The hill commands a fantastic view of the city:
And the Farmer's Market was colorful too:
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Mountain Climbing, Farmer's Market
We decided to hike to the Alemany Farmer's market one Saturday morning. In our interest in changing things up, we decided to climb a the large hill (a mountain, really) that separates our house from the farmer's market.
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Saturday, July 19, 2008
Birthday weekend in Wisconsin
We traveled to Milwaukee for
birthday celebrations,
cake eating,
karaoke,
Brady Street good times,
more birthdays,
entomology experiments,
chalk-covered sidewalks,
blueberry tasting,
and all around general cuteness.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sierra Trip
This was a weekend of mountains, friends, relatives, smoke and serendipity.
We were invited to go to Lake Tahoe this weekend by a few of Olivia's former colleagues (and current friends). We stayed in a funky 1930s-era cabin rented to "friends and family" of some people who are neighbors of the people who own the cabin who some of our friends met on a mountain bike ride a few years ago. And, while there are nearly 7-degrees of separation between us and the cabin owners, we were very happy to spend the night there.
On Saturday we went on a hike in the Desolation Wilderness. Because most of California is on fire, it was smoky, but not so smoky that you can see the smoke in our carefully selected photos.
On our hike we discovered that the Northern Sierras have a lot of granite.
The granite seems to keep the lakes quite warm, as we demonstrate in this series of photos.
We also had the pleasure of spending time with our friend's super-cute kiddos. Here is Sierra smiling on her first trip to her name-sake mountain range.
Serendipitously, a portion of Chris' family was having a family reunion a mere 2.8 miles from our 1930s-era cabin. We spent Sunday afternoon playing with cousins and making dams on the Upper Truckee river.* Growing up in the Colorado Rockies, dam building was one of my favorite childhood activities and I made many dams with my uncle Bob and aunt Karla et al. It was great to do the same with my cousins...though in the end, it was Bob and I who were the most persistent and excited about our creation.
Other highlights of the trip were:
1. one hour of stop-and-go traffic on Highway 50 on our way home (oh wait, just kidding. That sucked).
2. A stop in Davis, California for Boat Sushi at Osaka Sushi (thanks iYelp!) and a visit to the David Food Coop. The Davis Food Coop was awesome, and Davis itself, and the Coop especially, are so full of an East-side Madison uber-vibe that Chris shed a few tears of homesickness on his way out of town (actually, no, he didn't) (yes he did) (no he didn't). In fact, for the first time in two years we were asked the following questions:
1. Are you Co-op members (answer, "No, sorry, we live in the city")
2. Is this onion organic or conventional? (answer, "Um, I wasn't paying attention" clerk's answer to that: "Well, since its small and kind of beat-up, I'm going to assume its organic.")
Thus, the Davis Food Coop had an incredible resemblance to Madison's Willy Street Coop and it was really nice and made at least one of us pretty homesick for Madison. However, to be completely honest, even if some super kynd free-range organic genetic engineer were to clone the Willy Street Coop and the Davis Food Coop and to stitch them together to make a chimeric uber-Coop it still wouldn't beat the Rainbow Grocery in terms of selection and bulk food options. However, it would beat Rainbow Grocery hands down in the categories of "YouTube movies filmed on location" and "Feel-good because you're a member" and "ease-of-parking".
Ok. Enough.
*The Upper Truckee River ecosystem was not "jacked-up" by the construction of our dam. We may have displaced a few wooly buggers but they can handle it.
We were invited to go to Lake Tahoe this weekend by a few of Olivia's former colleagues (and current friends). We stayed in a funky 1930s-era cabin rented to "friends and family" of some people who are neighbors of the people who own the cabin who some of our friends met on a mountain bike ride a few years ago. And, while there are nearly 7-degrees of separation between us and the cabin owners, we were very happy to spend the night there.
On Saturday we went on a hike in the Desolation Wilderness. Because most of California is on fire, it was smoky, but not so smoky that you can see the smoke in our carefully selected photos.
On our hike we discovered that the Northern Sierras have a lot of granite.
The granite seems to keep the lakes quite warm, as we demonstrate in this series of photos.
We also had the pleasure of spending time with our friend's super-cute kiddos. Here is Sierra smiling on her first trip to her name-sake mountain range.
Serendipitously, a portion of Chris' family was having a family reunion a mere 2.8 miles from our 1930s-era cabin. We spent Sunday afternoon playing with cousins and making dams on the Upper Truckee river.* Growing up in the Colorado Rockies, dam building was one of my favorite childhood activities and I made many dams with my uncle Bob and aunt Karla et al. It was great to do the same with my cousins...though in the end, it was Bob and I who were the most persistent and excited about our creation.
