No talking or texting while driving...

but what about shooting video?

I know it sounds terribly dangerous, but I really was paying attention to the road. Much more than if I were talking on my cell phone. The freeway wasn't very busy at all. I wanted to capture the cool looking sky - I couldn't...it was so much more interesting in person than on the vid. I was driving home after a 3 day visit in Southern California. When I left S.Cal, it was in the 100s. You may have noticed in the video that it was 59 degrees in Salinas, a small city on the 101 Freeway a little over an hour away from home. Salinas is the hometown of John Steinbeck.
_

Almond Blossoms

In the California central valley, thousands of acres of land are dedicated to almond groves. In fact, (according to wiki) the US produces 41% of the world's almonds and almost all of it is grown in California.

We drive by the groves on the way to and from the hideaway.

They bloom between the end of February to mid-March.

We happened to catch the bloom at their peek.

A few brand new pink buds were blooming.

Each blossom will become an almond and by late summer, the trees are heavy and ready for harvest.

They smelled heavenly.

The bees were very happy.
_

Happy Thanksgiving from Morro Bay

Wishing everyone a day full of thanksgiving and feasting. I am truly blessed, having amazing friends and loving family. I thank each and every one of you, my bloggy friends, for being a part of my life.

I woke up early this morning to photograph my sister-in-law's husband surfing. Now isn't that a great way to show how grateful you are to nature and the amazing place that we live in?To go out and enjoy the ocean and all that she has to offer, just after dawn on Thanksgiving morning, just seems like a surfer's bliss. I know that my BIL is very thankful.

Just look at him......looking out towards the sea, enjoying every moment of it.

Yes, I'm so very thankful to be able to spend this fall day, ocean side, with the sun shining on our faces.

(Did i convince any of you to move to California?) :D

Blessings to everyone!
_

A wandering we will go

Today, as the cows wander the foothills, Jimmy and I wander south.

It's early yet, but I wish you all a wanderful weekend.
_

We're "This Many"

When Danielle came to visit a few weeks ago with her daughter, she would tell everyone that she was "this many" and hold up 3 fingers. So, on the way to my birthday lunch, the 4 of us: me, Danielle, Jimmy and TG, were in the car together and I told everyone to hold up all of their fingers and that was "how many" I was. TG thought that was so funny, that was A LOT of fingers to be!
We had a great time in S. California celebrating Danielle's 40th. The weather cooperated and cooled off nicely after the sun set. She had a fun band, the most delicious birthday cake, and I saw a couple of friends from high school that I haven't seen since TG's baby shower.

On another note, I went to the foot doctor the morning we left. He took an xray that showed something suspicious between the 3rd and 4th metatarsal, and after getting a CATscan, it turns out that I have torn several ligaments and have very bad sprain. I have to wear a removable cast for the next few weeks. But now my foot hurts more than it did, in places that never hurt before. Which doesn't make me want to wear it. And since it's removable, it's easy to talk myself into taking it off. But everyone around me makes sure that I wear it. I suck at self-discipline. It all comes back to my lack of fortitude.

Despite hobbling around S. California for 2 days, we had a good time. We spent Saturday morning and afternoon with Lauree, Jimmy's sister, her husband Jim, and Eric, Jimmy's brother.
On the way home, we had dinner in Solvang.Solvang is a cute little town that was settled by a group of Danish educators in 1911. It was the first time Jimmy and I had gone to Solvang together. All the shops and bakeries were closed, but we found a little restaurant, and dined on Danish meatballs, sausage and red cabbage outside on their patio. I have to admit the atmosphere was far superior over the food, but it was great being in a part of California that we hadn't seen together.

Today, Sunday, we are relaxing at home. We intended on going to the hideaway, but with this gimpy leg of mine, I'm far to lazy to make another trip away from homebase. Not to mention that 2 1/2 more hours in the car, after 7 hours yesterday, doesn't sound very appealing. So the remaining of my Sunday will be spent either clicking a remote or clicking a mouse.

Home sweet home!
_

San Juan Bautista

About a month ago, Phin and I went to San Juan Buatista for a fun day of photography. I had never been there before so it was a lot of fun exploring new territory. Such a nice relaxing day, photographing the mission, browsing though supah cool shops and eating great German food.















_

Snapshots of Carmel

Carmel Highlands, 2006

Fire station, 2008

Carmel Mission, 2004
_

Yee Haw it's a Roundup!

Some of ya'll might not realize just how much the cowboy and Old West attitude is still a part of California culture.
I suppose that if you live in the big city like I do 95% of the time, then it's not that prevalent. But once you get out of the urban areas, if you're not in agricultural farm lands, then you'll find yourself amongst thousands of cows, horses and the good folk who ride or corral them.
Well, our hideaway is a stone's throw from gold country, so in addition to cowboys and cowgirls, it's not unusual to see some ol' gold minin' folk... like this fellow here:
And since folk like this aren't too uncommon in these parts, the town has thrown a big ol' shindig every May for the past 51 years that celebrates that old west spirit.

It's called the Motherlode Roundup and it's a big thing in these parts. When I heard about it for the first time Friday night, I knew I had to go to the parade the next morning figurin' I'd get some fun pictures.
Here's the Wells Fargo Stage Coach, taking us back to the 1800s.

Another old carriage bringing the newlyweds through town.

