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.

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.

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

I left my heart in San Francisco last week. Right behind those windows up there. Yep, Teen2 is at summer school at the Academy of Art University taking classes in computer animation. She found out about the school several months ago and her Daddy signed her up for their summer program.

She was the first to arrive so she got the softest mattress and the desk by the window. Her room mates are from Florida, Detroit, and Montana. They are sharing this huge room with two bunk beds, four desk, and four wardrobes. The room looks pretty good here, but I'm sure it looks like a bomb site now as she called me today and said her roommates are messy! (This is coming from Teen2, the queen of messy rooms, so they must be really bad.)

Three meals per day are available just across the street, and there's a kitchen available too. The school has shuttle buses that run to each location several times daily, but Teen2 said she is walking to most classes. There's a Walgreens close by and a grocery store about 6 blocks away. I'm sure she'll be fine, but....

I still worry about my heart walking around in that big, strange city.

Weihnachtsmarkt

My cinnamon stars came out just fine. Here they are along with some chocolate crackles that I made. But I still want to go back to Germany and Austria to visit the Christmas Markets. Whilst I save my pennies, I'll just have to watch these videos of the markets in Heidelberg, Munich, and Salzburg. I hope you enjoy them too.

This video is of the Christmas Market in Heidelberg. This video is of the Marienplatz market in Munich - one of my favorites because of the beautiful setting and the giant glockenspeil. And here is Salzburg - such a charming old town. Enjoy!

The Traveler Returns

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,

we must carry it with us or we find it not.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Teen1 is safely home from England. We picked her up last night at SFO. When we got home suitcases {three!} were emptied on the living room floor and tales were told, and souvenirs were handed out, and champagne was consumed, and laughter reverberated off the walls, and we stayed up way too late. There were some Cath Kidston goodies for me, but guess my favorite gift from England? Why, Teen1 of course!

Covered Bridges

One sight that surprised me in Oregon was the covered bridges. I had no idea there were so many of them there, but I guess it makes sense; the roof protects the bridge structure from the rain making the bridge last much longer.

Every time we saw one, I'd ask the Lord of the Manor to pull over and I'd set up my easel and paint it. It took a while, and he got bored just waiting, so by the sixth bridge he was starting to roll his eyes, but boy I got some dandy paintings....

This one was in the town of Cottage Grove.

I think this one was just outside Cottage Grove. I think Cottage Grove boasts the most covered bridges in Oregon.

I liked the red side on this one.

This was an abandoned railroad bridge.

And I caught this seagull too at a rest stop.

Oh who am I trying to kid? I didn't really paint those pictures. I simply took the photos and "Photoshopped" them. But I like to think that's the kind of painting I'd do if I could. {sigh}

Oregon Lighthouses

The Oregon coast is not only rugged and beautiful, but it has several wonderful old lighthouses. Most of them were built in the late 1800s as shipping increased along the coast due to logging and gold mining. They were originally staffed by a crew of lighthouse keepers (and their families) who worked and lived in isolated, harsh conditions. The lamps burned mineral oil for fuel and needed to be trimmed and wound and cleaned and polished frequently. The fuel had to be hauled up winding staircases every few hours all night long. It was demanding work, but many keepers stayed for years, so it must have been rewarding. Gradually the lights became more sophisticated and in the 1930s, most were converted to electric light bulbs. In the 1960s they were fully automated making lighthouse keepers obsolete. Some lighthouses were even abandoned and fell into ruin.

But now, thank goodness, several of them have been restored and are open for tours. At the Umpqua River Lighthouse (above) you can take a tour up to the very top for only $3.00. It is the only Oregon coast lighthouse with a red flash in its sequence, so it has beautiful cranberry colored sections in its Fresnel lens. These Fresnel lenses were manufactured in Paris over 100 years ago and the guide claims that there is no way to get replacement parts anymore, so each lens is priceless.

The lens sections are actually prisms that focus the light into a beam that can be seen for miles. The entire lens assemble rotates around the bulb creating its distinctive sequence. These sequences are marked on nautical charts so mariners can distinguish each light along the coast. If you click on the link you can see the Umpqua Lighthouse just to right of center, near the tail of the North arrow. It says the light is alternating, two white, one red, every 15 seconds, 165' tall, visible 20 miles.

We didn't visit this one at Cape Arago because it's not open to the public, but we saw it from an overlook along Highway 101.

This is the Coquille River Lighthouse near Bandon. It is open for tours too.

At Cape Blanco Lighthouse the tour guide showed us these beautifully polished containers that were used to measure and carry the fuel up to the lamp via the cast iron stairs. These lighthouse keepers must have been exceptionally fit climbing those stairs several times a day.

If you are ever in Oregon do try to visit a lighthouse. It's an affordable day out and a wonderful peek into nautical history.

Monday Mosaic - Tidepools

Thanks Mary for hosting Mosaic Monday once again. My contribution to Mosaic Monday is from our recent trip to Oregon.

One morning while we were camping at Sunset Bay State Park just south of Coos Bay, we went on a Ranger-Guided Tidepool Walk. It was wonderful to have a knowledgeable person to guide us and answer questions. We managed to get there at a minus tide, so the viewing was particularly good. From the top right, going anti-clockwise the pictures are:

Giant Sea Chiton

Six Legged Sea Star

Pigeon Guillemots

Green Anemone

Chiton

Sea Star

Leopard Nudibranch

White Anemone

and in the center is Teen2 looking like she's in trouble, but she was on a huge rocky table and the waves were actually quite far away.

Most of theses photos were taken through the water, but if you position yourself so a shadow is on the surface of the water, they come out all right.

Camping

There is just something so simple and relaxing about camping. Is it the warmth of the wood fire, the fresh air and connection to nature, the preoccupation with simply having fun, the lack of work-related stress.....

or is it the wi-fi in the campground?

We were gone ten nights and set up the tent seven times, so we got real good at making camp quickly. Here is our typical setup with the T-Rex protection device properly installed. Teen2 said that's what it was, and we were never attacked by any T-Rex, so I'm sticking with that story too.

Here is a look at the kitchen area. We put dishes, cups, silverware, knives, cutting board, towels, dry foods and spices in that three drawer thing. The Coleman stove sits on the end of the table, and the ice chest sits on the other side. The grey box on the ground holds the pots, pans, stove fuel, dishpans, and table cloth. When we put everything in the car, the ice chest and drawers are accessible for lunch on the go.

With this set up we cooked all our meals except two lunches on days we decided to eat out. This is the kind of dinners we made:

Yep, we cook right on that dirty old grill over the campfire, but we make the fire hot and scrub it down with aluminum foil before we put the meat on it.

And this is the kind of breakfast we make when we aren't in a hurry. You can get a little toaster device to sit over the burner, but we have found that if you just keep turning the bread over a low flame you can easily make toast. We slathered it with blueberry jam that we bought at a roadside farm stand in the middle of blueberry country. It was delicious.

Some folks might think we get a little carried away with cooking whilst camping, but the guy below outdid us. While he didn't have a tent or a stove or a chair, and he used his backpack for a pillow, he did have breakfast in bed. I kid you not, he was drinking beer in his sleeping bag at 7:00am.

Amongst The Redwoods

This post comes to you not from Amongst The Oaks, but amongst the redwoods. We are camping our way through Oregon. We have seen Ashland (where we drank the Lithia water), Medford, Crater Lake, the Rogue Gorge, Diamond Lake, seven covered bridges in Cottage Grove, Corvallis, and now Waldport.

Hope to catch up with you all soon. Signing out from the beautiful Oregon coast.