Other highlights of the trip were:
1. one hour of stop-and-go traffic on Highway 50 on our way home (oh wait, just kidding. That sucked).
2. A stop in Davis, California for Boat Sushi at Osaka Sushi (thanks iYelp!) and a visit to the David Food Coop. The Davis Food Coop was awesome, and Davis itself, and the Coop especially, are so full of an East-side Madison uber-vibe that Chris shed a few tears of homesickness on his way out of town (actually, no, he didn't) (yes he did) (no he didn't). In fact, for the first time in two years we were asked the following questions:
1. Are you Co-op members (answer, "No, sorry, we live in the city")
2. Is this onion organic or conventional? (answer, "Um, I wasn't paying attention" clerk's answer to that: "Well, since its small and kind of beat-up, I'm going to assume its organic.")
Thus, the Davis Food Coop had an incredible resemblance to Madison's Willy Street Coop and it was really nice and made at least one of us pretty homesick for Madison. However, to be completely honest, even if some super kynd free-range organic genetic engineer were to clone the Willy Street Coop and the Davis Food Coop and to stitch them together to make a chimeric uber-Coop it still wouldn't beat the Rainbow Grocery in terms of selection and bulk food options. However, it would beat Rainbow Grocery hands down in the categories of "YouTube movies filmed on location" and "Feel-good because you're a member" and "ease-of-parking".
Ok. Enough.
*The Upper Truckee River ecosystem was not "jacked-up" by the construction of our dam. We may have displaced a few wooly buggers but they can handle it.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Ancient San Franciscans
Inspired by one of our country's greatest scientists, we left our flat on a sunny Sunday on the tail-end of a fun-filled Independence Day weekend on a mission to (1) discover the perfect brunch and (b) to explore the haunts of the ancient San Franciscans. The perfect brunch was easy to find. Obviously, the perfect Mediterranean brunch can be found in the Castro:
After brunch we took a quick ride on the N-Judah to El Pacifico where we enjoyed a laugh.
The free-spirited nature of Ocean Beach was a needed break to prepare ourselves for our archaeological adventures. Our first discovery was this lovely Strelitzia reginae growing in the wild on the side of a trail in Sutro Heights Park.
When we crested the Sutro Hill we came upon our first example of an ancient San Franciscan ruin. This temple-like structure was believed to be a place of worship and reflection used by ancient San Franciscans. A more controversial theory about the use of this large and impressive structure was that is was a meeting-place for a secret society free-range organic farmers, but this theory has yet to be conclusively proven.
We then descended to one of the most impressive ruins left from the ancient San Franciscans. While the uses of the "Bath House" remain quite controversial, I direct our readers to a treatise written by Drs. J. Borrok and R. Mitchell on the subject.
It was a fun day. We also had some good food, met up with friends, took a lot of buses. You know, normal urban hike sort of activities.
After brunch we took a quick ride on the N-Judah to El Pacifico where we enjoyed a laugh.
The free-spirited nature of Ocean Beach was a needed break to prepare ourselves for our archaeological adventures. Our first discovery was this lovely Strelitzia reginae growing in the wild on the side of a trail in Sutro Heights Park.
When we crested the Sutro Hill we came upon our first example of an ancient San Franciscan ruin. This temple-like structure was believed to be a place of worship and reflection used by ancient San Franciscans. A more controversial theory about the use of this large and impressive structure was that is was a meeting-place for a secret society free-range organic farmers, but this theory has yet to be conclusively proven.
We then descended to one of the most impressive ruins left from the ancient San Franciscans. While the uses of the "Bath House" remain quite controversial, I direct our readers to a treatise written by Drs. J. Borrok and R. Mitchell on the subject.
It was a fun day. We also had some good food, met up with friends, took a lot of buses. You know, normal urban hike sort of activities.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Summertime
Its been a while since we've posted. Since our trip to the ocean, Olivia went to Chicago while Chris made beer, Chris went to Paris while Olivia went scuba diving. We managed to spend a few weekends together as well. Some highlights were the Old 97s show, the Gay Pride Parade, a belated Second Annual Summer Solstice Party and a bike ride from our house in Potrero Hill through the fog in the city, across the Golden Gate Bridge to sunny Tiburon, followed by a ferry ride back to the city. Enjoy the slide show:
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