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Archive for February 15th, 2009

More Travel Talk

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

saturdaysunrise

We arose early yesterday and were on the road by 7 am. Here is the beautiful sunrise from the hotel parking lot. Here is the sunrise again from the road.

saturdaysunrise2

I get a kick out of the modern windmills that stand like sentinels on hillsides. This shot was taken in Northern California.

ncalwindmills

And the windmills as you drive into the desert seemed to have multiplied since we were here 2 years ago.

socalwindmills

I wonder where these folks are headed:

bisycebuiltfor2

I know we are getting close to the high desert when we begin to see the strange Joshua trees.

firstjoshuatrees

Today we went up into the hills to Pioneer Town to tour some Ranch homes. I mean Ranch as in horses, not Ranch as in 50’s architecture!

saddleup

horsetalk

hello

cooldoorhandle

The above shots were from a combination barn and house. It was very cool. Here are Mike and Mr C headed to a small home that had out buildings for the horses.

mrcandbro

We cut short the walking around Pioneer Town because it was really cold. We had a delicious lunch at Pappy and Harriet’s. I took this shot of the very interesting ladies room stall doors.

hpsbathroomdoors

Here is a view of the house where we are staying as you walk across the cactus strewn landscape from Mike and Ann’s casita.

ourcasa

We have to be careful where we walk because of the Jumping Cholla cactus. It is notorious for very loose joint attachment, then the joints attach to hapless by-passers with the slightest brush. They can be very painful.

Checking in from Rehab

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Ha! We are in the desert at Mike and Ann’s oasis where we are spending the next week drying out (well, it will probably rain) and rejuvenating in slightly warmer temps (6os). We are staying in the renovated home of Ann’s childhood. Her mom recently passed away and they have turned it into a beautiful retreat. I will post pictures later. I am about 2 days behind in my travels. We had a boring and almost uneventful drive from SF yesterday and arrived here about 3:30 in the afternoon. I had a really bad nose bleed on the grapevine summit of I-5, which is about 4000 ft. We are in the high desert – at about 3300 ft and I had another one last night – not so bad. We also almost had a dangerous collision with a stalled vw bug on I-5 near Magic Kingdom. Thanks to good defensive drivingĀ  by all those around us, no one got hurt.

Last night, we had a wonderful Thai soup and lots of catching up with Mike and Ann. It was good to unpack and know we will be in the same place for a few days.

I have just uploaded my photos from the new Academy of Science building at Golden Gate Park. It was very crowded, and we did not get to every venue, but we enjoyed the feast for the eyes. You can go to my Flickr set to see all of the photos (click on slide show), but here is a tease. Nature has such a sense of humor and a great color aesthetic!!

acofscbromeliadfrog3

A Bromeliad poison dart frog – about the size of your thumb.

acpfscbluejellycloseup

Blue jelly fish.

acofsctropicalfish2

Beautiful tropical fish.

acofscjellycloseup

More jellies.

Today we are off to Pioneer Town for a home tour and BBQ.