A Perfect Day Out!

Teen 2 and I had a fabulous day out today. First we visited the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, then we stopped to watch lawn bowling as we strolled to tea at The Secret Garden, then we drove to Old Town Antiques in Pleasanton where we barely had enough time (2 hours), to see it all. We need to do this again!

Asparagus Festival 2012

It looks like the weather is going to cooperate for this year's Asparagus Festival. We've had showers the last two days and all the set-up work has been done in the rain, but now it is sunny a bright. Thanks goodness. If you would like to attend the festival, here's their website: http://www.asparagusfest.com/  And here's a link  and another to previous Asparagus Festival posts.

How The 1% Live

We had a bit of excitement last week here in Stockton. This large yacht sailed all the way up the river from San Francisco and docked at our downtown yacht harbor. It will be here about a year whilst the owner putters around the Bay, Delta, and West Coast. He lives in the southern Central Valley, near Fresno.

There were quite a few people out gawking at the boat as it docked. The owner obviously had some friends and family aboard. They were all watching us watch them. Boats are funny that way; it's perfectly okay to stare.

The yacht is 163' long with six guest staterooms, and luxurious amenities everywhere. It also has a large shore boat, plus a few jet skis. And a full time crew of 10 to take care of everything. I wonder if I could get a job; I do have experience crewing a powerboat to Mexico.

In case you are also one of the 1%, (and have 40 million dollars burning a hole in your pocket) you too can get a boat like this. Just contact Christensen and ask for the 160' Millennium Edition.

A Day in San Francisco

Teen2 and I had a wonderful day out last Saturday. We went to the De Young Museum to see the "Masters of Venice" exhibition. It was very interesting and we enjoyed studying the paintings. They are from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna so our chances of seeing them in person were pretty slim.

Afterwards, since we were right there in Golden Gate Park, we walked over to the Japanese Tea Garden. If you've never been there I highly recommend a visit. Plan to go when the azaleas and deciduous magnolias are blooming. That would be around the end of February or early March. And then come the cherry blossoms in March and April.

We spent an enjoyable hour strolling through the garden and looking at the koi.

Then we decided we needed a little snack, so we had some jasmine tea, the O-Musubi set, and a Taiyaki. Taiyaki is a waffle batter snack filled with red bean paste. The mold it's cooked in makes it look like a fish. Isn't it cute? It tasted really good too! Teen2 and I really like Japanese food so we were in heaven.

Next we went to the Legion of Honor. What a beautiful building it is. And what a beautiful setting out there in Lincoln Park.

I wanted Teen2 to see Bernini's Medusa. I got a better photo of it this time because I used a real camera instead of my phone. It's just mind boggling that this thing is almost 400 years old and still hypnotizing folks with its beauty.

We also visited many of the other galleries. Teen2 like this room from France. It reminded me of Versailles.

And of course we had to visit Monet's Water Lilies again.

After our dose of culture, we had dinner at Fog City Diner and then we drove home relaxed, satisfied, and enriched. All in all it was a GREAT day out. Thanks Teen2.

The End.

detail Renoir's Mother and Child

Boys and Their Toys

Extra credit to anyone who knows what this is. You can tell it's something a man would like, right? Give up? Ok, I'll tell you; it's a cyclic! But what is a cyclic you ask. Well, it's like the
joystick
on
a
HELICOPTER!

The Lord of the Manor has a friend who just bought this 1967 Hughes OH-6A. It's a Viet Nam veteran; shot down twice, but patched up and sent back into battle. Apparently these Hughes were tough old birds.
LOM's friend wants LOM to teach him to fly it. Can you imagine buying something you don't know how to fly? And these things aren't cheap either!

Anyway, this is the really cool thing about helicopters; they have awesome visibility. And of course they are so cool to fly. You can land virtually anywhere you can get away with it.

It's painted olive drab with military markings...

and has all the original equipment including gun buttons on the cyclics and a machine gun for the guy in the back.

But all this old equipment isn't exactly legal, so there is a debate going on about how to maintain the original equipment (which looks cool and increases the value of the craft) yet comply with modern FAA regulations. For instance, the transponder is totally illegal, and they ferried the helicopter home Saturday using no transponder at all. Under the radar so to speak. The owner is a clever guy and we've made some aircraft parts before, so I'm sure they will find a creative way to install modern avionics yet cover them with the old face plates once on the ground. If we go for a ride soon, y'all will be some of the first to know about it.