While rodeos are taken pretty seriously around here, there were a few cowfolk who had to ride their bulls and broncos in a more...21st century way:
For instance, Miss California Rodeo Salinas rode in on her bull with a wee bit more contemporary fashion. That is if you consider a bull's head (is it real? I don't know) attached to a Dodge pickup (is it a Dodge? I don't know) contemporary fashion. edit: I've been told it's a Toyota. (Do I care? I don't think so.)

And I'm certain that the only reason this young cowboy wasn't on a real bucking bronco is because they wouldn't want to endanger all of us parade watchers with an unpredictable wild bronco terrorizing the parade route.

All kidding aside, there were lots and lots of real cowgirls and cowboys riding their beautiful horses.
and me being me, I'm more apt to photograph the tenacious cowgirls, even when they're all dolled up in their fancy parade costumes.

But there were lots and lots and lots of horses in this parade.
This group of fine riders are The Twain Harte Horsemen.

And while I love photographing horses, after about the 220th one, they all start to look the same to someone who isn't a horseman.

I needed a little variety. So I happily got to photograph this beautiful...
mule. There weren't very many mules in this parade. They were under-represented, lemme tell you. So were the donkeys, for that matter. Ever wonder the difference between the two? Wiki can tell you here if you're really curious.

Otherwise, we can move along to the other non-horse entrants:
Not only were these girls pretty good dancers, they looked like they were havin' a whole lot of knee slappin' fun.

Aside from horses, there were a lot of cars in the parade, too. Lots and lots of cars. This particular one had some fun crazy gold country personality.

My personal parade favorite are the bands. I love me the high school bands. Probably because I was part of the drill team unit in my high school band. There were about 6 bands in this parade. Bands were under-represented.

And happily, men wearing coyote hats were under-represented, too. He was the only one I saw.
_

Mission Santa Barbara

Mission Santa Barbara was founded in 1786 by the Spanish Franciscans. It's commonly referred to as the "Queen of the Missions" because of its graceful beauty.
_

Flying over the Sierra Nevada

The magnificent Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our hideaway is hidden somewhere within that range.
_

Join me on a long drive

It's been quite a while since I've written a decent post, so prepare yourself for a long one.

We went to the hideaway this weekend. We haven't been in almost 2 months so it was nice to get up there again. We actually wouldn't have gone except for the need for heavier jackets for our trip to Chicago.

We left Saturday at 7:15am, a beautiful spring morning. Within 25 minutes, this was our view.We're not in the country yet, believe it or not. Big cities on either side of this grade. Fremont (population 210,000+) to the south and Pleasanton (population 72,000) to the north.

The cows don't care that they're within 3 miles of a Starbucks on either side of them.

Heading out of the more urban areas, we drive through the Altamont Pass Wind Farm.
According to wiki: "Altamont Pass is still the largest concentration of wind turbines in the world, producing about 125 MW on average."
The turbines add more texture to the already beautiful green hillside and sky. However, if our rain has ended for the season, these green hills will be brown in 3 weeks.

So now we're about an hour and a half away from home, driving through the almond orchards. The trees are blooming.
Didja know that California grows almost all of the nation's almonds?

There's even a Hershey factory nearby so they can cover those almonds with chocolate as quickly as possible. This barn isn't Hershey's. Just an fyi is all.

The trees are just about bloomed out, and the blossoms litter the ground like snow.

Just a few minutes up the road from the almond orchards is the town of Oakdale.
Is Oakdale notable for anything? I don't think so. Oaks? Well, there are a lot of oak trees on the drive to the hideaway. Only about 15,500 people live there.

Along with these interesting creatures!

And lots more agriculture.

And a few more almond trees.

Then we drive to the foothills.
Lots of lava rock from a lava flow 9 million years ago.

A little detour trough Red Hills. When the wildflowers bloom, they carpet almost every foot of this area. But we're still a bit early. The flowers aren't blooming yet.

A few more cows grazing along the hillside. They'd have to travel a lot further to get to a Starbucks. Again, not that they care.

20 minutes from Oakdale, we're driving through Jamestown with a mere population of just over 3,000.
But it was a bustling town during the Gold Rush and is known as the Gateway to the Mother Lode. It's now a picturesque little town with lots of antique shops.

25 more minutes up the road, we're finally at the hideaway!
Wow. The neighbor told us that it hasn't snowed in 3 weeks. And it's been warm (40s and 50s during the day) for the past 2 weeks. But there's still this much snow left on the ground. It was the most snowfall we've had since we bought the place 9 years ago, and we missed almost all of it.

Well, the night before, our neighbor said a visitor came traipsing through our yards. His, ours and the neighbor on the other side of us.They look like human footprints, right?
They're not. Take a closer look.
See those pads on that print on the far left?

Yep. A bear came to visit.

Walked right towards our hideaway.

It's a mighty nice hideaway. We like it at least.

So we spent 2 days there, Saturday and Sunday.
Then drove home Monday morning.

Care to join me for a few more pics on our way back?
If you've lasted this long, ya might as well stay for the trip back to the Bay Area.
Here's the road going back to Oakdale.

Lots of cows grazing on this Monday morning.

When we get to Manteca, we're almost on the freeway. Just another 1.5 hours till we're home.
Their sign could use a little fresh paint.

Another half hour on the road, we're back to the Altamont Pass, my landmark that we're back in the bay area.
I can't help but take lots of pics of these windmills. I'm not sure why the obsession.

And if I can get the windmills and cows? With the green hills and blue sky? I'm a happy girl.
I'm easy to please.
_