Victorian, on the move

Today's odd noise

2009-06-11T12:01:00.003-06:00

Mating squirrels make the MOST bizarre noises!

Like someone clicking their tongue only sorta dully and making a brrrm brmm noise without the b and also a noise like a wheel spinning combined with the noise of a cat starting to chuck.

Or at least that I what I assume is going on, given that there is a black squirrel with its tail up and a normal coloured squirrel chasing it but not in the usual fashion of "get outta my territory!" where they don't get near each other... No I would say the black squirrel is saying "Catch me if you can!"

Much catching up to do. So many pictures, so little time!

To our neighbours

2009-05-04T09:30:00.002-06:00

To our neighbours, who whenever they feel hot at night
(and I mean hot in the temperature sense)
Please, desist from smoking pot.
It really peeves your neighbours
who have to close their windows
and put the fan on
and hope that the disgusting smell
this time of SKUNK!
not perfume
passes
and that they won't awake
with a sore throat
from YOUR need to relax yourself
and share with your neighbours.

RAIN!

2009-05-02T10:35:00.003-06:00

It RAINED yesterday and drizzled today. Rain! In May!

This list shows the average precipitation in inches and (mm) for San Jose, California, over the year:

January 3.2 (81.3)
February 2.8 (71.1)
March 2.6 (66)
April 1.0 (25.4)
May 0.4 (10.2)
June 0.1 (2.5)
July 0.1 (2.5)
August 0.1 (2.5)
September 0.2 (5.1)
October 0.9 (22.9)
November 1.2 (30.5)
December 2.0 (50.8)
Total: 15.1 (383.5)

(Scuse the formatting - can't be bothered writing HTML table code. Plus I think they say 2.5mm on average in June, July and August cos once in 10 years a thunderstorm dumps an inch of rain in one afternoon, then no more rain is seen for ages.)

Of course when I look at the local rainfall data, it says no rain fell at *all* in the last day. That is because it is stupid, IMO. I know rain fell cos I was out in it! There was water running off the pavements. There was water running out the storm drain into the creek. It was not coming from sprinkler systems. It may have only been 2mm of rain but it was enough to make me use my umbrella.

In hairing off looking for local rainfall data (which took over an hour, I might add plus an extra hour for a nice diversion into looking at the seismic faults around here and pics and lovely stuff), I discover that noone particularly cares how much rain falls in San Jose. Weatherunderground has lots of little local weather stations but I get the feeling many of these are quite recent as their data peters out before 2008 or 2007. I eventually found that sfgate has a list of rainfall totals for the current rain year and the last one too. SJ had 80% of its usual rainfall (12" rather than 15"). As far as I can tell, Campbell (where we live) gets less than 10" of rain a year on average, which makes me wonder how on earth they grew fruit trees here - this whole area was an orchard and canned and dried all sorts of fruits.

It just gives me the feeling that people here are just plain not interested in weather. They are used to the weather being unchanging for half the year and barely variable for the rest of it. Where I come from, the weather is a major topic of conversation - it changes. We worry about rainfall, we gripe about it being Too Hot or Too Freezing, or Too Dry or Too Wet (rarely these days - rain is good!), we have a whole network of govt sponsored weather stations, I can look up a website to see how much rainfall fell in my local area in the last day, week or year (and get historical records too)... I guess we are just boring and obsessed at home with our interest in the weather and whether we'll get any rain.

On photographing wildlife

2009-04-21T18:50:00.002-06:00

Now you see it:

Now you don't:

That ground squirrel (well that is what I guess it was) was very fast! It was sitting in front of us happy as larry at the elephant seals past Big Sur and then just VOOM! Ah the perils of photographing wildlife. At least it wasn't a tree squirrel - it probably would've run up someone's leg!

Bunnies and bonnets

2009-04-20T18:34:00.003-06:00

Our local council, Campbell City Council, holds a Bunnies and Bonnets parade every year. We just so happened to be in downtown Campbell and saw a bit of the fun.

There were marching bands (local high school, pic chosen to not show faces!).

Floats.

People on weird recumbent advertising bikes, including this Easter Bunny who had one of the ugliest, scariest faces I've ever seen on something that is meant to be happy and jolly.

Girls dressed in Scottish outfits dancing (have a video but again it is of kids and there seems to be some prohibition against showing kids on blogs without permission of their parents/guardians). Local pollies in porsches. Dancing girls, not doing gaelic jigs. People just wandering along. Old cars.

Americans seem to enjoy parades a lot. We don't have many in Oz. I think they are thought to be dicky and old-fashioned.

