All the News Repeats itself

That’s a verse in the song “Hello in There” and with the news these past couple of weeks it is happening to us.

We went through the scare of nuclear fallout and nuclear power plant meltdowns with the cold war and Three Mile Island. It seems strange to see the lack of knowledge in the general public again.  I suppose that is a good thing—at least our kids didn’t grow up in fear of a nuclear attack happening at any moment.

Now there is all the controversy about what the President can and can’t do with the military without consulting Congress.  We’ve had this question debated since Vietnam.  Whenever our forces were committed from Granada and Panama through Lebanon Bosnia and Afghanistan our Presidents always want to push the limits of their powers.  It’s disappointing and embarrassing  to see how our current President is handling the Libyan issue.

Each time a president steps over the line and takes more power than the constitution gives him, the war powers act  is modified to assure it won’t be done that way again.  Then a few years pass and a new situation occurs and once again the news repeats itself.

On a separate topic I may not have any more kitty updates to give.  No cats have shown up here since we’ve been back from California.  Well except for Meredith on the 2nd night back.  Since then there has been silence out there each night.  I’m hoping writing about it will make them show up just to spite me.

Thar She Blows!

Here is a 3-minute   video of the best encounter we had with the whales in California.  We followed these whales for over an hour.

Burls

Apart from alcoholic beverages, refrigerator magnets and pictures we don’t normally bring back much else from from our vacations.  This time we brought back something quite unique.

Those things that look like slabs of meat are redwood burls. 

They were soaked overnight in water and  placed in a quarter inch of water.  They immediately put out little green buds that under the right conditions would grow into giant redwoods. (if you look carefully you can see them.) Here they will sprout little spindly trees that will grow as long as the burl is  kept wet.  I’ll take a picture in the future if things get interesting.  I’m going to decorate the shallow bowl we have them in with some of the glass and pebbles from Glass Beach and some smooth flat pacific shore rocks that I got at Point Mugu many years ago.

Oh, we didn’t take these burls illegally. They are sold in gift shops in very moist plastic bags.  We got ours at the botanical gardens.  They had some growing there that were about 2 feet tall.

Happy Spring!

Yes, it’s definitely here.  I mowed the lawn (the spring weeds) for the 2nd time today.

The azaleas and dogwoods are in full bloom.  Grandma Dean’s dogwood tree in our backyard has more blooms than it ever has.

I started washing the house in preparation for painting it.  Hopefully I’ll get that done before it gets too hot.  We’ve had a full week now of cloudless blue skies and mild temperatures.  After the cold and rain in California the change was welcome.

I also started to get my garden in order.  We bought some basil plants just before we left town and I had to plant them.  In the process I set up my herb garden.  It has basil, parsley,sage, rosemary, thyme and oregano.

The 3 blueberry bushes are full of blooms this year.  Last year I got 3 blueberries.  This year maybe there will be a handful.

We also have 3 or 4 places in the front and backyard where small blackberry plants are blooming.

Super Moon

And I’m not talking about some Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.  I ventured out last night to see the sun set and the moon rise.  Everyone seemed to know that the moon was closer and brighter than it had been in 18 years.  There were people on the beach, on the bridges and at waterside parks all out to see the Super Moon.

The sunset was nice.

The Moon was a lovely orange for the occasion.  I like the detail I could get by playing around with my camera settings. 

Of course it did turn white as it rose in the night sky.

I remember the last time this happened the NPR show All Things Considered had a contest to name this event for the moon.  I don’t remember what term won.  I called it “Lunar Max”.

Recent Events II

It seems odd to me to see the lack of knowledge we have about radiation.  Anyone in my generation is well schooled on it.  We grew up with atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and the tracking of the radioactive clouds they produced.  They measured the amount of Strontium 90 in our milk supply from Chinese nuclear testing.

We saw maps of what areas of the country would receive lethal levels of radiation if we experienced a nuclear attack.

We read On the Beach and Failsafe.

