We were so excited and happy to be heading back to Sonoma County in California. We missed last year due to Covid 19 and were really ready to get back. Below is our truck loaded up and read to go. Ducati in the back. First trip to Cali with the Ducati!
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2021 San Diego Christmas. (Each photo is captioned just click photo to see what it says.)12/28/2021 Always my favourite place to go! Warm, sunny, gorgeous ocean, whales, turtles, SNORKELING! ... and now surfing! I took a lesson. It’s pretty fun. Also much more exercise than you’d think. A lot of paddling: paddle out, paddle madly to catch the wave, repeat. Below is a short video of a tiny nudibranch [sea snail] I found in a tide pool. A random stranger video’d it and offered to email me the video. How nice of her! START HERE ... THEN SCROLL DOWN. This is not us landing, of course, but we did fly in ... and walk to our hotel. It was only a 30 min walk. We dragged our suitcases the whole walk. Thank goodness for the nice new way they do wheels on suitcases! Below is a shot of a cute little unnamed coffee shop in Little Italy. We walked past it. We had a coffee there last year and some DELICIOUS macarons --- while I changed a flat tire on a bike we rented. But not this year. We just dragged the suitcases past. [hah] Below is a slideshow of our motorcycle overnight trip to see Dad and Bev. We rode there ... overnighted [Xmas eve] ... then visited for several hours on Xmas Day ... then rode back. It was short, but fun. Great to see them. Slide show #2, below. A food-ish slide show now. [below] Random final photos in slide show below. We've done this trip so often that I forget to take photos. And that's it for our winter vacation this year. It went quickly by. I do feel refreshed, though. We now have 3 days to chill and vegetate and get ready for work to start on Monday.
Scroll down to Spring Break 2018 In San Diego Part 1 first. [Darn website crashed before I was done before. grrrrrrrr. Anyhow, here is more of the motorbike ride. We are at a rest stop. It was gorgeous ... but chilly. Just a quick shot of a sign for a town named after momma's friend Manzanita. CUTE! FYI: San Diego is probably the only city with its airport right in the centre of the city - so people can watch planes coming and going. [I think it's been illegal to hang around watching planes in every city ever since 9-11.] Clint LOVES planes and we spent 30 - 60 minutes daily just watching them. They were so LOW and so close and so magnificent. The photos don't do it justice. Some of them go right over your head and you feel like you can reach up and spin the giant tires with your hand. ... or the perspective makes it seem like the wing tip will knock the top off the fencepost. Clint was the kid in the candy store!! That jet was HUGE. It was a Japan Airways - 757 I think. Clint knew right away. ![]() Hmmmm, yes. We were riding the bicycles in a tunnel underpass [under a highway] and my rear tire popped. It went "SNAP!" Really loudly. The tunnel is very dark and probably dangerous to ride in, but there's no other way to go unless you ride an extra mile, so we got caught. Argh! I had no idea how to change the tire ... so I Googled it. LOL. We also called the company owner who brought me an entire wheel replacement. But in the meantime, I learned how to remove the wheel and tire myself - by Google!! I must remember to bring vinyl gloves next time just so I don't get so greasy. We were also in San D during one of the student marches to protest for new gun restrictions and gun laws. The student shootings in Parkland Florida happened on Valentines day. There were 100's of protests and rallies around the world. [FYI: news clip: On February 14, 2018, a mass shooting was committed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen people were killed and seventeen more were wounded, making it one of the world's deadliest school massacres.] I took some photos of the signs. And now it's our last day and we are having a final cappuccino and tiramisu. DELIZIOSO!! ... aaaannnnddddd, my boarding pass for home. A short trip but fun. :) This is how airplane boarding passes look now. I checked Clint and myself in early and they sent this to my phone. WOW. Also printed my own baggage tag and then just dropped it off at airport. Leaving on a jet plane. View from Seattle Airport. Mount Saint Helens - from the air. Spectacular! We stayed in the Little Italy part of downtown San Diego. It's a very neat part of town. Lots of great food and cafes and things to look at. This is our hotel. I forgot to snap a photo, so this is an internet image. This is our view from our bed in the hotel. Not much to see. This is our yummy desert. I usually photograph our food on trips, but totally forgot this time. I kept remembering once we were