Jack's Peak

December 11th

This morning, Tantalum and I decided to go explore Jack's Peak.

 Jack's Peak is a county park that's only 10 minutes from our house.

 It has some great views down into the Monterey Bay.

 Enhance!  This is Fisherman's Warf, and in the bottom corner, part of the La Mesa neighborhood.

 Tantalum pulled me through much of the hike.

 And there was a lot of poison oak.

 This view looks down into Pacific Grove.

 Oaks and pines!

 A fungus!  

 A shiny fungus!  And poison oak.

 Cathedral pines!

 Oooooh!  More fungus!

 Oh hey, my camera has a macro zoom.

 Droplets on leaves.

 ZOOOM!

You can even see the reflection of poison oak in the water droplets.

 Water droplets in moss!

 The trails were pretty nice, but this tree hadn't been cleared yet.  

Ta and I managed to go under and over it respectively.

 A few dewey fuchsias.

A different fungus!

I really like this macro zoom.  It's fun!

Ta and I enjoyed our hike through Jack's Peak and I enjoyed getting to use my new camera.

This concludes our adventures for today.

The Great Dickens Christmas Fair

December 4th

"The Great Dickens Christmas Fair is a one-of-a-kind holiday adventure into Victorian London; an elaborate party with hundreds of costumed players performing and interacting with patrons in over 120,000 square feet of theatrically-lit music halls, pubs, dance floors, and Christmas shops."

It's like a renaissance festival/fair but Dickens themed!

This is a Dickensian Inventor.

I just got my new camera, and was still figure out how to use it - so this photo is blurry.

It turns out many of these vendors are also vendors at the local renaissance festival.

The fair had funny pockets of overlapping smells.  

There'd be roasted chestnuts mixing with meat pies and cinnamon on top.

A map of the Dickens Fair.  It was pretty cool.

Unrelated.  This boat outside of the bar we do trivia at was decorated for the holidays.  

I thought it was pretty.

This concludes our adventures for today, plus a random other day.

Point Lobos

November 27th

We thought we might still need to work off some of Thanksgiving dinner, so we went to Point Lobos to check it out.

Point Lobos is considered the "crown jewel" of the California State Parks system. 

It has lots of areas where waves can crash against the rocks.

Also, sometimes there are lots of kelp bladders washed up on the shore.   

They make a satisfying pop-crunch sound when you step on them.

It's a really beautiful park.

The park owes its origins to Alexander Allan, who purchased the land in 1933 to prevent it from being developed into housing.

We stopped for a bit on the hike to enjoy the view.

A map of Point Lobos trails.  It's got a bit of glare. 

The park is also a marine reserve and conservation area.

We were there!

It was a beautiful day, too.

This tree is orangey because of some sort of fungus.

Fungus!

"The greatest meeting of land and water in the world"  - Francis McComas (landscape artist).

Scenery!

Scenery, now with Justices.

Moss, moss, moss.

Sherrie got a nice photo of the sunlight coming through the trees.

We left the park and went to the Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary.

I found one!

It turns out most of the butterflies were hanging out in this tree on private property next to the sanctuary.   It's that big blobby clump in the middle of the photo.

A blurry photo of a wintering cluster of butterflies.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Whale Watching

November 26th

Today we did a whale watching tour.

It was a little grey out but we were told it would be a good day for whales.  

The breaker here is a favorite spot for sea lions.

 Sooooo many sea lions!

This whole breaker is covered in like 700 sea lions.

There wasn't enough room on the breaker so there is a flotilla of sea lions in the water.   

They leave one flipper out to help stay warm.

A little while later we got out deeper and saw a lot of spouts from blowholes. 

And a few arching backs.   I think this is a humpback whale.

 Flukes!  We saw a few, but this was the best photo.

Dan and his mom and about half of the boat all got seasick.  It was pretty unpleasant for them.  Once we got back everyone perked up a bit, but we took the rest of the day pretty slowly.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Aquarium

November 25th

We didn't know what to do today, so we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It was PACKED.

At least the octopus was out and exploring.

And this one was trying to block out the window.

Dan had fun making his own fish to go in the digital aquarium.

Sherrie found her favorite animal, the seahorse.

This crab is wearing a fish as a hat.  It was my favorite, after the octopodi.

The aquarium is really cool and I would probably like it more if it wasn't so full of people.  I shall have to return on a less busy day.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Thanksgiving

November 24th

With Jim & Sherrie in town and our Bulgarian friends, we hosted Thanksgiving.   It was very endearing to see how excited Angel and Orlin were about getting to experience a real American Thanksgiving.  I was afraid we wouldn't meet their expectations.  Orlin's niece came to visit (from Chicago) with her boyfriend and we invited them along to Thanksgiving as well.  The more the merrier!

So much food!  Rolls, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, pickled veggies, mashed potatoes, turkey, and gravy!  There was also cheesecake and pecan pie.

Dan, Angel, Jim & Sherrie.  Orlin, Maggie, Antoin, and Me!

I know I ate too much,  but it was worth it.  I think it was a great Thanksgiving.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Dan's Parents Visit

November 21st

WOOOOOOoooooOOOOO!  300th post!

Anyway.  Dan's parents came to visit. Hurray!  Sometime around here or a little earlier, my DSLR gave up and decided it didn't want to work anymore.  So, right now I only have my phone for photos and I took some of Sherrie's photos.

This is Lover's Point looking towards Monterey.

Some lovers at Lover's point.

Otter head!

 Otter noms!

We had a great walk along bike trail on the waterfront.

This concludes our adventures for today.