Don't I Wish

..that this is what I could do during my trip down 95

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The good old north

Breaking out the Rainier jacket!

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Why I love my boss

This is an e-mail he sent out this morning...

Please be forewarned that a special HAZMAT team will conduct a surgical strike on the 3rd floor refrigerator during the Christmas break. No biological, abiological and/or unidentifiable materials will be spared. If you have any food, specimens or experiments in the refrigerator please claim them ASAP.

It's a Wonderful Life

I just finished watching 'It's a Wonderful Life'. I hadn't seen it in forever, and since there was nothing on TV I convinced Sandor to put it in for me. He headed to bed halfway through (he does have to be at work at 5am after all...such is life in the retail business at Christmas), but I stayed up to finish it assuming that I'd want to watch a different Christmas movie tomorrow. That, however, may not be true. I may watch that one again. I had totally forgotten how adorable and sweet it is.

So, if you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it in a while, I suggest you add it into your Christmas plans this year. It is well worth it. "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends"

Born In September

Dudley the Bionic Dog

Yes, so I've been a little out of touch...sorry. I've been quite busy attempting to finish up all the things I want to do before heading to Pennsylvania on Sunday. All the while attempting to stay in the Christmas spirit while it's 74 degrees outside! However, thanks to the fact that my office likes to pump out air conditioning in the winter and heat in the summer it's a cool 50 in my office. Mix that with the balsam fir candle I have on the candle warmer and the Christmas music in the background I'm doing pretty good :)

Last weekend I headed up to Brandy's house to help her with Special Olympics on Thursday and then have a wonderful weekend of scrapbooking together. Of course the pup went along, and got to hang out with her new cousin, Dina, who is still in the puppy stage and is a terror...but adorable, so you can't help but love her.

Dina the cute little sister of Dudley...also known as Dina the dinosaur (she looks dinosaur like when she yawns, it's hilarious)

On Friday we were sitting in line at Wendy's when she got a call from John letting her know that Dudley had just jumped out of the car while it was going 45 miles per hour! Yeah, not the best call in the world. So I took her to the vet, and took Dina home (because we had just taken her to the vet for shots before we had gone to Wendy's), while they stayed to have Dudley checked out. As a result of this experience we have determined that Dudley man is some kind of bionic dog! He does have road burn randomly over him, but he did not break one bone, had no internal bleeding (thankfully!), and within 3 hours wanted to play with Kaylinn outside. Seriously, it was out of control! So, thankfully Dudley is just fine, although we minimized his playing to attempt to force him to 'recover'.

As a result Kaylinn had only Dina to play with, which had it's pros and cons. The pro was that Dina was smaller than her and so she could totally outrun her. Another pro was that Dina has refused to learn what the electric fence is, so she would follow Kaylinn all over the place, whereas Dudley stays within the fence line. The con was that Dina was definitely not Dudley, and anyone who is not Dudley is not good enough for Kaylinn. She did warm up to her a bit, and by the end of the weekend even let her lay next to her :) It was quite entertaining.

Tragedy of the Commons

What do these pictures have in common?


They are both the second plot of five that we counted on the same beach...only separated by 5 months...

If you've never heard of tragedy of the commons, check it out here. It is a piece that was published in Science in 1968 and was one of the first things I had to read as part of my ecology class in undergrad. In short it says that when everyone owns something, no one owns it and therefore everyone exploits it. It's a sad statement of truth about our society, and one that you can see in glaring reality at Botany Bay. You may remember my trip to Botany back at the beginning of the year, and my comment on how many shells there were on the beach. It has been a private beach and therefore the shells that washed in from the ocean had not been picked up by random tourists and taken back to random houses in random towns. Now, I am not saying this because I dislike people picking up shells. I have quite a few in my house, but I pick them up if they are particularly nice, or the place means something particularly special to me, and they are not dumped out with the trash when I'm cleaning a room because they have lost their 'newness'. And I most certainly don't take a wagon full of them.