Near the end, before the fire trucks, etc, there was a pipe band! I videoed them :-)

Enjoy!

A drive up Mt Hamilton and back again

2009-04-07T13:03:00.003-06:00

Two Sundays ago, we went for a drive up Mt Hamilton.

From down in SJ, Mt Hamilton is marked by some white lumps on top of a rather bald mountain to the east. It doesn't look like much from down here and our last attempt to get to the top of the mountain (about 14 months ago) was stymied by snow!

SJ foothills

Anyway, the drive up the mountain is fun. You first have to cross over the foothills, on a pretty narrow and rather windy road, cross a meadow/valley and then wind wind wind up to the top of the mountain itself. I would not recommend this road for anyone who gets carsick but for the rest of us? Woo hoo! It is soooo windy that you can't actually go that fast up it, especially when much of the road is stuck on the side of a rather steep hill - one side is often cutting/cliff and the other is a biiiig drop. And when the wind blows (it is windy as well as windy!) then it can be exciting indeed!

But we were just as enamoured of the spring wildflowers.

Just over the top of the foothills we found these in a sheltered, northfacing cutting;

Dodecatheon hendersonii - shooting stars. I was so excited to see these. We didn't see any last year but we didn't go to the right places. They are fairly common but to me they are the orchids of the primula world and I love to see them.

Californian Buttercups

There were also nemophila and some other things I cannot recognise due to low light and lots of wind blurring the pics.

I am fascinated by the oaks here - they are all twisty and gnarly :-)

One particular sheltered hillside was a riot of all sorts of things.

Delphiniums and dodecatheons dominate this pic. I didn't realise there were so many delphiniums (larkspurs) and so many lived here!

Cynoglossum grande - the flower looks like a very large forget me not. It's in the same family.

(This pic is best seen in a larger size so click on it to see delphiniums, dodecatheons, blue dicks and others. Yes, there is a plant commonly called blue dicks. Ahem!)

I think this is a blue dick (Dichelostemma capitatum). They were pretty hard to get pics of due to the wind and our unwillingness to step into the verge. We have a complete paranoia of poison ivy/oak and also hate squashing plants.

D'oh! Two deer, two (presumed) female deer!

Out of focus lupines and a nice valley.

After winding winding winding our way up the road, we came in sight of our destination

Now with fricken lasers! Really! They now use laser spotters to help line telescopes up. This telescope is over 100 years old and is still in constant use. It was and still is an amazing piece of machinery. It is so delicately balanced it can be lined up by a single person. You can read more about it here and more about the Lick Observatory complex here. (I am very pleased with this handheld shot - it is quite sharp and is limited only by the ISO of the camera rather than me shaking the shot.)

The Lick dude himself, well a bust of him. The guided "tour" (we didn't go anywhere, just stayed in the observatory itself) described him in glowing terms but I am not that sure he was a fantastically nice guy.

Me, chilling outside the observatory (which was rather cold!).

Nathan chilling even more in the brisk wind - he forgot to bring a jacket.

A bad pic of us at the observatory.

I call these ouchcones, not pinecones.

The long and winding road.

All of these hills and valleys are caused by the Pacific Plate grinding against the North American plate. They are very scenic when they are green.

Nathan called this a mushroom farm - I can see why!

On the way back down we saw other plants,

like these Indian Paintbrushes (Castilleja foliolosa I think)

Lathyrus vestitus?

Checker blooms in the middle of common fiddleneck (I think!)

Lupines and poppies on the foothills roadside.

Nom nom!

2009-04-07T12:51:00.005-06:00

Gosh how I love this new word - nom nom! It is even better than birdy num-nums! (Points to whoever knows where that comes from!)(Yes I am a nerdy geeky dork.)

Anyway, the caterpillars have been looking for nom noms. Alas many of them get squashed on the path. Here's one I saved (no I didn't touch it cos I am one of those people who get itchy spots from just looking at a spiny caterpillar).

And its "face"

And nomming away on a wild mustard/brassica

We thought they might be giant leopard moths or something similar but those are not found in California, certainly not in the Bay area. Also they don't have red stripes when they curl up. They just have dull red spots where the spines ("setae") stick out. They are some sort of woolly bear caterpillar, which means they are a moth caterpillar. I assume that they are a good sized moth cos the larvae get to about 3cm long.

So the plot thickens! Wish I knew an entymologist around here. Guess I should look online at the local universities.

