna had suggested a visit to Placerville, and I jumped at the chance because it promised to be a perfect detour on our way home from Lincoln. But could the charm offensive of this gateway to the Gold Rush live up to a grandma's thirst for window shopping and a child's sense of adventure? What is Placerville? Placerville is a city in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Before the Gold Rush , the area was home to the Miwok and Southern Maidu indigenous peoples. When gold was discovered in the area in the late 1840s, multitudes of people from the eastern U.S. settled there, displacing the indigenous people  from the land or decimating them through exposure to pathogens like smallpox . The miners used to carry dry soil to the river to wash out the gold, which gave the city its old name, Dry Diggins. This, along with other mining activities,...

I have always been interested in learning about personal finance and how to make my money work for me. In fact, I have been listening to various podcasts on investing and financial management, such as:  The Money Guy Show We Study Billionaires Value Investing with Legends The interest stems from dinner discussions with my parents since childhood. Daddy would read an article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer or Manila Bulletin and discuss market trends with us as we ate dinner. Also, both Mommy and Daddy brought me, Anna, and Biboy to Divisoria every weekend for shopping and scouting suppliers for the family business. This was where I learned the fundamentals of economics from a business perspective: the law of supply and demand . Since moving to California, we have resumed these business discussions during dinner. Donan has been a passive participant in these discussions because he doesn't understand the concepts of interest rates and investment instruments just yet. However, ...

Polynesian Cultural Centre , I have returned! Echoing General Douglas MacArthur's famous speech in Leyte, I  returned  nine years  after  my last visit to Hawaii. During my first trip, I wished I had more time for exploration, as I only had a brief stop at the Hukilau Marketplace and ate lunch at the barbecue before boarding my tour bus for the next stop.  For this trip (my third time in Hawaii, actually), I went with Mommy, Daddy, and Donan. I got tickets that allowed us to visit on three consecutive business days. No wonder I couldn't explore the Centre in two hours: it takes three days to experience all that the centre has to offer! We only had time for two afternoon trips to Lā'ie, so we had to make the most of these visits. I had to consider that I was with seniors and a preschooler, so our fastest pace at the centre would be a slow walk. Day 1 We had just arrived from the  Dole Pineapple Plantation , which was an hour's drive from Wahiawa. That visit ...

I have encountered the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum while searching for child-friendly places to visit in San Jose, CA. Some of my co-workers have seen it and only had good things to say. I ran the idea with Val, and he was interested in seeing this museum, so we went there on a Sunday afternoon. Who are the Rosicrucians? The Rosicrucians are a group of people who believe that they hold some secret knowledge handed down from ancient times. This hidden knowledge is a combination of occultism and monotheistic religious beliefs. The Rosicrucian group is symbolised by the "Rosy Cross".  Rosy cross found near Luxor Temple, Egypt.  This cross features a rose in the centre and is estimated to date back to around 100 AD. Reading about the Rosy Cross reminded me of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code due to the connections between the Knights Templar, Freemasons, and Rosicrucians. A brief inte...

My family went to Florida just before the Christmas holidays. I always like to include a historical or nature tour whenever I visit a new place. So, I included in our itinerary an airboat tour of Lake Tohopekaliga to see alligators basking in the sun and a visit to Cape Canaveral for a taste of space flight history. A trip to St. Augustine was perfect for our Florida visit's historical aspect. We took the hop-on, hop-off tram tour (but stayed on it for the duration of the tour) to get a quick tour of the city and learn about its history. It claims to be the oldest city in the USA. The city was founded in 1565 by Pedro Ménendez de Avilés and served as the capital of Spanish Florida. The European settlement in this city was part of the  Viceroyalty of New Spain . Since then, St. Augustine has been continuously inhabited, making it the oldest European-established city in the contiguous United States. It is much older, of course, as Timucuan tribes were known to inhabit this part ...

I was with Kuya Rendo and Ate Lorie during my first visit to the Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Twenty-four years later, I was excited to see how Donan would react when he saw the life-size versions of the rockets and spaceships that brought men to the Moon and back. Mommy, Daddy, Ninang Trining, and Anna were with us, too; this made this visit even more fun. During this adventure, I drove our rental minivan, so I didn't take as many pictures as I would've loved. It was a 61-mi trip from Orlando. The day was sunny, allowing us to enjoy the view on the way. We went through wetlands before reaching Merritt Island. It felt like the road was going on forever until we saw the welcome signage of the KSC Visitor Centre. Donan was so excited! The bus tour brought us close to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). When I was there in 2005, this building housed the space shuttle. 2005's STS-114 was dubbed the "return to flight" mission after the Colum...

One of the places we  had to see while we were in San Diego was the USS Midway Museum because Donan has been interested in fighter jets since we saw the  Blue Angels  last year. I wanted to show him different aircraft types (the FA-18s aren't the only aeroplanes in the sky), and  a museum was the best place to see such a variety of aircraft. Et voila!  The USS Midway is an aircraft carrier on active duty from 1945 to 1992 (yes, that's from World War II to Desert Storm). Currently moored at the Navy Pier in San Diego, it is one of the largest museums I have ever visited. Just see how big the ship's island (tower) is from the dock! We had to take a ramp and an elevator to reach the red, white, and blue banner on the lower right of the photo! However, we only stayed in the hangar for a quick rest for Mommy because Donan wasn't comfortable in the big, dark space. We skipped the exhibit about the Battle of Midway, a major battle in the Pacific Theatre of World War I...

