Backyard Glories, a Fisherman's Tour, and RiceGirls Reunite!

After spending yesterday evening in Bill and Cathy's garden, I knew I just had to wake up early to get a few photos before I left. They are so many beautiful and interesting plants in their backyard! Bill has done an amazing job of landscaping over the past few years.

I really like these two succulent pictures. The green one resembles something found at the bottom of the sea, although the boys told me its cactus common name was "pork and beans". I believe I would have selected a more glamorous name for such a colorful cactus!

After the kids were at school, Cathy and I headed to downtown San Fransisco to see a few more sights before I had to go to the airport. Of the many AMAZING things I could have done, I selected a harbor tour - around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. We even found a very colorful "old man of the sea" to take us on such a tour in his fishing boat. This guy was a riot. He asked us if we would like him to comment on the things that we were passing - of course, we agreed. Cathy and I were sitting on an old couch at the front of the boat, curled up under some rather dirty fisherman's blankets, and our "old man" stayed in the enclosed booth behind us. Periodically, he would slide the wooden window frame to one side, poke his head out, and say a few sentences about the particular feature we were passing. Then, the wooden window would slide back with a "BANG" and we would hear him latch it again. It was so funny to hear the opening and locking noises around his short pieces of lecture, I would just start cracking up each time I heard the window start to slide! It was a highly entertaining harbor tour and a beautiful morning on which to enjoy it! I was only SLIGHTLY windblown by the time I got to the airport!

When I arrived in Los Angeles, I went to baggage claim to find my suitcase. Although luggage was on the carousel, I didn't see my bright blue rolling suitcase. I walked around the circle, looking for my bag. I did see a couple standing on the other side, however, with a suitcase just like mine but with a flowered carpet bag loaded on top of it. I surreptiously walked next to it and checked to see that it was an American Tourister bag which HIGHLY resembled mine. I did the old, "Excuse me, sir. I have a bag just like that which I can't locate. . . would you mind checking to see if that one is yours?" Sure enough, they pulled their carry-on off the top of it, and there was my handwriting on the luggage tag. They were slightly embarrassed and highly apologetic, saying, "Wow. We would have just walked off with it. . ." Exactly what I was afraid of! I am so thankful that I saw them and that I was bold enough to check!

Soon after that episode, Pam and I had a happy reunion and went together to pick up our Dollar rental car. The only remarkable occurrences were one spilled coffee, a very long line, and several tries at selecting a car that didn't smell like sickening air freshener covering up stale smoke. . . We managed to pull out of the rental lot and only do two loops around the airport before we could pick up Tessa and Kim from their arriving flight! Oh happy day! At least we were together as we made our way through LA evening traffic and over to Pacific Coast Highway 1 for our drive up to Santa Barbara. We stopped at a fabulous fish restaurant at the end of Sunset Drive. We enjoyed our meal tremendously - the fried calamari was the best I have ever had. And, of course, it was just good to be together again!

By the time we got to Santa Barbara, it was dark. We did manage to find our rental house, locate a grocery store, and get the car parked on the crowded street before crashing for the night! More adventures are planned for tomorrow!

Muir Woods and Monkey Swings

Cathy and I spent the morning/afternoon at Muir Woods, a beautiful protected park of redwood trees on the hills just outside of San Fransisco. I was thrilled to go there since I had never actually seen any sequoia or redwood forests. But, pictures can not even begin to capture just how strikingly awesome these trees are!! They are absolutely enormous - both in breadth and height. To give you some idea, Cathy is standing there at the foot of one of the trees WAY in the distance in the first picture. I don't have a camera lens wide enough to be able to fit a redwood in the frame! Here are my feeble attempts:

After dinner, we went out in the backyard with the kids; Nolan and Luke showed me their arsenal of tricks on the tire swing. They are quite talented with their swinging antics!

Bill gets a "kiss" from Sasha. . .

The Andersons are great friends and wonderful hosts. My only regret is that the rest of my family isn't here to enjoy the fun!!