Legion of Honor

Have you ever visited the Legion of Honor in San Francisco? If not, I highly recommend it as a wonderful day out. It's located in Lincoln Park out past the Golden Gate Bridge where the air is fresh and the views are amazing.

Before you even get into the Museum, you see the Thinker by Rodin in the courtyard. The museum has almost 100 works by Rodin alone! Because several casts were made of Rodin's sculptures, this is not the only Thinker in existence. You can also see one at the Rodin Museum in Paris, and places like Tokyo, Copenhagen, Moscow, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Detroit. But the highlight of our visit was easily The Medusa by Bernini. This masterpiece is on loan from the Musei Capitolini in Rome only until February 19th. If you want to see it, you'd better hurry. After that, you'll just have to go to Rome to see it, which doesn't sound too bad either.

It is displayed in the center of the Baroque Gallery and you can walk all around it. It was wonderful to see such interest in it; it was mobbed with admirers taking photos, scrutinizing it up close and even sketching it.

And of course we had to pay a visit to the Impressionist Gallery where you can see this large water lilies painting by Monet. They also have paintings by Renoir, Van Gogh, Manet, and Seurat. We had a glorious time at the Museum and highly recommend a visit.

Pt. Sur Lighthouse

Have you ever visited a lighthouse? Over the years we have visited several here in California. And when we were in Oregon two years ago we visited three more, but we had never visited the one that is probably closest to us; Pt. Sur. It's only 19 miles south of Carmel on Highway 1. It sits out on a rock that is connected to the mainland by a sandy spit of land and often looks like an island. I took the photo above early in the morning on our way to see the elephant seals.

You can tour Pt. Sur Lighthouse on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. All you have to do is pull off the highway at the gate and wait for the docents to let you in. Then you drive across the pasture, park, and start your walking tour with the docents leading the way.

As your group climbs up over 300' to the top of the rock, the docents stop and explain how the lighthouse came to be, and interesting facts about the history of the area. When you get to the lighthouse they take small groups up the spiral staircase to the top.

The views from the top of the lighthouse are beautiful; especially on the day we visited because the weather was so warm and clear.

Here is a drawing of the original equipment showing the Fresnel lens. The lens and machinery were taken out in 1978 and put on display at the Museum of Monterey.

Above you can see the modern electric light. It isn't nearly as pretty as the prismatic Fresnel lens, but its white flash every 15 seconds probably still looks BEAUTIFUL to a confused mariner far out at sea.

Speaking of beautiful, Teen2 was on her winter break and accompanied us on this tour. Looks like she enjoyed it.

Pt. Lobos State Reserve

We recently visited Pt. Lobos State Reserve which is just south of Carmel, California. The weather on the Northern California coast is fabulous this time of year and this day was no exception.

Pt. Lobos is a beautiful park with over 6 miles of trails meandering around a rugged rocky point. We started at Whalers Cove and almost hiked around the entire point.

One trail leads down to a slot where the "The Old Veteran" perches on the rocks. It is an ancient picturesque cypress tree.

After hiking the North Point, the South Point, and Sea Lion Point, we cut across at Mound Meadow where we found these mushrooms; fly agaric or amanita muscaria.

We also saw some beautiful brown mushrooms.

And finally we found our way back to Whalers Cove where this snowy egret was fishing amongst the seaweed. It was a beautiful day at Pt. Lobos and a highly recommended day out.

Elephant Seals near Piedras Blancas

Just south of Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, and 4 miles north of Hearst Castle is a Northern Elephant Seal rookery. December and January are prime months to visit because that's when the babies are born. We drove down there this morning from Carmel and had a wonderful visit with these interesting animals.

Elephant Seals were almost hunted to extinction in the late 1800s, but in 1990 two dozen seals came to this beach and eventually a rookery was established and now several hundred babies are born here every year.

The bulls arrive as early as November just waiting for the females...

and practicing their fighting techniques. (These are younger males.)

The pregnant females start arriving in December and the first babies are generally born around the middle of December. The mothers nurse the babies for only 4 weeks, after which they mate and then they slip into the ocean to eat. They don't eat at all while waiting for and nursing their babies.

The babies will teach themselves how to swim and fish, but the rich milk the mothers provide has plumped them up to 300 pounds which sustains them while they are learning. The docent told us that the pup above is only a couple of days old.

While all this drama is happening, the old males just snooze and wait for Valentine's Day.