finished. This is the dregs of a triple chocolate mousse cake and a matcha green tea 'shave ice' parfait. Both were delicious! Good thing we rented bicycles the next day to work off the calories. ha ha ha. Before renting the bicycles, we rented a Harley and biked to Palm Desert to visit Pam and Lorne. Again, no pic of them or Palm Desert - what a dummy I am. It was a GREAT ride over to Palm D. Clint had found a wonderful 4 hour route that wound all around and past the Mexico border and up through several passes and canyons. Glorious weather, too. We did come across a 'forest' fire. It might have been a controlled burn of some sort since there was no wind and also rain was expected the next day. We did see the flames - I don't think they show in the photo. There was no human presence monitoring the fire as far as we could see, but we could only see the crest of the hill and not in behind. Below is the delivery of our bicycles. The business owner actually brings the bikes to us [this is a stock image from the internet since, again, I was too lazy to take a photo.]. Turtle! Boob! And me n Giselle. Band aids! My flippers rub sand into my toes which makes them raw. Turtles!! Every ‘wet’ rock is a snoozing turtle. There were about 25 of them. Peacefully ignoring all the people snapping photos. Ho’okipa beach Waves too big to go in water. All surfers. Just a cute shot. At the Oceans Vodka distillery. A pineapple plant. At the distillery. Hiking in to Twin Falls. Crossing a stream barefoot. Several pics of the falls. This is one of 3 or 4 falls there. These are all pics of us people at the falls. A lobster claw flower. Related to the ‘bird of paradise’ flower. Rather a lot of bamboo here. Overlooking Big Beach. Also called Makena beach park. These last photos are of Clint and Patrick boarding.
Yes. It’s New Year’s Eve day. Here’s our message. But the 5 pictures below are from yesterday’s drive around the northern ring of the island. The road gets very narrow - very quickly. Not yet tho. It’s always cloudy over that side. But reallly green and grassy. Wow! Lots of great views! This is the famous Honolua Bay. Ha how cute. A little village. Though I’m sure that he locals would hate to hear that Now it’s today. These are Giselle’s toes one the beach. What a super beach. Great snorkelling and sun and view! That’s me snorkelling. Giselle took the next few photos. I was a bad girl. I snatched a slate pencil urchin off a rock (gently) and brought it up for Giselle to photo. She’s holding it upside down, but it’s sure big and beautiful. And orange! And now I’m looking for more things to see. I did see 3 turtles!’ Yay! We swam and followed them from a distance. IT WAS SO AWESOME!!
So here is the pile of photos without edits. Mostly Giselle took them. She takes such cool shots Snorkeling is my favourite thing of all time ... next to horses. Ha ha. The below two photos are of a special type of sea urchin. I think it’s called a helmet urchin. First pic is upside right. Next pick is upside down. Yes I put it back safe n sound. I felt bad for freakin it out. A cowrie. A type of sea snail. The snail is still inside. This is a hug one! I saw 3 other little ones the next day, but they were only the size of my thumbnail. It was smooth as glass by the way. And so beautiful. This is the skinny entrance to a cute little beach. I bought G and me a fresh coconut. We drank the water. Quack quack - I have my pink flippers on.
There are feral chickens everywhere. Here is a mama and here chickies. And also a lot of feral snowmen who escaped winter to join us on Maui! Notice that Clint stays well back so as not to frighten the skittish thing. Ha ha ha. There is a sea turtle under the water in center if photo. Under the rock overhang. They are hard to photograph. I love the hibiscus flowers. Ugly shot of a pretty flower. I should have cropped it... but am in a hurry to post this and get out for my walk. Just a selfie. Proving I’m really here. A path down to a favourite viewpoint. An experimental shot using reflection. I learned this technique on Facebook of all places! The shot turned out nice. I like this shot better because of the honey in it! Ha ha. And we stumbled upon another snowman. He’s posing in front of the sunset. He’s obviously eating well here. And here is the sunset. Mr. Snowman is sure enjoying it. The pic below is not just the sunset. There is a whale breaching under the clouds in right side. It is that black speck. Really really. You could see them quite a bit more clearly than this photo shows. I think it was just one whale but it breached and jumped every couple minutes starting at left and all the way across the bay. It was rather special!! ... and that’s another day in Maui!
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December 2021
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