Some built fallout shelters to Government specifications and everybody knew you needed at least 2 weeks supply of food and water but 6 months was better.

Now we have people panicking on the west coast worried about radiation from a nuclear disaster so far away that the effects will be very small.

It will be interesting to see if we start getting reports on radiation in cows milk again.  By the way, the radiation gets in grass that the cows eat and that is why milk is affected.

Recent Events

I accidentally set my wristwatch to beep on the hour today.  It got me thinking about how it takes society a while to figure out the acceptable social behavior whenever new technology comes along.  When watches started showing up with the “chime on the hour” people (especially nerdy engineers) naturally turned on that function just because they could.  It was a neat toy.  I can remember driving to work and noting where I was each day when my watch beeped.  Was I running fast or slow that day?  I didn’t have to look at my watch to know.

This feature was very annoying at big meetings.  Since everybody’s watch was off by a few seconds whenever the top of the hour was reached a staggered wave of little beeps washed across the meeting room.  Eventually the novelty wore off and the utility of the function was really marginal anyway.  Now you rarely see someone with that setting activated.  It was available so we used it.

Next it was pagers then cell phones and the growing capability they provide from texting to video to surfing the web.

Some of the offensive use of cell phones have been established by society although they are not universally avoided.  Talking in restaurants for example.  The problem is that we have a generation coming into adulthood that doesn’t remember a time when you were not in constant contact with the world and feels that there is something wrong if you are not available  to the net.

With blogging and Facebook and twitter and texting we are becoming addicted to the electronic world.  So much so that we can’t drive or gather socially without texting or talking or surfing.  Even on dinner dates you see people texting or reading texts instead of talking with on another. They have their hands in their laps and head down doing what is called the Blackberry prayer.  Yes we old-timers can remember a time when you only had a phone at home or in a phone booth and it wasn’t rare to completely lose track of high school and college friends for the rest of your life.

We had a high school student killed here recently.  She was texting while driving.  Her message was “ I’m on my way to school”.  Her Dad has started a don’t text and drive campaign and has placed her car in front of the high school she attended to hammer home the point.

I hope we will realize, like with the watch that can chime on the hour, that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we have to.  We need to cut that invisible cable sometimes and see that it is OK.  We might even do some real thinking and come up with a new privacy app .

Oh, and you don’t have to worry about beeping watches.  The new generation doesn’t need to wear watches to know the time.  They check their phone or IPAD or whatever gadget they carry.

More Tradition

This year, without the benefit of much training  a Dad and his 2 daughters once again participated in the 15K (9.3 mile) Gate River “Run”.  These 3 intrepid souls set a blistering 18 minute-mile pace leaving about 2000 of the 17000 participants in their wake.  Victory was celebrated with the 3 B’s---  Beer, bananas and bagels----followed by a fried chicken lunch.  The tradition lives for another year.

The following information is provided for next year when we once again try to remember when to leave the house.  We decided this year on 6:36 AM and it worked fine.  If Karen still works out there her work parking lot is a great place to park and that way we get to use real bathrooms before the race.

(these are thumbnails of pictures that can be purchased at brightroom.com)

proof we crossed the finish line!

Lots of Catching Up

Since my last post I returned to glass beach, walked in more virgin redwood forests, went to 3 wine tastings at Anderson Valley wineries, sat on my butt for 12 hours driving and then flying cross country,got off my butt and walked 9.3 miles in the Gate River “Run”, successfully repaired (with Tim’s help) K&T’s washing machine, saw both daughters at the same time and finally returned home to find everything in good order (until I unpacked and exploded our suitcases in the den).  Even the cat feeder is still feeding.

Our last day in California started out sunny so we went to Glass Beach to see if it really sparkled.  It did.

We headed down to the area southeast of FT Bragg first to visit a winery(Navarro Vineyards).

Many of the wineries in this area have free wine tastings  We liked the Navarro wine so much that we bought a mixed case of their wines.

After a delicious Mexican lunch at a place called Libby’s we then went to hike in Hendly Woods State Park.  It consists of several virgin redwood groves. 