But, back to Botany. We opened up for the public in July and the day after did a shell count because we knew there would be a drastic change before the next time we counted. We saw it happen as adults would carry their twins off the beach so they could fill their double stroller with shells. Or a man who knew only children 17 and under could take shells hid a bag of them under his shirt as he walked past the DNR staff (really, did he think we are blind?). It sounds crazy, but the reason for it is simple - it's a tragedy of the commons. People see the shells and figure, well if I don't take them then the next person who walks on this beach might and if they do then I missed my chance to have it. Now don't get me wrong, the beach still has a ton of shells on it, but they are definitely not the same types of shells that were there before. Just take a look at those pictures. Whereas in our July study a spot of beach 15 ft by 15 ft would have upwards of 40 whelk shells on it, in our December count there were 3 (and all those were broken apart).

This post is not so much me saying that I don't want people taking shells, because I totally support kids collecting shells and putting them in their room and growing up to be a marine biologist (or at least growing up to think the ocean is cool) - hey that's how I got to where I am today. It's really just pointing out how crazy it is that something a guy wrote in 1968 is still SO relevant and yet far from a common topic understood by the societies that exhibit the behaviors. We may want to start adding this to high school biology...

Smiles All Around

Our s'mores party was quite a success. The food was delicious and the company was excellent! Kaylinn's Santa hat, Ellie's cute faces, and the rotel dip were just three of the highlights.

Holly, Kim and Maia

Jason making S'mores

Ellie giving the chicken some love

the pupster in her holiday outfit

this is Maia trying to get Ellie to sit on her lap, and me finding the whole thing hilarious

Kaylinn was in total love with Julia, Kim and Joe - granted they smelled like Nick and Marley so that may have something to do with it (we already know she has a crush on Nick)

Ellie's looks cracked me up! - she was quite fond of Kaylinn until she stole her graham cracker at the end of the night

It really was a lot of fun!

All ready for s'mores!

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Princess for a Day

Friday was International Princess Day. It is the glorious day of the year where one is not only allowed, but encouraged to wear a tiara at work. We started celebrating this 2 years ago and had a grand time!




Last year I was on the cruise so I missed the festivities, however, this year they were back with one small snafu - no tiaras. Angel brought her daughter's tiaras two years ago, however, she found out when she went home to get them last night they were all located on Kealy's dolls at her grandmother's house. Thus we had only one tiara for the group.

Eli won the award for most inventive tiara

Kim went with a wool hat

Kealy did get to wear the one tiara - we felt it was only fair since she was the youngest

and I provided the delicious brownies

when it comes right down to it - no one needs a tiara to be a princess!

Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I LOVE CHRISTMAS! Love, love, love it! I love the smell of Christmas, the sound of Christmas, the look of Christmas. Pretty much if it's Christmas I love it (that is with the disclaimer of Christmas commercialization not being what I'm talking about). So, when it's time to break out the decorations I am in heaven. Last night we went and bought our tree and decorated the house for the upcoming s'mores party. That, combined with the balsam fir candle I have on the candle warmer in my office is making me feel like it is in fact December after all (although I can't believe it's really true!).

I found these nifty cinnamon scented pine cones, which combined with our Christmas tree cuttings and some candles makes an excellent centerpiece for the table!

Mishu did not care at all about the decorating, but did like the idea of sitting in a large box

poor Kaylinn - she is just too cute with this hat on for me to not let it happen

100 things +

I got this off of Rachel's blog - it has apparently been floating around the blog world. The instructions are to bold the things you’ve done and add your own interesting thing at the end of the list:

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Spent a summer “abroad”
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train/flight
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Been at the top of the World Trade Center
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted / drawn
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Paid off a mortgage in full
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving/parasailing
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a cheque
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the CN Tower
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Criss-crossed Canada
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby/been pregnant
95. Witnessed a birth
96. Been present at a death
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day
101. Peed on the side of the road as an adult
102. Milked a cow
103. Been white water rafting
104. Been surfing
105. Ridden a horse
106. Been ice climbing

Carpet Emergency

The carpet in our livingroom is gross - or was anyway, until last night. Kaylinn had decided to eat the plant a few weeks ago which left unknown amounts of dirt, in addition to her last few accidents in the 'puppy training days' following our previous carpet cleaning experience, in addition to the normal 3 animal cat dander and normal family wear and tear all carpet sees. So, last night I borrowed Cynthia's carpet steamer and set out to deal with the issue, prior to a little Christmas party/s'more eating extravaganza we'll be hosting tomorrow.