To Northern California

Second stop of the Great California Adventure: the Anderson home in Northern California! I had a wonderful afternoon with Cathy, enjoying lunch and conversation as she did her taxi rounds with the kids and their activities. The Andersons have a beautiful Spanish-style home (which is being re-roofed at the moment, greatly confusing their dogs who continue to bark at the person who is knocking on the door). It is just fun to be with these dear friends as they are full of intelligent conversation as well as humor and good fun! It has also been a real treat for me to get to know so many of my best friends' children better during this furlough. . .

Living the Dream at Pacific Beach

I spent a wonderfully relaxing day - hanging out with my brother, walking the blocks of Pacific Beach and enjoying lunch at a neighborhood cantina, working on images while he and Minou worked, and hitting the beach at the end of the day. Their family has enjoyed their close proximity to the beach for many years now. On our way to dinner, we stopped to build a few sandcastles.

A HUNDRED BUCKETS???! The wonder and delight of such a thought!

Oh no! Don't let the zombie catch you, Brian!!!

PPSOP Workshop: Day 3 plus Family Photos!

For our third and final morning of photography, we went out to an industrial area. We spent a good deal of time at this trolley stop, photographing the red train going in and out of the city. There was also a HUGE mural painted on a nearby wall and a constant stream of bicyclists out for training rides. I selected the swirling dragon for the background of my panning shot!After photographing trains and cyclists for a long time, I decided to go macro. . . There was a vending machine for purchasing train passes on the platform. I saw the words "smart" and "art" hidden in the SMART CARD label. . . This will be a great enlargement for my craft room bulletin board!

By mid-afternoon, our workshop concluded and the group said good-byes and dispersed amid e-mail exchanges. I took the bus back to Pacific Beach to spend time with Geoff, Minou, and Brian. The trio was ready for fun when I arrived, so we headed out to UC-San Diego to see the sculptures scattered around the campus. Brian had studied the map on Saturday and knew the number and location of each of the sculptures!

We started with the red shoe.
Then moved onto the Stonehenge look-alike (I wish I had written down the official names. I am sure Brian could tell me!)

Just a bit of family resemblance :-)!

Then we paid a visit to the colorful sun god. . .

What a cutie he is!

Then onto the weird advice black table - a highly reflective and interesting surface, nonetheless. . .After our UC San Diego tour, we moved to Wind and Sea Beach for some more photos. We were constantly balancing too much vs too little of the California golden light!

Somehow, Brian didn't get the memo that we had moved from our funny face to our serious face. . . Isn't he a hoot? :-)

I just love this open sea shot. . .

Brian wasn't really keen on any pictures being taken of his parents without him. . . He seemed to miss this romantic moment occurring behind him, though!!

I really like the next two shots, too. . .

I have really enjoyed spending time with my brother and his family and getting to see them "in action". It has also been a joy to get to know Brian better and see what fabulous parents Geoff and Minou are!

PPSOP Workshop: Day 2

We gathered early again for a morning of selecting, editing, and learning some new software for HDR images. It was fun to gather radically different exposures of the same scene and paste them together for a new and improved look. After lunch, we headed to the beach town of Oceanside for another afternoon and evening of photography. We found a parked motorcycle and worked it over. . . this was my favorite result: a double self-portrait. The Oceanside City Hall was a highly geometric and graphic building!We then went down the the beach area and found these skaters, vaulting off a stage. The sign near them says: No skateboards, in line skates, roller blades, or toy vehicles on stage!

Closer to sunset, we walked onto a pier to get an overhead view of some wave action. I love the lines and the color differentiation of the sun/shadow parts of this crashing wave.

At this same time, there were some surfers out in the water, but they were doing more waiting than actual surfing. I made some off-hand remark about trying to get a good picture of one of them in action. Bryan Peterson must be a betting man. . . He told me that if I got a picture of a surfer, in action, with the sunset and the light on the water he would give me a FREE workshop. Well, that was enough challenge for me! I went trotting off down the pier to get in a better position for surfer, waves, and sunset to converge. There was only about a five minute window to achieve this goal and the surfers had not been catching many waves. Finally, one got up on a wave and I hurriedly/nervously clicked away to get the shot. I couldn't believe all the stars aligned!!! Here is my "winning" picture: (Southern France 2010 workshop might be in my future after all!)