ETA 11 April 2009. I think we have an ID thanks to "National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America" (Arthur E Evans). The caterpillars are Painted Arachnis (Arachnis picta) instars. They are a form of tiger moth. The grubs eat weedy plants, which fits the bill for the mustards we found them on. Yay! Thanks, NWF!

A little downtown

2009-04-01T13:52:00.003-06:00

The other day I trawled around on the buses visiting a couple of op shops (thrift stores). (I much prefer op shops cos the focus is on lucky finds, hence op for opportunity, rather than being thrifty, which has some negative connotations these days.)

Anyway, after I got peeved with Savers cos they had three registers open and a LOT of customers with a trolley (shopping cart) full of stuff and two registers closed just like that, I decided to call DH up and go into town (San Jose) to have arvo tea with him. I had even remembered to take the phone with me! A miracle!

So I caught the 23 bus in to town. Here's a few pics from the little walk from the bus to DH's work.

The Guadalupe River. Downtown. Looks wild!

A male merganser duck swimming frantically upstream. He actually blends in pretty well!

On the road to nowhere - the bike path on the other side of the river (more a creek) just stops. Waaaah! as you fly off the end of the path. I presume there is a barrier on the other side of the bridge.

Blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium

In a bed of presumed native plants (except some things are obviously weeds)

A green avenue. It was all nasty brown sticks two weeks ago.

DH's workplace with its signage being coy and its buildings looking wonky due to the wide angle.

No pic of peppermint tea. mmmmm....

Oh my! Caterpillars and butterflies

2009-03-30T10:03:00.003-06:00

What a weekend! Lovely weather - absolutely perfect.

It was a weekend of butterflies madly skipping NW-ward. Thousands of them. I have no idea what the butterflies are - they were here and gone before one could do anything apart from appreciate the speed with which they moved. These butterflies were on A Mission. We think they were Painted Lady type butterflies but who knows? they certainly were not fluttering by in the usual butterfly manner - no barely able to fly for these chaps! These were the ferraris of the flutterby world. Hwnce no photos.

Also we've been seeing heaps of fuzzy black caterpillars on one bit of sidewalk on the way to downtown Campbell. They look totally black and are right by a "wild" patch by the freeway. There's oxalis pes-caprae, redwoods, ashes, thistles, and wild oats and other grasses in the area. We have not seen them feeding on anything there. We would love to know what they are. I might be able to get a pic of one before it is squashed.

Umm, where am I again?

2009-03-19T22:39:00.003-06:00

This 'ere's the wattle,
Emblem uv our land.
You can stick it ina bottle,
You can 'old it in yer 'and.
(Thanks, Pythons!)

Silver wattle and gum trees against a blue blue sky.

I took these pictures at Vasona Lake Park, Los Gatos, California, USA. Ahem.

South Bay Spring

2009-03-19T21:53:00.003-06:00

Nearly a week ago, after getting my first ever flat on any of my bikes (and getting it fixed), I went for my oft-proposed ride up the Los Gatos Creek trail. I had been itching to ride up the creek for weeks and finally the planets were in the right places, etc etc and I could ride!

My goodness it was lovely!

I shall let you judge for yourselves. Click on any of the pics to go to the Flickr sizes page. :-)

(Redbuds - natives)

(the creek from a bridge - all green and growing!)

(A rather small egret in said creek)

(Another small egret further up the creek)

(common fiddleneck - native)

Something lives in this hole, a Californian Ground Squirrel I think but it dashed away before I could get a shot of it. It was being stalked by a presumably feral calico cat.

(Statice - weed)

(Canadians walking on water)

(Percolation ponds looking northish)

(Percolation ponds looking southish/Los Gatos-ish)

(Weedy but very very native - I love Californian poppies!)

(Lupinus succulentus - native)

(Male ?swamp? Baccharis - native)

(Female ?swamp? Baccharis - native)

(Some of the prettiest weeds you'll ever see but boy are they pests. I doubt if there is one native species in that shot.)

(Just below the Vasona Lake weir)

(lake outlet)

I am really enjoying this spring - it is quite exuberant :-)

Spring prettiness

2009-03-18T22:15:00.002-06:00

I am a total sucker for these.

Crab apples?

No matter what they are, their daintiness, whiteness and pinkness pull me in like a moth to a flame.

A circular drive

2009-03-15T21:56:00.003-06:00

Today we went for a nice drive, courtesy of Nathan's boss. We showed a potential new hire and his girlfriend around a bit of Santa Cruz and then up the coast and across through the redwoods in the coastal range. (I am pleased to report that we didn't actually drive through any trees, just past them.)

