La Nebbia

Cool beach house

Pretty cypress. This is the view I have on my run heading south

Calla lily in the wild

Coffee cup chandlier at our morning coffee place

The lushness of my brother's front yard

The ice plant turns red here. Some still was in blossom

Outside of our lunch place through blue glass

Ceiling of a seafood place we ate lunch at

Cool cllection of succulents at beach house

We landed in warmth and sunlight in San Francisco yesterday. Steve had gotten up the day before at 4:30 to do the election. I was asleep when he returned. At 4:30 am the next day, I told him that Josh will be here at 5 am to take us to the airport. He was not amused. I think he finally has caught up on his sleep and is in a better mood.

After picking up our micro rental car, good given the gas prices, we were off to sunny San Mateo for lunch and Trader Joe supplies. We ate at a tasty Vietnamese place, bought stuff for our trip and then proceeded to go over the Santa Cruz mountains to where my brother lives. So not a cloud in the sky east of the pass; total fog on the west side (La Nebbia). We went by a zillion pumpkin fields and the La Nebbia winery. Don't grapes need sun? And the road was very scary..my brother goes back and forth over it every day.

His house is way up the side of a mountain. They have a bilevel deck that extends the whole width of their house in which you can see the sea (bottom picture with the fog finally lifting at sunset). Huge trees surround the fancy houses on the hillside. My SIL has many interesting plants, trees and flowers. Her front yard is in the 6th photo (blogger works differently on this computer and won't let me set captions)She has a degree in botany (mainly tropical plants) but here, she has stuff she doesn't even know what it is. We could see this yellowish-green hummingbird go back and forth. Can't figure out what kind it is. In Michigan, all we have are the ruby throated. Many more kinds here though in Southern CA, all I have seen is the Anna's hummingird, which looks just like the MI variety. I will ID it at some point.

I was too tired to do much yesterday other than to sit on the deck with some wine watching the sunset. My brother brought up some tasty burritos from a nearby Mexican place.

Steve and I went to the beachfront community Princeton-By-The-Sea, Ha! They most recently lived in Princeton Not By The Sea: NJ) bright and early for some coffee and breakfast for him. I ran. There is a coastal path which goes for miles. So..so..so pretty. Some of the photos are from where I was running (no I didn't take my camera on the run). Today was supposed to be the only bad day for rain on our trip yet it was initially clear and sunny. It did rain later. After my run, we went for a hike exploring tide pools, looking at sea birds, checking out the flora and fauna, etc. Soon it was time for lunch. The locals insisted on this interesting seafood place where Steve got an enormous bowl of clam chowder and I had scallops tempura..all from the nearby bay.

I got my first negative comment yesterday from someone wanting to read about cancer and instead got a whole bunch of info about my dysfunction family. She said that she would kill herself if she had to live with someone like myself. Well Francesca, noone asked you to read this for almost 3 hours.