Hello November! What a sunrise!

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Harvest Moon

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11.1 Standard Time

We had to turn the clocks back last night, which means it's dark by 5:30ish.
Not a fan.
But one good thing is that, even though there's less daylight, time feels like it's going a lot slower.
Because at 6pm, you're saying to yourself "OMG. It feels like midnight, how is it only 6pm? Well, I guess I still have 5+ hours to get stuff done instead of going to bed right now...even though I really want to."

On another note...
Totally into this song by David Bowie right now. Can't get it out of my head.


Covered by Nirvana:

11.21 Lucky Ladybug

This lucky little ladybug
Has landed here to stay
To make my garden pretty
And keep the weeds away.
-author unknown

Orange October

Jimmy and I have been walking in the evenings more. It's been very easy this month. The city is aglow, bestowed in it's favorite color.

Fall Sunset

The sky was amazing tonight, dontcha think?

Sweetwater Mountains - Ride through the Aspens

It's a bit of a bumpy ride, but I promise it's worth it.

River of Gold

Jimmy and I hit the fall color motherlode this weekend.

Sonora Pass had some of the best we've ever seen...

Till we got to the Sweetwater Mountains in the Eastern California desert.

The aspens grow along a river. You can follow the River of Gold all the way up the mountain.

We rode through several groves, leaves rustling and quaking in the breeze, leaves raining down on our heads.

Since we haven't experienced a New England fall, we can't compare our amazing fall color to theirs, but ours is pretty damn good, too!!

11.17 Chemung Mine

You may recall that Jimmy and I did an amazing off-roading trip in the Eastern Californian Desert. I blogged about the more famously known Bodie State Park and Ghost Town.

But the Chemung Mine was my favorite spot of the day. There was something magical about this spot.

It might be because of the magnificent, freshly snow capped Sierra Nevada mountain range in the background.

Or maybe it's because the mine was up against the hillside next to a beautiful aspen grove. And aspens are my favorite tree.

More likely it was a combination of both in addition to the amazing buildings that was deteriorating, instead of the ones at Bodie that were maintained in 'arrested decay'.

I wasn't able to find out much about the mine. But according to a bit of googling, it was built in the early 1900's and was active till 1938. Then again in the 1950s and 1960s, a sole prospector worked the mine, supporting himself, but never striking it rich.

Now, if you can get to it, you can explore the mine freely. Just be kind to the surroundings so others can appreciate it, too. It's really a remarkable spot in California's mining history.

This main building seemed to take center stage.



But the other smaller buildings were just as amazing.



With breathtaking views.

Not sure if this was a place of worship, or just a power line perfectly placed...

But doesn't this invoke the Wild Wild West to you?

Exploring the ruins of the main building was very interesting.

Imagine the people and now ghosts(!) that wandered through these rooms.

Watching the aspens quake in the wind and change colors in the fall.


Or prepare for the bitter cold of winter. At 8100 feet elevation, winters were harsh, windy and covered in several feet of snow.

But the dreams of finding "gold in them thar hills" was enough to keep the mine running.


I'm sure you can see why this spot is so amazing. We could have spent half the day exploring this area, but we were just beginning our day.

But seven hours later, we rode by it again on our way back to the car and caught the mine at that perfect Golden Hour moment.











The best way to start and end a day packed with back country exploring.

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.

Harvest Moon

A Harvest Moon is used to describe the full moon that occurs closest to fall's equinox.

I enjoy gazing at the moon as much as anyone else, I'm not too excited about the shorter days.

12.1 Daily December

We're up at the hideaway this weekend, enjoying the cool weather and lots of rain.


Gives me a good opportunity to work on my Christmas cards.

11.16 - Umbrella Weather

I'm so glad I had an umbrella!

Daily Gratitude

Every other November or so, I've attempted to blog each day of the month about something I'm grateful for, or at least blog a photo of the day, which...in a round about way, would be something I'm grateful for in one way or another otherwise I wouldn't have photographed it. Since I didn't blog much in October, I'll start this month off with a compilation of things that happened in October that I'm happy that they happened. hehe!
A quick stop in Solvang with my cousin after our trip to the desert.

Mission Santa Ines is in Solvang so we had to stop and check it out while we were there.

My next "Farm Fresh to You" box contained:
1 sugar pumpkin, 1 red pomegranate, 4 fuji apples, 1 eureka lemon, 4 d'anjou pears, 5 kiwi, 1 bunch carrots, 3 bunches of kale (yikes!), 1 bunch butter lettuce.
Ok...so...I've never made kale before and now I have 3 bunches of them! I was suppose to get beets, but they're on my exclusion list so they substituted kale for it. Previously I'd had a few bites of kale salad and one of my closest friends love it, so I was up for the challenge. I found 2 recipes online and they were..."okay". They weren't great but they weren't bad either. I was pretty indifferent to them. Kale is pretty bitter, so it's not a simple flavor. The 1st recipe was an Orzo with kale and feta. The 2nd was aRoasted Yam and Kale Salad. Anyhoo...after making these 2 recipes, I decided to put kale on my exclusion list. I'd eat it and even enjoy it if someone else served it, but it's not something I chose to prepare myself.

Before going to the World Series, the Giants had to beat the Cardinals for the National League Championship. We didn't have tickets, but we live close to the ballpark. When when knew (or at least had a good idea) that they'd win the game, we went to the stadium to celebrate with all the other fans. But during the 8th inning, it started raining cats and dogs. That didn't stop the celebrations! We were headed to the World Series and everyone was on a baseball high.

Learned how to make artisan caramels from a cute DIY workshop here in the city.

Even though Halloween was upstaged by the parade, there were still a lot of people dressed in costume, wandering the streets during the parade.I'm not sure if my favorite is the girl with fantastic Dia de los Muertos makeup, or the smoking Jesus. Probably the smoking Jesus because he posed for me.

Prepare yourself...this is pretty scary...
but I'm grateful that Ginnie helped me discover PicMonkey.com...they had special halloween photo editing effects that turned any image into vampires, witches, zombies or Day of the Dead. So much fun the play with!

And for today...
Woke up to this view this morning. Obviously I wasn't in The City. :P