We had lunch by the marina, where it was grey when we first sat down

and then brightened up by the time we had finished:

The heiferweizen was a little shaken up it seems - someone had problems pouring it without a huge head.

We walked up almost to the mouth of the river (you can see the dredger and its pipeline in the pic above) to admire the Pacific and the lighthouse.

The breakwater/groin that the lighthouse sits on is made up of concrete "shapes" which totally fascinated me. Obviously the local sandstoney type rock is not impervious enough to the pounding of the waves. (see natural bridges below)

We then found Cliff Road after doing a little tour of the boardwalk area (no pics) and drove up to Natural Bridges. Looking south from the carpark, we saw

BLUE!

And looking north?

GREY! (note there is only one bridge left - I guess the same fate befell the second arch to the mainland as befell our London Bridge in Victoria.)

Which direction were we going in? Guess? Guess why there are no pics of the coastline or of the wildflowers (native and weedy) along the coastline? So we drove up to Pescadero, with brief views of a cloudy and veiled Pacific Ocean on our left, no kite surfers, past rudey nudey Bonny Doon Beach.... Interestingly it was a little clearer up in the mountains! So we stopped on Alpine Road for a little walk through the redwoods.

These are only bubby coastal redwoods - nothing like the ones we saw at Muir Woods and not to be confused with the giant sequoias that live say at Yosemite.

Quite a number of plants are in flower at present in the redwoods or are about to be in flower.

Redwood sorrel, or Oxalis oregana, or Oregon sorrel. The flowers were not very open.

Cardamine californica or milkmaids (different to our milkmaids at home!). The one in the pic below has pointy leaves - I presume it is the same plant as it has the same flower structure.

After a long afternoon of looking, gawping, knitting (for me) and blathering (oops, me again), we hopped across to the Sonoma Chicken Coop for dinner with knitty/crochetty friends and home with a magnificent sunset at our backs.

A dog question for you

2009-03-03T11:38:00.003-07:00

I was having a discussion with an older, American, lady the other day. We were talking about cattle dogs. They are quite fashionable here in the States. People think they will be good family dogs. (But they are not - they are bred to run all day, they will herd anything - ducks, chooks, children - and tend to look to one pack leader.)

She considered it cruel to have such a dog on a "running line" - a leash that allowed them to run around the back yard but did not allow them to jump the fence or otherwise escape a yard. Under no circumstances was it acceptable to put the dog on a running line.

She thought it much better that the dog be confined in a cage whilst its owners were out.

Quite obviously I think it is cruel to have a very active dog confined for 8-10 hours a day. As long as the dog has access to water, shelter and entertainment (and there are no mountain lions/etc) I can't see the problem with the running line. Free roaming of the yard is better but if the dog is an escape artiste.... (Some of these dogs love jumping fences and will go in search of something to herd if they are not entertained enough at home.)

You may be able to tell that I don't think that active dogs in apartments are a good idea either. AFAIK most apartment dogs are kept in cages when their pack leaders are out.

What do you think?

The other think I abominate is the docking of dogs' tails. Some dogs in Oz have docked tails (eg corgis, Jack Russells and some other short haired terriers are allowed stumps as are dobermans and other pointer dogs) though the practice is on the way out. Here - all sorts of dogs have docked tails. The other day I saw a cattle dog with a tail docked as short as a corgi's - there was no tail left! It wasn't the first one that I had seen docked so short. How do dogs tell tales if they have no tail? Taking off a dog's tail is like making us mute - the dog cannot talk properly. You can tell a lot about a dog's mood by how it is holding its tail. People carry on about how horrid it is to neuter a male dog - how can he take his greatest pleasure? (or what men think is his greatest pleasure cos they sorta envy the dog's flexibility) - but think nothing of docking the tail to "improve the dog's aesthetics" and to make sure it can't sweep the cups and dustables off the coffee table. It seems to be a very odd double standard.

OK, off my hobbyhorse now. You might get some local pics again soon! I have plenty to share.

PS If you hadn't already worked it out, I am a cat person.

It must be tough

2009-02-25T17:25:00.001-07:00

It must be tough being a smoker in San Jose parks. But it makes me happy!

Winter is here!

2009-02-16T23:15:00.002-07:00

So why are the spring flowers starting?

