Tunnel vision.

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Driving to the cabin last night.

If you look (or imagine) really hard, you can see the double rainbow. What does it mean???!!?!

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Maybe I can focus on the really big flag instead of the really tall crane

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What a way to end the weekend!

Driving home after a great weekend at the hideaway, we caught this gorgeous sunset.
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11.9 Fall Colors

Aside from temperature change, there is absolutely zero evidence of the changing seasons when you live in the concrete jungle. The few planted trees that I see out my window from the 7th floor look the same as they do in the spring, summer, winter and fall. So when we get out of the city, I revel in the beauty of all the trees changing, even if they are just from tree lined streets, not mountainsides full of oranges, reds and yellows. One day, I'll get to New England in the fall. I can't wait.

The Drive

We've gotten in the habit of putting our GoPro camera on our dashboard and taking either video or a photo of the trip every 5 seconds. When we get home, Jimmy combines all those images, this time over 3000 before the battery died, into a video. Then I take it, edit out the long pauses when we stop and nothing is changing, do a bit of cropping so the car is mostly out of frame and finding music that's approximately the same length of the video and sort of matches the mood/theme/pace of it.

Here's our video from our Memorial Day Drive with our friend John.
click on the 'youtube' icon on the bottom right of the video to make it bigger.

Speedy drive to Point Reyes

I got a new camera for Christmas that's ideal for action videos. We'll probably mostly use it at the hideaway on the Rhino, but we decided to play around with it during our drive up to Point Reyes last week. this is a super sped up version of various clips of the drive up.
Click on the "Full Screen" icon at the bottom right of the video to get a better view.

Road Trip: Point Reyes

We took advantage of MLK Jr day and headed north for a little road trip. We've only been north of the Golden Gate Bridge once since we've moved here and I've been chomping at the bit for us to do some exploring.
We started off in San Francisco. Our first stop was at Muir Beach. Then we drove though Stinson Beach to Point Reyes and Drakes Bay. Then had dinner in Petaluma before heading back home.

Driving north over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Our first stop at Muir Beach Overlook. Didn't really overlook the beach, but this is the view south looking back at the city.

Zooming in to Sutro Tower atop Twin Peaks.

Looking north from Muir Beach Overlook.

Thats us! Windy day and a lot colder than it looks. We both should have had jackets on. One lady even commented on how Jimmy was wearing short sleeves and she was in a big coat and she was freezing.

Stinson Beach. Maybe the prettiest beach in California. It would have been nice to stop, but even though it had been over 15 years since we'd been there, we wanted to explore uncharted territory. We've never driven past Stinson Beach on Highway 1 before so we just enjoyed the views as we drove through.

California Happy Cows.

Looking south at South Beach on the coast side of Point Reyes.

Looking north at North Beach on the coastal side of Point Reyes.

Drakes Bay looking at Point Reyes. Drakes Bay is named after Sir Francis Drake.

How cool is this?!!? We saw a herd of Tule Elk as we were leaving Drakes Bay.

The big guy on the right was clearly in charge of this herd.

After dinner in Petaluma, a small farming town known for it's butter and eggs, we headed back home.
But we stopped at Fort Baker to take a few photos of the bridge.

Then went over to the Marin Headlands to get a few shots of the city lights behind it.

California Happy Cows Commercial.

San Francisco Friday

I started collecting photos of San Francisco long before we moved here. So imagine how many more I'm collecting now that we do!

So I'm attempting another weekly challenge where I'll post a few random photos that I've taken within the city, either ones from the past or ones I've taken during the week.

This set of photos is of a mural on the Bagdad Cafe on the corner of Market and 16th.

Taken on Saturday Jan 5th, 2011.

Truth be told, the quality of my photos now aren't nearly as nice as the ones I took before. That's because I rarely have my DSLR with me anymore while wandering the big city. So lately, most of my shots have been on my cell phone or pocket camera, which for me is still acceptable. I'm not quite getting the artistic creativity that I love to get when framing a shot on my big camera, but nowadays my goal is to capture the moment. However I'll still break out the big guns for road trips or specific occasions.

Anyone else wanna join me in a Friday challenge of posting photos of the city you live in?

Drive by shooting

On our way to Clearlake Thursday afternoon, we drove thru the east bay and the Napa Valley. Jimmy and I have never been to Napa together and the last time I was there was over 10 years ago.Autumn just might be the most perfect time to visit the Napa Valley. The trees and vineyards are glowing orange, yellow, red and green. ok, so maybe in this photo everything is still green, but it's an autumn shade of green, lol. We were ahead of the peak color change by a couple of weeks but it was still remarkable - like nothing I've seen before. I've wavered over which season is my favorite because I love summer activities and being on the lake and eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies but I don't like the heat. But our little autumn adventures this weekend may have tipped the scale towards fall a bit more. I said several times during our adventuring that "fall is my favorite season." If only there were a way to boat in the fall and not freeze my butt off.

Here are a few boats that might not be enjoying the views as much as we were:This collection of Navy ships in the east bay next to the Benicia Bridge has been nicknamed the Mothball Fleet. Over 75 decommissioned ships sit there waiting at attention. It's the largest single collection of ships on the Pacific Ocean. Some are in reserve for possible future use and others are mere ghosts or heroes from the nautical past.

In Napa, many of the vineyards decorated their entrances with pumpkins. No time for wine tasting, we had to be in Clearlake for dinner.

Napa bichon with her pearls and bandana. Must be a local, the Napa wealth with the laid back Napa style. LOL!

Driving thru a tree tunnel in St. Helena.
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The Long and Winding Road

Waimea Canyon Road, Kauai.

mmm...tasty

Carpet of Wildflowers

as far as the eye can see.

Near Oakdale, CA.

submitted to Tuesdays Photos: Landscape
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Fun with Reflections

When you're on the road for 2.5 hours on a holiday weekend, what else is there to do?

Destination: Our hideaway in the Sierra Nevadas.
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From the Coast Highway

Just got home a couple of hours ago from our wonderful road trip to San Diego.

My list of things to do is huge, before considering any work related stuff I might have to get done.
A few of my top priorities:
-Download the photos off of my camera card and make cd's for all the various family members who we visited.
-read all the various blogs I try to visit regularily and return emails and comments from the past several days.
-log the 4 geocaches we found during our trip (including a travel bug!)
-go thru all the TiVo recordings and find a way to free up some space.
-watch all of the season/series finales.

We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from Morro Bay on our way back home today. Took this photo a few miles south of Big Sur.

Less Traveled

Hwy 108

submitted to Photo Friday: The Road
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Don't even think about it

Submitted to Lensday: Signs
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Snow in Jamestown

Jamestown is a very small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills. In 1848, gold was discovered here and it's downtown area still retains a Gold Country era charm.
At an elevation of 1,405 feet, Jamestown rarely sees snow. But a cold storm blew in late last week and the town saw a dusting of fresh powder.
submitted to Photo Hunt: Landscape 

Directional Sign

Took this photo coming home from the hideaway this weekend. Sure, you can almost make out that it says 35, but really, in this weather, I wouldn't recommend that fast. Just up the road a bit, there was a nasty accident that delayed our trip back to the Bay Area by an extra hour. We took an alternate route and almost fell into a ditch. There were already 3 cars there waiting for us to join them.
submitted to Photo Hunt: Directional Sign 

Bored on the 5 Freeway

(click on image to view larger size)
Traveling back up the state on Highway 5. It's a long, straight, boring road. Nothing to do but play with the camera. That's us in his lower rearview mirror...the Volvo with our lights on. You can even see him in his upper rearview mirror. Bored. Just like us.
submitted to Lensday - Theme: Travel