After nearly 3 hours and about 15 water changes in the steamer, our carpet looks AMAZINGLY different. a) you can't actually SEE the stains everywhere, b) it doesn't vaguely smell like animal urine and c) it's not a dull beige, but maybe brown color. Granted it took 3 runs over the full floor, and about 5 or 6 runs over the very center to get it to this point, and could technically take 1 or 2 more, but, it is WAY better and I don't feel like I'm living in a sewer anymore.

GROSS!

Anyway, the carpet is ready for company and I am ready to go get a Christmas tree, which will fit conveniently in the area where I moved one of the chairs to clean the carpet!

Lazy Days

Oh, I love 4 day weekends! You can get all the random things that need to be done on the weekend done PLUS you can do that stuff you want to do but never have time because you are doing all the random things that need to be done!

Yesterday was great fun. Brandy and I ran the Turkey Day 5K downtown in the morning, which left the pups to play while we were out. Sandor woke up to Dina (Brandy and John's new puppy) crying in her crate (he says this sounds like a parakeet) while Kaylinn and Dudley were hanging out. We weren't positive of Dina's housetraining skills so we went on the safe side with the crate. Kaylinn was very unsure of this new canine who smelled kinda like her brother but who was most definitely not! In the end she decided Dina could hang around her and Dudley but wanted nothing to do with actually playing with her (poor pup).


Once I was showered and ready to go we headed up to the Szivaks for a Hungarian Thanksgiving...not quite the normal Thanksgiving meal, but kind of like it :) The kids joined us for the meal which means there was quite a lot more energy in the room after the meal than normal! Once they headed home, I fell asleep on the chair until I was woken up by Sandor a half hour later ready to go. That tryptophan really does one in!

We headed over to John David's parent's house to say hello to Brandy and John and his family, hung out there for an hour or so and then headed home. We definitely were not even close to hungry that night but we had been meaning to pop some of the popping corn that we've gotten from the CSA so we decided that was an even trade for dinner. You just stick the cob in a paper bag, throw it in the microwave for 3 minutes while you melt some butter, pour the butter over top with some salt and you've got yourself some of the best popcorn I've ever had!

The evening task ended up being backing up pictures. I've been meaning to do this for about 6 months and I never get around to it, so seeing as how it was 7:00, there was nothing on TV and we were not letting ourselves go to bed quite yet I sat down to start the task. At midnight I finished! That is why I haven't done that in a while! Granted most of it is because I'm super anal about pictures and want them backed up on the external hard drive PLUS two sets of DVDs before I will delete them off the computer, but whatever, it's worth it for peice of mind knowing I'll have all my million pictures for years to come :)

Since I was on the kick of cleaning up and backing things up, this morning I've been finishing up some things I needed to clean off my work computer, backed up my part of the home computer, and found all the documents we need to make copies of and get originals into a safety deposit box. Which made me realize we never did apply for Sandor to get a US passport...we should probably do that at some point. Then after a little e-mail checking I decided the pup deserved some attention and she and I headed to the dog park for some fetch, after which we headed to the doggy store where she recieved a much needed bath! I love the baths at the store! It's amazing how much easier the whole process is when you don't have to bend over a tub and the shower is one of those detachable ones so you can move it around (and has a button to turn the water off without having to get the temperature right again)! Well worth 10 dollars for as infrequent as we bath her!


So now I think it's time for lunch and then onto the things I WANT to do today, which is scrapbook! Whoohoo! I will be starting at September of last year...the goal is to get to December of last year by the end of the weekend...we'll see how it goes!

Pie Prep

May the turkey be tasty and the pies be delicious! Happy Thanksgiving!

Always Learning

It seems every time I can I learn something different to do based on what I screw up that time. No worries, by the time I can things when I'm 80 I should be all set :) This round we learned to not go to bed before you flip the jars back over...let me explain.

It seems that if you are canning something that is going to be hot when it goes in the jars you don't have to actually water bath it (which takes out a significant portion of the annoyingness of canning so that is a good thing). What you do instead is flip the jar over after you've put the lid and ring on it, which helps it seal. You only need to leave it there for 2 minutes according to the book but I usually do 15 just to be on the safe side.

demonstration of flipped cans of sweet potato butter

After we finished sweet potato butter we decided to go ahead and make cranberry chutney because 1) the recipe looked delicious and 2) cranberries were on sale when we were at the grocery store. We finished up the sweet potatoes around 10:30 and being that we are insane we decided that we should just go ahead and get the cranberries done as well (in the grand scheme of cleaning up this did in fact make sense although after the fact you may question our judgment).