14 Feb - magnolia, Santa Clara.

It has been raining HEAPs here, which is fantastic. We might even make our expected rainfall for the month. Doesn't mean we are out of drought but it is nice that it keeps raining (except when I am out in it). It got me nice and soggy yesterday at the farmers' market, then after keeping my runners dry for most of the day I didn't see a huge puddle in a carpark (I was watching the crazy cars) and soaked both feet and my pants halfway up my legs. Now I usually don't do half measures in anything but this time I am glad I did!

Anyway, it is lovely to get some rain - about 50mm since Saturday I think. It's hard to tell with my large yoghurt pot rain gauge.

I guess I should've figured there'd be some rain when I saw lovely threatening clouds like these

It was a sunset though, not a sunrise. Not much of a warning for the poor old shepherd!

For train nuffies only

2009-02-03T16:13:00.004-07:00

Here's a couple of wonky-cam videos of the Tehachapi Loop in action.

If I can get a video editing thing going, I'll show you one that Nathan took too. It is too big for blogger. You can read more on Nathan's blog.

:-)

Straight to the pool room

2009-02-02T22:45:00.002-07:00

(If anyone knows where this originated, I'd be happy to credit it.)

You know you're Australian if....

You know the meaning of 'girt'

You believe that stubbies can either be worn or drunk

You think it is normal to have a Prime Minister called Kevin

You waddle when you walk due to the 53 expired petrol discount vouchers stuffed in your wallet or purse (and purse does not mean handbag but the female version of a wallet)

You've made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden

When you hear that an American 'roots for his team' you wonder how often and with whom

You understand that the phrase 'a group of women wearing black thongs' refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds

You pronounce Melbourne as 'Mel-bin'

You pronounce Penrith as 'Pen-riff'

You believe the 'L' in the word ' Australia ' is optional

You can translate: 'Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas'

You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep

You call your best friend 'a total bastard' but someone you really, truly despise is just 'a bit of a bastard'

You think 'Woolloomooloo' is a perfectly reasonable name for a place

You believe is makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that's twice as big as its $2 coin

You understand that 'Wagga Wagga' can be abbreviated to 'Wagga' but 'Woy Woy' can't be called 'Woy'

You believe that cooked-down axlegrease makes a good breakfast spread

You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis

You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says 'cobber'

You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels' song 'Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again'

You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year

You still don't get why the 'Labor' in 'Australian Labor Party' is not spelt with a 'U

You wear ug* boots outside the house

You believe that the more you shorten someone's name the more you like them

Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language

You understand that 'excuse me' can sound rude, while 'scuse me' is always polite

You know what it's like to swallow a fly, on occasions via your nose

You understand that 'you' has a plural and that it's 'youse'

You know it's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle

You biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules of beach cricket

You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call 'Anzac cookies'

You still think of Kylie as 'that girl off Neighbours'

When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally strip-searched by Customs - just in case you're trying to sneak in fruit

You believe the phrase 'smart casual' refers to a pair of black tracky-daks, suitably laundered

You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction

When working at a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer

You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem and then have trouble remembering the second

You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in the government's new test for migrants.

You will immediately forward this list to other Australians, here and overseas, realising that only they will understand!!

My addition - you know you're Australian if you get the title of this blog post!

NY Drive Day 3

2009-02-02T19:09:00.003-07:00

The day dawned grey and cold and miserable - the dense fog Bakersfield greeted us with the night before had settled in for the long haul it seemed. We were glad to leave and headed sorta eastish, towards the desert.

As we started to climb out of Central Valley, the fog began to clear, revealing rolling green velvet hills. There were even some cows grazing in the paddocks! That required a photo - we are not used to this idea of cattle being able to graze on their right and proper food here in the US - we see too many intensive dairy and cattle farms.

The terrain became more rugged as we climbed a bit further, and more scenic.

Some of the mountains had snow on top!

Eventually we were high enough to see patches of snow around us. We passed a small town and headed for the desert. But first,

The vegetation suddenly changes - rainshadow I guess - and we saw our first Joshua Trees. Weird looking things but fairly typical of agaves.

This is the best pic we got in Mojave. I think it sums up our visit there - we came, we saw, we got out of this benighted place as soon as we could. It is on a vast desert plain and I cannot imagine how hot it would be in summer when the winds blow out of the desert towards the coast.

We left the land of the Joshua Tree behind and crossed the pass again.

We stopped in Tehachapi (te-*hatch*-a-pee) for lunch. It has a very good train shop, for reasons that were about to become abundantly evident to me. The hippy eatery at the east end of town fed us some very nice chili - it was even Lynne friendly (though not very hippy when i think about it cos it had meat in it). The sign shown above indicates how important the local train attraction is to the town. It also looks a little sad - the bare land behind it was until recently their railway museum. A fire razed it in 2008 just after it was completed.

