Half Moon Bay

Steve took this along the bay as I ran

This flock of pelicans was one of his best photos

Pillar Point from my brother's deck. Good sunsets are rare: either too foggy or not a cloud in the sky

sea urchin

pelicans on the breakwater

rock crabs. This town's chief industry is catching Dungeness crabs. Due to El Nino, the ocean's warmer temps led to red tide, a toxic algae bloom that made the crabs toxic. They now have been cleared to eat at least from Pillar Point

I assumed this was a large mole but no, it is a pocket gopher. Michigan gophers are much bigger

sea lions resting. They bark night and day. I can hear them from my brother's house. We didn't see any seals resting on the beach though saw many swimming in the water

Moss beach woods

Pumpkin capital of California. Pumpkin palaces all over the place

view from the woods

downtown mural showing beach, woods and pumpkin

another mural showing the half moon shape of the bay. Bakeries sell crescent shaped cookies.; Italian restaurant is named Mezza Luna (half moon)

pretty sculpture

tapas bar along the waterfront that we ate at on the last day

the harbor

sea glass sold by the pound

pier and fishing shack

passion fruit flower though this variety does not produce fruit

Steve and Charlotte, the Jack Russell terrier who wanted to be petted around the clock

We spent 6 of the 9 days of our vacation at my brother's house overlooking the coast, up this impossibly steep road, about 24 miles south of San Francisco. He would go out for breakfast while I ran on various paths along the coast. Even on the hottest day, temps were cool in the morning. If I ran on the Northern half of the bay, sometimes running southeast would blind me with the rising sun. Later I figured out to run on the southern half in which the sun was never in my eyes.

On the last day that we were there last February, I had a bad fall trying to cross the Pacific Coast Highway. I didn't cross it at all this time. I cringed every time we went by the bad intersection. My insurance is still giving me grief about the accident 8 months later.

I am trying to take control of my life here which very depressingly, has spiraled out of control with only myself to blame. More if I ever dig myself out. Steps are being made

Yosemite redux

acorn woodpecker

Yosemite valley: haze from fires and fog

one of many tunnels

Bridal Falls with very reduced water flow

mule deer, which are considerably smaller than the white-tail variety here in the east

one of the best photos Steve took

climber on El Capitan. The first climber took 47 days. Now a good one can do it in 3 hours. We could not see this guy with our bare eyes no matter how many instructions from German tourists. Finally we asked one of them  to use our camera with the good lens to take this photo

Omstead Point The Frederick Omsteads (father and son, I forget who did what) did much for park design in the West (along with designing Central Park in the East)

tour group

Netaya Lake.Yep it was raining though none was forecasted. And cold.

We were east of the park entrance by then, pass Tioga Pass. The road dropped quickly but it was still beautiful

our first glimpse of Mono Lake (aside from the flyover the day before)

Steve took zillions of photos and loaded them on to my computer this weekend. I have eliminated some of the redundancies and cropped some of them to suit my taste. As he is using a much better camera than an iPhone, the results are much better, for the most part, than the ones I previously posted. Also since I am using a real computer, I can actually see what I am posting. At some point, I will clean up the mess my vacation blogs were with redundant photos, grammar errors and the like.

 

We have been home 4 days now and I am in a bit of a funk. Time to face some hard realities.

Over to the sunny side

The first 5 photos were taken at the Allied Arts Center in Menlo Park in  mission era buildings

persimmons

love bougainvillea

one of the many fountains at Stanford

in the memorial chapel

Rodins: the art museum, which we did not visit this time has plenty of these

Stanford had visited Ravenna Italy (as did we) which gave him inspiration for these gold mosaics

pomegranate plus blossom

lots of porticos: useful as it was a toast 98 degrees when we visited

a restaurant in downtown Palo Alto

Another one

downtown public seating

We left Menlo Park at 2:30 pm where the car thermometer read 98 deg. 15 miles later (less than a half hour), it read 65 degrees. The sun had morphed into fog. My brother goes over to the sunny side for work every day leaving the fog of his coastal home to the sunny bay area. Different vegetation can be found on both sides. The bay side is similar to Southern California , dry and hot. It rarely goes above 70 on the other side, but lucky us, it was close to 90 for 2 of our days.

Stanford must be one of the prettiest campuses. We ate at the Crepevine in downtown Palo Alto. They gave us so much food that even I couldn't finish it all.