Christmas and Chris' parents visit

My parents came to San Francisco for Christmas. We had a great time exploring the city and the Bay Area. Here are a few highlights:

Christmas Eve on Union Square after an urban hike through Glen Canyon Park to San Francisco's highest peak.

From Christmas 2008

Our hike:



On Christmas we went to the beach:

From Christmas 2008

and froze our butts off:

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

The following day the four of us met up with our friend Luke and went to Ano Nuevo for our second annual Elephant Seal adventure:

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

We then did another urban hike, this time up and over Twin Peaks. For this adventure, we left our house early in the morning and gathered some breakfast on 24th St and enjoyed some coffee at Philz. We then acended the East Face of Noe Peak using the fabled Eureka Valley route. After conquering Noe Peak we traversed the narrow ridge line to Eureka Peak, relishing the views of Mt Diablo, the San Bruno Ridge, Mt Davidson, Mt Tam, Mt Sutro, the Golden Gate Bridge, Berkely, Alameda, Fremont, El Pacifico and Hunters Point. We made a final ascent to the summit of Mt Eureka, San Francisco's second highest point and the city's highest point with a view. From there we descended down the treacherous North Face of Twin Peaks, avoiding the throngs of tour buses that crowd the viewpoint below the summit of Eureka Peak. We then followed the ridge north over Tank Hill and down into Cole Valley and grabbed a bus to Golden Gate Park where we enjoyed the newest exhibit at the De Young.

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

We made some nice meals:

From Christmas 2008

And went on a big hike on Mount Tam to Muir Woods National Monument:

From Christmas 2008

From Christmas 2008

And finished it up with some classic San Francisco scenery:

From Christmas 2008

It was a great visit. Thanks for coming out Mom and Dad!

Merry Christmas from San Francisco

From SF Christmas 2008

December Weekend

We spent another weekend in the city, doing nothing special but we did have a few highlights to share:

1) Watching Milk at the Castro Theatre.  A film worth seeing, even more so when watching it where the events took place.

From December weekend

2) Meeting our friends at The Ramp, an outdoor, Terrace-like place on the San Francisco waterfront about a mile from our house. Our friends sailed there from Alameda, we met them after some shopping at the Ferry Building. We sat outside, but it was chilly as there are no heaters at The Ramp.

From December weekend

From December weekend

Other than that we did a lot of hunkering. Its cold and rainy right now, not ideal California enjoyment weather.

Happy Holidays all.

Santa Cruz Mountains

This weekend we attended Chris' company's Winter Event at a Winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  The view of Silicon Valley from the event was fantastic, what was even better was our accommodations that night...we decided to camp near the party so we wouldn't have to drive back to San Francisco and for the fun of it.

Here's Olivia, with a down coat/evening gown combination:

From Christmas tree GCOR party

From Christmas tree GCOR party

Here are our friends:

From Christmas tree GCOR party

We woke up the next morning and drove into the mountains to find a Christmas tree. Thankfully our friends are obsessive bloggers, so we knew exactly here to go!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

Olivia wants a redwood!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

Peeking!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

mmm...treeyey!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

Down goes the Cypress!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

This is hard!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

Ahh, Christmas!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

We also stopped at the winery formerly known as Bonny Doon (its much lamer now):

From Christmas tree GCOR party

oh, and we went to the beach too.

From Christmas tree GCOR party

From Christmas tree GCOR party

Here it is!

From Christmas tree GCOR party

Thanksgiving!

We stayed in San Francisco for Thanksgiving this year. Mary, Bill and their kids made the drive down to celebrate with us. We had a great time. For our dinner, we made a lot of really tasty food, including this heritage breed turkey:

From Thanksgiving 2008

We spent the next day in Golden Gate Park, enjoying the roses,

From Thanksgiving 2008

From Thanksgiving 2008

and eating turkey sandwiches,

From Thanksgiving 2008

and exploring the botanical gardens,

From Thanksgiving 2008

and looking at the ducks,

From Thanksgiving 2008

and playing on the playground,

From Thanksgiving 2008

From Thanksgiving 2008

A fun weekend. Thanks Mary, Bill and kiddos for making the trip down to the city by the Bay.

Visitors!

We had some visitors last weekend -- Olivia's mom and aunt. We showed them some Bay Area fun.

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

We went back to Point Reyes because its so awesome. We saw harbor seal, elephant seals and whales -- again!

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

oh, and some deer too...

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

We swung by Muir Woods on the way home for some big trees:

From Lynn and Marilynn visit

thanks for the visit.

Harbin

California is a disconnect of traditional seasons. For instance, fall in here is a mish-mash of spring, summer and fall depending on the week, your location, and the time of day. Some of the leaves on some of the trees are turning yellow and orange, but this turning is no blast of color like one finds in Wisconsin or Colorado. There can be crisp days with blue skies and yellow leaves, just like a perfect autumn days. But these days are nearly as common in January or April or July. We've had rain, which is a part of fall as well. Yet, because its a little warmer here, and rain is the first significant precipitation since April, green grass is sprouting everywhere, like spring, in a place with cyclical seasons. Thus, while jogging across campus, I get confused, thinking its summer, then fall, then spring, in three separate steps.

Our weekend in Harbin was a perfect example of this strange phenomena. We saw blue skies, turning leaves, hot canyons and green grass.

We drove two hours north to a lonely canyon off a forgetten valley north of Calistoga. Tucked against the cliffs at the end of the canyon there is a hot springs retreat called Harbin.  Harbin Hot Springs comes complete with naked hippies and camping in a vegetarian, alcohol and drug free utopia of enlightenment. We camped there one night, soaked in the hot springs, did some reading in the sun, and relaxed before driving back to San Francisco through Napa Valley. Here are a few photos of our adventures:

Camping with the turkeys (you can't see the turkeys in this photo, but they're just to the right of the tent):

From Harbin Weekend

Fall colors:

From Harbin Weekend

Fall colors in Napa:

From Harbin Weekend

Vines turning red:

From Harbin Weekend

From Harbin Weekend

From Harbin Weekend

We stopped at Greystone for lunch:

From Harbin Weekend

yum.

And we did a little peeking at the wineries for old times sake:

From Harbin Weekend