We also saw this sign at another eatery - we sniggered quite a bit.

So why had we come here? To see the Tehachapi Loop, a 130-odd year old engineering marvel that lets trains negotiate the grade up the Tehachapi Pass. Trains are important in this household.

As we returned to our car, we heard dingdongs and a train horn! Oooh, we were in luck! This BNSF train was on its way west to the loop!

We dashed back to the car and took off towards the loop.

We were still beating the train to our date at the Tehachapi loop.

The road became a bit windy with patches of snow in the sheltered areas. Were we still beating the train? There was a chap selling souvenirs at a layby on the road. In talking to him we discovered we had to backtrack 100 yards and go along a little track to get the best view. Back we went to get that view!

The train looping around half the loop.

The train then winds around some more bends on its way to Central Valley.

(A picture without trains or trainlines in it for those not interested in trains)

And back we headed into Central Valley

to find a solar power plant designed by Aussie ingenuity (our pic shows little of consequence), and pass a bunch of turkey vultures (I got excited cos I thought they might be condors but condors don't feed in packs) and face RAIN and excitable cars before finding a place to stay in Oakhurst.

Australia day 2009

2009-01-26T18:01:00.003-07:00

Golly, my second Australia Day away from Home.

We won't be thrown a prawn on the barbie, or a lamb chop or a banger or two. We don't have a barbie y'see. Technically they are illegal where we live (well can't be used within 9' of flammable stuff), though about 30% of the flats around us have one on their patio.

Plus I don't think I've got any lamb chops. We do have bangers though, funny American Italian bangers.

There's a few things I miss here in the States. Bangers for starters. Getting a good sausage full of lord knows what bit of the animal is really difficult. Americans don't do sausages. They do these funny little breakfast links, which are often skinless. They do hot dogs, which are about the right size and shape, but they aren't bangers (though the source of "meat" is probably similar). But they do not really get the idea of mixing mince (ground) meat with seasonings and rice meal (for gluten free bangers) and sticking it in a casing (real gut or synthetic, your choice).

Another thing I miss is the good old Aussie meat pie. Again, meat of uncertain, often chewy, origin seasoned (usually overly) with salt and pepper all wrapped in plain pastry. Mmmm, pie-y goodness, and I used to be able to buy them frozen at the supermarket. When we get back to Oz I am going to stuff myself full of pie-y goodness. Yum yum yum. And eat lots of sausages. I might turn into a banger myself!

Why is it that the foods that are bad for us taste so good?

So on this Australia Day, well I still call Australia Home. I might live in the States but this is not my Home. It is home for the time being. It has enough Aussie-ness that I can survive quite well - the place is riddled with blue gums (eucalypts) so it isn't as it I can find the odd eucalyptus leaf to crush and smell. Plus there's a range of other Oz plants too. That is enough to keep me going. Sooner or later I'll get a recharge of Australia(n-ness). One day I expect to live there again. Hope it will wait for me!

Day 2, part 2, the exciting bit!

2009-01-25T15:01:00.004-07:00

After leaving Morro Bay, we headed southwards to San Luis Opisbo. We didn't hang around, just stayed long enough to fuel up and choof off inland.

I think you can get an idea of how dry it is in this part of California by the pics. Ther are not that many trees and those that exist are either reallly tough local oaks or growing in drainage lines.

Then we hit California Valley. Oh my. What a benighted place! This technically isn't California Valley itself, but it is darned close and is a better pic than the others we got.

Imagine land developers thinking, hey who wouldn't want to live here? Soil is alkaline, there's a soda lake down the road, the water supply is from an aquifer that is a bit iffy, there's no trees, it bakes in summer and freezes in winter (overnight), but there's plenty of sun! Let's set up for a town of 50,000 people or so. The road map of California shows a heap of roads to be set up in a grid.

Ahem.

Well some people set up house and still live in the area but really you'd have to enjoy being isolated.

There isn't that much to do in California valley. We drove along Soda Lake Road, to see the soda lake.

It has a top notch recycled plastic boardwalk, for those times when it is wet I guess.

Not much can grow in the alkaline clay soil.

See those wrinkly hills on the other side of the valley? Well those would be the Carrizo Plain part of the San Andreas Fault. Yep, The Big One!

How'd you like to live right next to one of the most notorious faults in the world?