So, by the time we were finished cooking and canning the cranberries and doing the necessary initial clean-up it was nearly 1:00 and we were exhausted. We headed to bed with our jars still flipped upside down because we had been cleaning and didn't move them since that area was clean. Both of us thought as we laid down that perhaps we should go flip them over, but we figured they would seal just fine and went to bed. In the end they did seal just fine. We had a different problem...

Yep. The chutney set upside down which meant when we turned it over there is a nice big space at the bottom of the jar instead of at the top of the jar where the lid covers it. Pretty sweet. Thus we have learned our lesson. Make sure you turn the jars over before heading to bed for the night - especially if what you are canning sets as it cools.

Canning times 3

You may remember my reference to huge quantities of food coming from our CSA. And you may remember my newly learned skill of canning, which Nicole and I semi-perfected earlier this year. Well, I have combined those two facts, along with the fact that Christmas is coming and the budget is tightening, into a lovely evening pasttime for this week - canning veggies for Christmas presents. Last night was dilly beans, tonight is hot pepper chutney, and Sunday with the help of Nicole again will be sweet potato butter. These are all recipes from a new book that I got which gives ideas for things to can by the month they are in season in the South. The author came and spoke at DNR for one of our public seminar series events and made the sweet potato butter for us to try. It's fun, saves money and keeps me warm in the evening (I was in a tank top last night!). So, don't be surprised if you get a can of South Carolina grown and canned veggies for Christmas!

Welcome Home

That would be the plant I brought in to save from the frost. Apparently I failed. Thanks for the welcome home Kaylinn.

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A Plea to Parents

I have one request from life - that parents STOP using pull-ups. PLEASE, I'm begging you! If you really like them then let me be a little more specific. Please stop using pull-ups when you drop your kid off in the nursery at church - or any other location that YOU are not going to be the person who after they take a #2 in the pull-up have to completely unclothe them to take the pull-up off while getting it all down their legs because instead of unwrapping a diaper you have to drag it down along their legs, then you have to use baby wipes to wipe it off their entire bottom half, while trying to keep two of the other kids in the nursery who are tired and ready for bed from crying so that they don't make the other kid in the nursery start crying just because there are two other kids crying. If you just accepted the fact that your kid is NOT potty trained and put a diaper on them while they are in nursery then the diaper changing incident would have taken 2 minutes and the two kids I put down off my lap to change the child who smelled so bad I could smell him across the room, wouldn't have realized that I wasn't holding them until I was already done the diaper changing.

So let's recap. Diapers - yes. Pull-ups - no. Thanks.

70

I filled in the two dives from Monterey last night in my dive log and was pleased to realized that they were my 69th and 70th dives! Go me! I have officially spent over 48 hours underwater. There is this dive legend that says your 100th dive is to be done sans swimsuit...I don't see that happening at all! If I continue on my 2-3 dives every 2-3 years it should be another 30 years before I have to worry about it anyway.

Here are some pictures of the dive that I didn't have when I did the original post. Michelle was nice enough to send them to me!

pre-dive (it's probably never good when you are wearing fleece BEFORE you get in the water)

post-dive (yes, I know it's a VERY sexy look!)

this is the face I make when I have no feeling in my feet and my tank is stuck

Daylight Savings

I turned the clocks back an hour while I was in California, but I didn't really notice it since my schedule was all kinds off messed up anyway. With a time zone change, plus a daylight savings change, plus not being on my normal schedule, it didn't really make a difference that the time changed. That was until last Thursday when I went back to work. Suddenly it's getting dark when I'm leaving work! That didn't happen before I left for California! So today when I stayed a bit late it ended up being dark when I walked out to my car. I did, however, get rewarded by seeing a beautiful sunset over the harbor which I wouldn't have seen at home because the colors were very low in the sky. I was working so diligently that I didn't even notice it until I got up to copy something and had to walk down the hall, and as I was walking back to my office saw the beautiful view out my window...yet another thing to be thankful for today!