I've been watching period productions recently, and one that made quite an impression on me was "North and South." It's a story about the contrasts between the industrial north (where the cotton mill owned by John Thorton was located) and the rural south (where Margaret Hale grew up as a pastor's daughter). It also contrasts the points of view between employer and employee.  What caught my attention early on was that Margaret was not a typical 1800s heroine. She wasn't knitting or painting while waiting for guests to arrive at her house (just like many heroines from Jane Austen's novels). Instead, she was looking for a home she and her parents could stay in when they moved to the fictional town of Milton in northern England. Moving to the North was quite an adjustment for her; nevertheless, she befriended a family whose source of income was tied closely to the cotton mills.  John, on the other hand, was not a typical rich man. He had risen from humble begi...

Alcatraz Island is one of the more difficult National Parks to visit.  Tickets to the island sell out fast, especially on weekends (a very popular tourist destination) The only way to get there from Embarcadero is by boat (15-min trip) The road on the island is uneven and difficult to walk on because of the terrain (wear super comfortable shoes) After watching Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery's The Rock, I always wanted to visit Alcatraz. Val and I took a  cruise  around the island once; we didn't land there, though. This is why I was excited when I snagged a day tour slot when I was in San Francisco. Finally, after years of finding an opportune time!  The highlight of the island tour was the audio-guided tour of the federal penitentiary, which used to be a maximum-security prison (and is famous because of it). Before it became a federal penitentiary, however, Alcatraz Island was home to a military fortress designated to protect the West Coast from foreign invaders (d...

That's one small step for [a] man. One giant leap for mankind. – Neil Armstrong (July 20, 1969) My fascination with the space age began when I watched a 1980s cartoon about the different periods of human civilisation (e.g., Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Space Age). I seized the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Space Centre on my first visit to the USA almost two decades ago. I also saw the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. I probably have been passing on my interest in space exploration to Donan—subconsciously—because when he started to stitch words into sentences, some of his first topics were rocket ships! I only fueled his interest when we started frequenting NASA 's Ames Visitor Centre at the Chabot Space and Science Centre (I am not exaggerating when I say that he can lead a tour group before he's even potty trained; that's how interested he is about space exploration). Thanks to the wonders of the internet and supportive family members, Donan has ama...

The Jelly Belly factory is a popular destination for families with young children. Tita Babie had good memories of it. Anna recommended riding the choo-choo train. Ate Maddie brings her school-age out-of-town visitors there if schedule permits.  On one of the last warm days of the year, my parents and I took Donan to demystify the Jelly Belly experience. The factory grounds were busy as a fair was going on. We rode the choo-choo train, but it was a letdown after the Tilden steam train experience. We bought a few books about outer space and about Santa Claus in one of the shops. We saw a glimpse of a cultural show. And then, there was the factory tour. It was worth the visit. The self-guided tour wound above the production floor. We saw hoppers, packaging machines, conveyor belts, spraying machines, ingredient pallets, and crates and crates of jelly beans.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) The sights all reminded...

"Duty, Honour, Country"... They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. – General Douglas MacArthur, 1962 Back when I was studying at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, I kept seeing these three words on the university's bluebooks. Three short words that remind students not to cheat during their examinations. I didn't know where the phrase originated until I read an article featuring General Douglas MacArthur's farewell speech in West Point; if I'm not mistaken, this article was in an old issue of National Geographic. The three words resonated in my head once again when I learned that Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom had died on September 8th this year, at 96 years old. She gave a sense of continuity and stability to her realms; she was an image of unity and national identity. The Royal Family boosted the moral...

Sometimes it’s not in our power to choose just what we keep and what we lose. And those who can’t see beyond the cost should consider this tale and what was lost. It ought to sway even a doubting Thomas: Better to lose your purse and keep your promise!” - Robert Browning, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" A glockenspiel clock is a mechanical clock that, during certain times of the day, showcases a set of figurines that reenact scenes from a fairy tale while bells (e.g., carillon) play some really nice, soothing music. When I was in Switzerland , I was determined to see one; only to learn that I was in the wrong country.  (The Rathaus-Glockenspiel, which I saw on the telly when I was a kid, is located in Germany.) Seven years after my Swiss adventure, I found myself in a German settlement in Michigan called Frankenmuth. The city's vibe reminded me of  Solvang, CA  because of the touristy feel and the architecture. While checking out the Bavarian Inn, I learned that there'...

During my family's trip to Michigan, we had the opportunity to visit Mackinac Island, one of the USA's "summer colonies" that have what Filipinos call  bahay bakasyunan . Mackinac Island is found where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan meet (at the Straits of Mackinac). These lakes are members of the Laurentian Great Lakes. Ninang Trining really wanted us to see Mackinac Island and after a day of touring the island, I can understand why. It is steeped in history pre-dating the existence of the USA, has beautiful architecture and landscapes, and provides a glimpse at what life must be like when motor vehicles haven't dominated the roads. The first European settlers were fur traders and Catholic missionaries. In this way, the Europeans built strong relationships with the indigenous peoples who arrived on the island before the Europeans did. Back in 18th century, the French and the British colonials empires were vying for territory; thus, both empires built forts. Fort Ma...

Just before I migrated to the USA, I attended a migration seminar (a requirement for emigrants) where I was given a chance to register as an overseas voter. Naturally, I signed up; but I didn't give it much thought. So when the election day approached, I felt sad that I wouldn't vote this time around. But a few weeks before the election day, I received my own ballot in the mail. This was interesting: I had always voted in my barangay precinct back in the Philippines (and I treated my indelibly inked finger as a badge of honour). But now that I'm permanently residing in the USA, I mailed my ballot to the Philippine Consulate. Initially, I wanted to drive all the way to San Francisco (with Val and the wee one in tow) but the driving distance and the cost of parking discouraged me from going). But the USPS staff told me that my mail would arrive in time, so I felt that a drive to San Francisco was not needed. This national election is certainly heated. I have been invited to p...