We'd stumbled on one of the best places to see the San Andreas, and it was getting too late to go exploring. We had driven down Soda Lake Road (mostly paved but with a 10 or mile stretch of unpaved road) just randomly and there we were, driving through a national monument and beside the San Andreas.

This is a bit of a punt but I think the fault runs through this valley. There was a really odd dip, like a creek bed that had moved, near the end of the road that made us very suspicious.

This is a really dull pic but from Google maps and digging around online, I am pretty sure that the San Andreas fault runs right next to the road here, through that puddle.

Sunset was pretty - you get too many pics of it :-)

I think you can see something lurking in a couple of those pics. Lurking just down the hill and waiting to swallow us whole.

I hadn't realised how high up we were until we hit the fog bank and kept driving down down down. Gods it must be dull in Central Valley if it is foggy for half of winter. The fog was pretty dense at first but soon I had plenty of visibility to do the speed limit. We stayed in Bakersfield at a cheap but perfectly adequate motel that even had a microwave and bar fridge! Yay for microwaved dinners :-)

Morro Bay, day 2

2009-01-21T22:16:00.003-07:00

DH has fond memories, or at least memories, of visiting Morro Bay back when 'e were a lad. So we drove there - wasn't exactly hard as we followed the coast road.

I think I'll let you form your own ideas about what dominates the seaside town of Morro Bay....

(loved this drippy sandcastle)

From the beach, Morro Rock looks like some great stranded leviathan.

It looks a little more mundane from the harbour.

Someone wanted chippies.

Someone else could smell goodies in the seawater irrigated holding tanks.

Someone else found a goody flopping around on the pier

but its slimy gooeyness was a bit hard to deal with.

Morro Bay was such a mix of different things - the old town area was very laid back but the Embarcadero/harbour area! Oi vey, and this was in winter, admittedly on a lovely sunny holiday. Cars everywhere all looking for a place to park, yet the foreshore is lovely, the beach is lovely, the Rock's carpark is horrid and then there is the power station glowering over all! It is right on the harbour - I guess that means it has plenty of cooling water. Apparently it is old, gas-fired and running at only 5% capacity whilst its replacement is wrangled through bureaucracy. (More info at this wikipedia page.)

I couldn't resist taking pics of this rubbish bin, decorated with turkeys.

When I think beach, I do *not* think turkeys, but obviously someone saw them as important.

Finally, before we turned our heads inland, this tough yellow flower just begged to have a photoshoot. It grow on the foreshore area so it is well adapted to large doses of salt - just look at those fuzzy leaves!

Next, we travel inland and cross one of ze most notorious geological features in ze world!

Beach lumps - New Year's Drive day 2/part 1

2009-01-20T21:21:00.004-07:00

So overnight on NYE we stayed at the Ragged Point Inn. It was pleasant, not cheap mind, but pleasant. We dined at the associated restaurant, again quite pleasant but I had not dressed for the occasion (mind you I was not naked either but sweat pants, aka trakky dax, are not exactly classy). We did not make it to midnight - I had done some hard driving and DH had done some hard sitting.

Can you see the little road halfway up the hill?

(southwards)
The motel has great views on either side of the point, as I discovered when I went for an "early" morning walk at 9am...

(northwards)

(outwards)

These aloes are very popular in the area. I guess it is hard to find things that grow. Also given their prickles, they may resist being removed...

Cypress and the hill inland from the motel complex.

I was lucky to get those pics when I did as only a few minutes later, fog began blowing up from the ocean. It was like it had been set on fire or something. Within a couple of minutes of returning to our motel room, the view out the window went from

to

DH never saw the views in person, only in the pics I took.

So we drove onwards, ever onwards. It was all very Scottish according to DH - the hills were moving away from the road and there were flattish spots and all was draped in mist. We passed a LOT of cyclists over the next 20 miles - they were all going the other way. Good luck chaps - not too much in the way of bike lanes are marked along the coast road!

Occasionally we saw views like this

and this:

The coast seemed less rugged in some ways - a precipitous hill no longer fell straight into the ocean but it was pretty darned rocky. I wouldn't want to be landing a boat on it. I'm guessing that the lighthouses were/are absolutely necessary given the fog that benights this coast.

At one point we drove past a very popular car park. "Seals" pronounced DH. Whatever, I've seen seals before. "Elephant seals." On go the brakes and around we go - of course I checked the traffic before chucking a U-ey.

Yes, indeed elephant seals.