My last but not least thankful moment was lighting the gas fireplace Sandor and my dad installed last month while my mom, Brandy, Nicole and I toured Savannah. So, we had the pleasure of sitting in our living room and being warmed by a fire while Sandor watched TV and I finished up paying the bills. There are worse ways to part with all your hard earned money :)

A Good Start

We are off to a good start today.
1) I found my keys in the last pocket of the last bag I had to unpack this weekend - which saved me from having to call around to everywhere I stayed in California desperately looking for them!
2) I woke up relatively easy at 6am, which means that jet lag is beginning to wear off - it was not nearly as bad headed this way as the opposite...at least for me.
3) And there is actually heat coming out of the vents in my office instead of air conditioning - which is actually not as normal as you would imagine. There are apparently issues with actually controlling temperature in our offices.

So in celebration, I will list off all the things I thanked God for this morning as I sat waiting for the car to defrost the windshield (just one way to use your time wisely!):
1) that I have heat in my house
2) that I have warm clothes to wear
3) that my car has gas in it
4) that I have a job to go to
5) that I have a family that loves me
6) that I have friends who choose to love me
7) that I have a God who cares to hear all my whining about such insignificant things in the grand scope of the world and yet still loves me

Happy Monday everyone!

The Rest of the Story

Seeing as how I either didn’t have internet access or I was too tired to take advantage of internet access for the remainder of my trip I will now finish the picture story of my trip out west. It was absolutely amazing, by the way – in case I don’t say that another 18 times.

Part 1 – Not Your Normal Meeting

The entire reason for me going to California was for the Reserve System annual meeting. One of the cool things about working for the reserves is you get to travel to amazingly beautiful places when you have system meetings. This one was particularly impressive. Asilomar Conference Center was incredible and our reception was in the Monterey Bay Aquarium where we had the run of the place for an entire night. On a separate day we went to the reserve for some sessions and then had dinner there with entertainment by a cowboy singer. Yes, I also didn’t know what cowboy singing was, but it was pretty cool. The reserve is set in very agricultural surroundings – not at all what I think about when I think of the California coast, but as I figured out the next week I really knew very little about the California coast! The sunsets were also pretty hard to beat when you are sitting right on the beach!

the Monterey Bay Aquarium:

Elkhorn Slough:

sunset back at the beach:

Part 2 – Rocks and Dirt

Our meeting ended on Friday at noon, and during the week Sasha, Tina and I had discovered that we wanted to all go to the same places, and were all going to be doing it alone since our husbands were all back east – SO, we joined forces and headed off in the rental car. First up – Yosemite. Our drive from the coast to the Sierra Nevadas was absolutely crazy! If you have not done it I highly recommend it. I think the biggest thing I will remember from this trip is the fact that California is the weirdest mix of landscapes ever – and they are all beside each other! You drive from sand dunes to orchards to rolling hills to mountains to completely flat agricultural fields to pine forests to clay cliffs to rocky mountains. It’s wild! It seems like around every bend you get a new landscape – be it the types of trees, the soil, the terrain – it’s truly amazing. We all decided that we wish we knew more about geology and soil science because we think it would be super interesting to know why certain areas are certain ways. The last part of the drive was after it was dark, but our way back down on Sunday showed us what we were missing and it was more of the same – crazy changes around every bend.

Part 3 – Yosemite

I don’t think I have words for Yosemite. It is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. We arrived at night on Friday and settled into our little cabin in the mountains. The lodge we were staying at is really cool because it’s set up with a restaurant and recreation center in the center where people can hang out, and there are little cabins all through the woods. They also have a general store, which was very handy when needing a bagel for breakfast or a Luna bar for your hike.

