Tidepools and a zipline through the Redwoods

July 2013

Our friends The Walkers live over in Santa Cruz, so now we have no excuse not to visit the ocean more often!  The kindly hosted us for a weekend and we did some tide-pooling in the morning.

Sea anemones are common-this is a particularly nice one

But the tide was coming in and you had to be careful not to get caught

Because the water is very splashy!

The starfish was the best spot of the day-do you see him?

Here is the close up.

Never turn your back on the ocean, have at least one person watching!

 Then we went to zipline through the redwoods-a first for all four of us.  We went with Mount Hermon Adventures and had a great experience.  A good guide to group ratio, experienced leaders, well maintained equipment, and a sense of humor.  First you learn on the mini-line which is close to the ground and a short distance.  You get set into the harness.

The guide holds you while you practice the grip

And then you try out the different techniques.

 Then you are up in the trees!  The platforms are 30-100 ft off the ground, but you are always clipped into the safety equipment.  If you have a mild fear of heights this might still be okay for you-stand close to the trees and minimize your time looking down.

Some of the lines are longer than others giving you a great chance to gaze around while off the ground.

Don't forget to breathe in the mountain air and check out the stream from a unique angle.

And one of the crossings is a bridge-sweet!

If you feel comfortable you can launch yourself off the platform.

and figure out when it is time to break

in order to land perfectly on the platform.

If you break too soon, you will have to drag yourself to the platform Mission Impossible style.

Thanks Brad and Sarah (our guides), we are sad the adventure is over.

Jigsaw puzzles

I love doing jigsaw puzzles.  When I was very young we got them at the gas station.  Turns out they were Fisher Price and they had one picture with all the pieces in place and a hidden, related picture underneath-loved that!  I also remember my first big puzzle-Springbok, circular, a rainbow of jellybeans, spelling out 'jellybeans'.  I must have put that together more than a dozen times.  

Recently I've worked on some tough ones that friends have gotten me.  

Like The Watering Hole by Alex Beard.  The finished puzzle is beautiful, but it is hard for its size.  I didn't even attempt it without consulting the picture!

Also difficult for the number of pieces is The Baffler by Chris Yates.  This is only ~60 pieces, and with the picture is pretty fast.  But if you just go by shape...it took me over an hour!

And finally, someone gave me a puzzle of a Jackson Pollack.  Holy cow!  Even with the picture to consult this is hard.  I had to use a combination of shape matching, color matching and looking for the location of the piece by scanning the picture.  I have never loved Pollack, but after spending so much time looking at it, I have decided I actually like the outer parts of this painting where there are not as many colors involved.  This took about a week, and each day was way more time than is reasonable.

 Not a lot of yellow, so I started there.

 moved to blue

 Then you can look for connectors or pick up a piece and scan the picture for where it belongs.

 Using shapes is effective at this point since there are so many nooks and crannies. 

 See the organized tray in the back-it is mostly by shape at this point.

 Done!

Garden harvest, July 2013

The gardens are bursting and my friend DancinTurtle picked 18.5lbs today-apparently this is only a small dent!

We turned the little sun golds and grape tomatoes into salsa (or gazpacho or Bloody Mary starter).

And the large ones into pasta sauce

I also recently used some of Uncle Scrooge's apricots for jam-this is soooooo delicious!

Mix with sugar and let sit

 Boil it up

 And jar it!

And I found a set of photos from the fava beans harvest

 They are the only bean you have to shell twice unless you get them very young.

The perfect day in Napa Valley

Napa Valley is one of the best spots in the world for a weekend getaway.  It is most famous for wine tasting and good food but you can add in art, bike tours, olive oil tasting or hot springs.  Here is my favorite version of the one day trip.

Arrive in the late morning (11 - 11:30) at Auberge du Soleil.  This is a super nice hotel and restaurant, be prepared to see your Toyota parked next to a Ferrari, but don't flinch, in Silicon Valley you may be the next Zuckerberg.  The key is to eat at the Bar & Bistro.  The restaurant is pricy and requires reservations, but the Bistro makes delightful drinks and has an amazing view of the valley (or during the winter a cozy fireplace).  

 In California it is almost a requirement that one dish on the table have avocado

We like to use the margherita as our 'baseline' pizza.  This crust is a bit thick to be my favorite, but nice use of thinly sliced basil.

The caesar has whole anchovies-very nice

Even the shadows look art-y in Napa

Most people go to Napa for wine, but I love Mumm for champagne tasting.  They have amazing views of a vineyard, great seating indoors and out and an art gallery.  The art gallery has windows into the holding warehouse so you can peak in at the barrels and containers.

These photos are from our most recent trip (March 2013) with our friends and relations, The Islanders.  Note how relaxed we are and the great snacks.