May 28, 2009
Stroll gardens and hiking trails in 30 acres of beautiful trees, shrubs and flowering plants at Big Springs Gardens on Highway 49 between Bassetts Station and Sierra City, CA. They serve buffets: Thursday evening BBQ ($37.00 per person), Friday Buffet Luncheon ($35.00 per person), Saturday Early Afternoon BBQ Buffet ($37.00 per person) and Sunday Buffet Brunch (2 seatings ($37.00 per person)) in a lovely open air garden overlooking a tranquil trout pond. Reduced prices for children. Reservations Required (530-862-1333). Cash or Check Only. No Credit Cards.
Open Friday, June 5 – Sunday, September 27, 2009.
Package prices include admission fees to the gardens, the complete meal (minus alcoholic beverages), sales tax and service charge. See the website for details.
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Places to Explore | Tagged: Big Springs Gardens, buffet, child, children, family, garden, grandchild, grandpa, Green Hour, hiking, kids, mountain garden, nature, Places to Go | 
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 27, 2009
Growing up in Fort Atkinson, WI, we periodically visited the local Indian Mounds in Indian Mounds Park as a school trip. There are eleven mounds consisting of tapering linear, conical, bird and turtle mounds. I found them fascinating back when I was 10 but I never thought I’d be studying Indian civilization when I was all grown up! Here is a list of Indian mound parks in Wisconsin (You have to scroll down to Jefferson County for Fort Atkinson.). The Princess Mound is at the Lake Mills Aztalan Museum at the Aztalan State Park, the site of a ceremonial and residential Native American town established around 1100 AD.
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 27, 2009
Austin and Bella had fun watching the fish going up the fish ladder at Bonneville Dam in Cascade Locks, Oregon near the Columbia River Gorge. In May, a huge ball of sturgeon was discovered at the base of the dam by fisheries biologists, who at first thought it was debris. Sturgeon are one of the Columbia’s largest and most ancient fish. We have enjoyed feeding the fish and strolling the grounds at Bonneville Dam on several ocassions.
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 25, 2009
A great place to fish or birdwatch with Grandpa is Horseshoe Lake in Southern Illinois near Cairo. It has lots of large-mouth bass and catfish. The whole lake is 4 feet deep (3 ft average). It used to be part of the Mississippi River. There are 15 bald eagles in the Horseshoe Lake area in winter – they like the over 150,000 Canadian Geese that show up too! There is another Horseshoe Lake closer to St. Louis that has Cahokian significance and also the same kind of outdoor experiences available: fishing, boating, hiking, camping, birding and picnic areas.
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 23, 2009
The illustration of Grandpa Ron and Austin watching big trains in my book Grandpa, Do It! I Do It, Too! is from a photo I took at the Vancouver Washington Railway Station while we watched trains ( called rail fanning ) after Austin woke up from his nap on his 3rd Birthday Party Day. The Vancouver station is special because it is on a “wye” so it has two front doors – one on the northwest side for North-South traffic and one on the southeast for traffic turning East. There are two major Amtrak trains that stop daily each way here: The Empire Builder and The Coast Starlight, and then there are also eight Amtrak Cascades. Here is an interesting article from 2002 about the renovation plans for the station. It is fun to see how it compares to what is happening now (2 more Cascades are going through it!)
There is also a lot of BNSF, Union Pacific and Portland & Western Railroad freight traffic coming and going – and local sorting in the yard, so Grandpa Ron and Austin had lots of trains to watch!
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 21, 2009
Lots of activities for little ones are on the calendar at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri. Then there’s the Butterfly House in Faust Park, 15193 Olive Blvd. in Chesterfield, EarthWays Center at 3617 Grandel Square – St. Louis, and the Shaw Nature Reserve at Hwy. 100 & I-44 in Gray Summit. Family classes and activities are offered at the Shaw Nature Reserve. The mbgnet is a wonderful, interactive learning and information tool that is a lot of fun to use. Virtual tours are also available!
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 20, 2009
One of our favorite drives is the Avenue of the Giants. It is a section of Highway 101 in Northern California. By chance I popped in the CD “Music to Disappear In” into the player. Grandpa Ron and I had one of our most spiritual experiences driving through the redwoods with the god-like music playing. It was just so totally awesome! I even got a photo of fairies dancing in the sunlight in a small clearing in the trees. I’ll have to get that photo posted so you can see for yourself!
Roadside America has its own take of the tourist attractions to probably stay away from! 😉
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 19, 2009
Chocolate, dark chocolate can help you stay healthy and can even help you lose weight! Great news for us chocolate lovers! Ghirardelli has 100% chocolate drops that I love to nibble at 3 in the afternoon. Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco is one of my favorite haunts – and across the bay is the San Leandro Factory Outlet.
Then there is Hershey, PA; Chicago and Times Square for Hersey’s Chocolate! Here are videos of the Hershey Factory tour. I am told it is a tasty time! Enjoy!
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 18, 2009
Kathy at work suggested the Crayola Factory as a very fun place to take kids. The review linked here is full of info about it. Here are some youtube videos of people having fun. The official Crayola Site is full of coloring pages, crafts and lots of ideas.
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Posted by mygrandmasue
May 18, 2009
We had a great time meandering around the planes at the Pima Air & Space Museum at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ. The SW Aviator has this article (Preserving the Best of the Boneyard
story by Mark Swint, photos by Mark Swint and Mike Scott) about the planes.
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Posted by mygrandmasue
MyGrandmaSue 