Saturday morning Tina and I woke up bring and early and decided to head down to Yosemite Valley. Sasha was waiting for our friend Meg to show up (she was going to drive from Reno that day to see Sasha, but in the end wasn’t able to come), so we packed up and headed out. The store wasn’t open yet so we figured we could find something to eat at Yosemite Valley. (this getting places before they open will become a trend – apparently no one else valued the glory of not having 1000 tourits around all the time, I personally do!). The drive down to the valley was beautiful and the mist and clouds were just lifting when we got down there. We did in fact find a store, but that also was not yet open – we only needed to wait 10 minutes so we hung out and looked at the maps on the building since we had gotten to the entrance gate before the park rangers were there to staff it and so didn’t get a map of our own. We bought ourselves some snacks for the hike, and then after a few incorrect turns found out way to the visitor center AND a place where we could get a breakfast sandwich, a hot chocolate and sit by the fire while we ate. It was a good way to warm up on the chilly morning (I at this point had 4 layers on). After we checked out the Ansel Adams gallery and the visitor center we decided to head out on our hike. We hiked up Mist Trail to Vernal Falls and then joined up with the John Muir trail to go to the top of Nevada Falls. It was a beautiful hike – very much straight up a mountain, but beautiful none the less. From the top of Nevada Falls you can then hike over to Half Dome, but that being another 7.5 miles and we having only gone 4 miles up to that point with snow in the forecast decided it would be best to head back down. We hiked down on the opposite side of the falls, which was a totally different type of trail (should we have been surprised?) – much more tree cover and beautiful huge trees everywhere. About three quarters of the way down it started to rain and so Tina and I tucked ourselves up in a little outcropping in the rocks to wait it out (since we remembered everything that morning except our rain coats). It was a good thing we did because low and behold, down the trail walked Sasha! Meg hadn’t been able to make the trip because of the some roads that were closed from snow, and so she found a ride from the cabins to the valley and amazingly enough we found each other on the John Muir trail! Great minds think alike! After we finished the hike back to the valley, we headed back to the cabins and had a delicious meal at the restaurant (we loved this restaurant) and headed to bed for a very well deserved night sleep. The rain/snow did in fact come that night, but we were already well off the trails so no worries for us.

if you zoom in on this picture you can see the bobcat we saw when we were walking up the trail - he was walking around in relatively close view so we watched him for a while - interestingly enough bobcats do not have long cat tails, but they do wag their short tail when they are looking at something, it's pretty funny

The next morning we got up to an overcast sky, and after checking out and grabbing a bagel we headed to the northern part of the park – Hetch Hetchy. Tina and I were rather obsessed with this name after I called it Hetchy Hetch the first night. Our cabins were on the road that led to this portion of the park, which I don’t know that I ever would have gone to if we weren’t up that way. We slept in a bit that morning since the gate for that area didn’t open until 8 (they didn’t have the pay when you leave option like the valley), and as it seemed every morning the clouds were burning off around the time we showed up. Hetch Hetchy is where San Francisco gets their water. At some point it was determined that the state should flood a valley in Yosemite similar to Yosemite Valley and collect the water for people living in San Francisco. That bodes well for the taste of water in the city, but I doubt it bodes well for the valley that is not underwater. Regardless, it was a beautiful walk. There is a trail that goes around the edge of the reservoir – after the hiking from the day before we were happy with a relatively flat hike Sunday morning.




The last hike we did before leaving the park was back down on the main road, but not all the way to the valley. The road out to the meadows and the road up to Glacier Point were closed and since we had done what we thought was a pretty spectacular hike the day before we decided not to go back down to the valley. Instead we did a short 3 mile hike to one of the sequoia groves. I saw redwoods back when my family flew out to the west coast and did a driving tour of nearly all the parks, and while I remember how huge they were it’s still pretty amazing when you see the things up close. We had our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sitting below trees that probably started growing when our grandparents were born and then headed back to the car for a drive back to the coast. All in all it was a wonderful trip. I would love to go back and do some of the long hikes through the back country there – I can only imagine how amazing they would be after seeing what you can see from the relatively short hikes!




Part 4: Cue the Wildlife

We dropped Tina off in San Francisco and headed to the coast. After staying the night in a cool hostel by the ocean we headed off for a fun filled day. We didn’t realize quite yet just how much we would see that day but to name a few we saw elephant seals, coyote, harbor seals, otter, anemones, starfish, and sea lions. Pretty incredible for a few miles of coast! We started at Ano Nuevo park which is one of the three places along the coast that elephant seals haul out on the beach. The real viewing season is in December when the big males come back to claim their turf and breed, and the females come back to have their pups. We were 1) early for the season and 2) early in the day, which made for a beach of elephant seals and a park volunteer with more knowledge of them than I have of any given animal in the world, all to ourselves! It was awesome. They juveniles (which I would have never known were juveniles unless he told us because of how huge they were) were mock fighting at the water’s edge. You could hear them trying out their elephant seal noise (we were a big thrown off by it when we first heard it and the beach was still quite far away), and they were laying literally all over the place in the sun. It was a sight to behold.