Water vapor steaming off stumps in the warm Sun

Then we hit 2 more wineries, Husch Vineyards and Roederer Estate (sparkling wines).

 

There are 9 or 10 wineries packed in side by side on a relatively short stretch of Highway 128.  Unlike Napa Valley the wine tastings are not crowded and in 3 out of the 4 tastings we went to this week we got personal service (because we were the only people tasting).    

It actually remained partly sunny all day so at sunset time we went to the beach to catch it in pictures.  Right at sunset a nasty layer of clouds snuck in and limited the show.  Here are a few pictures.

 

That finishes California—

Old Dump, Russian Gulch and Pacific Star

The weather this morning was grey and threatening but it wasn’t raining.  I decided to hit some new places and let the weather decide how far we got.

The first new place was an old dump.  Until around 1973 (the year we were married) the area of beach we went to was a dump.  They evidently just backed up the trucks to the beach and dumped everything into the pacific. Now, after years of cleansing by the ocean all that remains in the sand shells and pebbles are pieces of sea glass.  No sharp edges any more.  It’s obvious that many beer bottles were dumped, some coke bottles and maybe some pepto bismol and vicks vapo rub jars.  Most of the glass is colorless.  Here are some close ups of the beach.

Next we went to Russian Gultch State Park.  It has nice pacific headlands and a bridge to add interest.  Too bad it wasn’t sunny.  Here are some pictures.

We lunched in FT Bragg at a small sandwich shop while conversing with a tourist couple from Colorado who were traveling with 1 of their 4 Border Collies.  After lunch we headed north, up the coast to the Pacific Star Winery.  The winery is built on a beautiful piece of pacific headlands.  Their view is captivating with big waves washing over large flat rocks.  I could have sat there and watched the waves all day.

We had a nice wine tasting with our personal pourer. (we were the only ones there)  We bought a pair of wine glasses for souvenirs.

Her are some pictures of the winery grounds.

 

Tomorrow, once again we check the weather and go.

Flowers and Showers

It was supposed to rain this morning but the day began with mostly cloudy skies and a strong cold northwest wind.

We were the only guests at the B&B last night and again tonight.  The owner is out celebrating her birthday so we have the run of the place.

With the dry weather and a possibility of sunshine we decided to go to the botanical gardens today.  When we arrived at the gardens the sun came out.  The gardens are on the coast and in addition to the plants it also has beautiful coastal highlands.  So we got plenty of pictures of flowers plants and the coastline.  The coast is also a whale watching site but we didn’t see any today.

Here are some pictures.

After the gardens we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that the B&B owner recommended.  I had crispy fish tacos wit a chipotle tartar sauce.  I enjoyed it.

We then went to Main Street in Mendocino and explored the shops there – in the rain.  Yes, the rain had arrived again.  There is an interesting book store that tempted me with a couple of books and a shop called “Out of This World” that sells telescopes, binoculars, cameras and other fun stuff.  We actually bought a digital microscope to use with the computer.  We thought it would be fun and educational to play with with the kids.

Tomorrow we will wake up and check the weather.  That will determine what we do.

Skunk Train Day

We rode the skunk train today.  If you want to know why it is called that you can find the answer here:

 http://gocalifornia.about.com/od/camendocino/a/skunk-train.htm

The total ride took about 3.5 hours and went through remote redwood forest East of Ft Bragg.  The only way to get to the area  we were in was by train yet there are people living there really living off he grid in small widely separated cabins along the train route.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

 

Junior Conductor Nathaniel

 

We ate lunch when we got back to Ft Bragg and then headed out to a state park just north of town.

It was cold, grey and very windy but we walked out on their boardwalk to the seal and whale viewing area.  We didn’t see any whales but there were several sea lions on the rocks there.

Penny caught me playing in the tide pools

 

This is what I saw

Tomorrow we wake up, check the weather and then decide what we do. Top on the list is the botanical gardens.