if you click on this picture and zoom into the center you can see the coyote standing on the top of the bluff

Onward down the coast we headed, stopping at spots to take in the scenery and taste the local flavor. We loved a cute little vegetable and fruit stand where you paid 'on honor' into the open and unmanned cash register after picking out what you wanted. We were amazed by how much of the coast was agricultural lands - definitely not what I expected when I think of the California coast!





Next up was Point Lobos – another CA state park, and another gorgeous mini-hike. We had heard of the glories of Point Lobos, but after seeing Ano Nuevo we weren’t really sure if it could measure up. We decided afterwards that it was pretty darn impressive, but nothing compared to your own showing by the elephant seals J My favorite things about Point Lobos was the tide pools. You walked down on some of the rocks (making sure not to slip with all the algae and kelp that covered them) and could see beauty in every crack. It was awesome. We then hiked over to a point where you could see the sea lions (although you could hear them from a mile away), and on the way passed a few harbor seals hanging out sunning themselves, and an otter cracking abalone and swimming around. He was a highlight of the CA coast overall!

you can see harbor seals on the left tip of the island

if you click on this picture to get it big and zoom into the center you can see the otter

Part 5: Big Sur
Big Sur is in fact big! It is pretty incredible really. We left Point Lobos around 3:30 and wanted to get to a restaurant about halfway down by dinner. We succeeded and watched the sunset from our own little treehouse on a cliff (it seriously felt like that because of the tree branches around it).





Our one concession for sipping a California Riesling and having a long dinner while watching the sunset was we needed to finish up our drive to our hotel in the dark. This was no small feat when you are driving along a road that is so much on the side of a cliff that it has signs every 10 feet about rock slides. We also determined that people from that area drive WAY too fast considering we had to pull off and let people pass us, and the waitress told us it would take us 45 minutes to get somewhere that took us an hour and a half! In the end it was worth the drive because our view the next morning was pretty amazing.
After a nice morning of sitting outside and listening to the waves and then sitting inside and warming up by the fire we headed out again to go 5 miles south to another elephant seal beach (we were totally enamored by them at this point) and then head back north to go on home. You could get closer to the seals on this beach, but it was much more advertised (and hence more people) so in the end we decided we liked Ano Nuevo better.



On the way back it was very obvious where the fires came through this summer. At one point we thought that the hills were just really colorful, but once we got up close could see that it was because some trees were burned, while others weren’t, and you could see the rocks and soil at different places, all of which was different colors. It was pretty humbling to see the power and hugeness of a forest fire!

Before stopping for a bite to eat and browsing through some galleries we took a stroll down to a little river the book pointed out as an ‘often overlooked’ spot. It was quite worth the nearly straight up hike back to the car J In the cove you could see all the way to the bottom and the green of the kelp against the blue of the water was phenomenal!

Our last stop in Big Sur was at the first state park along the route when headed south. In our attempt to get to the restaurant on time we didn’t want to stop on the way down, so we saved hiking around the cliffs for the way back. As it turned out it was a great day for it. The sky and water were blue, the plants were red and orange, and the air was cool and breezy! It was the last of our people free days since within 5 minutes of leaving that spot we were back into Carmel and onto life as we know it.

Part 6: A Foggy Morning Stroll

After dropping Sasha off in Monterey (she flew out of that airport), I headed onto San Francisco. I had one thing that I really wanted to do in the city before leaving, which was to either walk or bike the bridge. So, mom and dad put me up in a hotel close to Fisherman’s Wharf and I got up right after the sun did this morning to take to the streets. The walk was a bit longer than I expected, but in the end I did make it to the bridge and walked out to the first span before needing to head back so I could get to my car in time to make it to the airport. It was a nice end to a beautiful 2 weeks!

the bridge in the distance (this was after 30 minutes of walking when I realized the book was totally lying about it being 4 miles to and across the bridge!)a few shots while walking through the city:

getting closer!finally there...