There are some youngsters in that pic and some mums-to-be as well from their shape. I have a video of one calf trying to work out where to get some tucker. Mum's flipper wasn't the go, nor her ?elbow? ?wrist? Here's mum flopping over and trying to prod the kid downwards but golly, I have no idea how these critters have survived if the calf takes five minutes to work out that the top end of mum does not have food but about 2/3 the way down does.

Apparently the chaps are all ready to make more baby elephant seals. I guess it takes all kinds cos I wouldn't want him making love sweet love to me!

And one intrepid ground squirrel with a great beachside home.

One of our aims was to visit this place, even though they can't spell Hurst.

Alas, it was closed on New Year's Day.

So onwards, ever onwards.

Things I have learned

2009-01-20T14:32:00.003-07:00

Today's thing I have learned is that dishwashers suck. Even manual dishwashers (ie me) can suck, but I'm really talking about the ones where you stick your dishes in a machine and hope they come out clean.

One of my great delights upon moving to the US was discovering that most (but not all) rental apartment kitchens come with a dishwasher. I'd never had one before, having lived in older pre-dishwasher houses. How wonderful - dishes go in dirty and come out clean! None of this scrubbing stuff in the sink. Plus you use less water because they are more efficient!

Weeeeelllll, maybe there are such dishwashers out there but I've not yet met one.

We eat rice and potato a lot. And vegetables. Dishwashers do not remove the rice and potato and vegetable grunge off the pots. Some would say "That's clean, it's been through the dishwasher" but I see gunge, old food that harbours evil nasties that are just waiting to inflict some gastrointestinal horror upon me (or DH). For all I know that gunge has gotten together with a gluten/casein morsel from DH's cheese and cracker plate and is now just biding its time, waiting to leap at me when I next use that pot.

I've learned that sticking said gungy pots and lids back in the dishwasher just bakes the gunge on harder.

Solution? Scrub pots and pans, give up on putting them in the dishwasher. Run the water slowly without plugging the sink cos the sink is HUGE and takes forever to fill even 7cm deep (enough to mostly cover a glass).

Dang.

Mashed potato also doesn't come off bowls well, nor does cake mix. Handwash time!

Dang.

Then there's the times when I forget to run the garbage monster that lives in the sink drain before starting a load of dishes and the drain backs up and our "clean" dishes come out covered with lord knows what. They also can't just be rewashed - they have to go into the sink for a soak and a hand wash.

Dang.

But I will admit when the planet are in the right alignment, the dishes have been rinsed and the great drain god has been appeased, the dishes come out pretty clean. Just make sure the cups are turned towards the centre of the machine, not the edge.

Day 1 - A drive to Big Sur

2009-01-19T15:31:00.004-07:00

Over Christmas and New Year, DH had some time off. He brought home a cold for Christmas and passed it on to me, thanks ever so, still suffering the effects 3 weeks later...

Anyway, since he had this time off, we decided to go for a drive down the coast. We had been told the drive along the Big Sur coastline is a great deal of fun, if you don't get carsick. Sounded exactly like my sort of road!

So off we zoomed. Traffic was not as bad as I expected for New Year's Eve. Soon enough we had passed through Monterey and bypassed Carmel-by-Sea.

Soon the coastline started getting lumpy and bumpy and a bit more exciting. So did the road, well at least it began to wiggle more but was no more lumpy bumpy.

We stopped at the first bridge.

Mr Grumpy had not had lunch and things were looking grim. A snack bar and an apple helped but lunch was needed and lunch was not available.

We drove further, over many bridges and around many corners. Whiz, whiz, whiz! The road is mostly cut into the side of a very steep sided hill, though around the part where you go past the Big Sur visitor center, it swings inland for a bit. (And thank heavens for a bakery where DH got some sustenance.)

130,000 acres of Big Sur burned in June/July. Massive wildfire. The hill in the background of this pic is representative of what remains. The countryside looks so rugged there - any rain that falls will wash away whatever topsoil remains. It will be interesting to see how much of it regenerates and how well it regenerates.

Alas we had started our drive rather late and the sun fell low in the sky waaay too early for us.

We stopped for afternoon tea at one place but the cafe had already packed up for the day and the restaurant was pricey. I rather liked this driftwood sculpture of a bird.

We did get rather a number of shots (ahem!)

of the coast around and after sunset.

It is gorgeous.

I drove the next however many miles to Ragged Point in the dark, missing out on many spectacular views. Alas I did not make it to the 55mph speed limit very often - 45mph was more prudent, especially given the amount of roadwork happening along the way, with lanes not marked in any way shape or form. Staying on the road involved taking a punt and pointing the car at the middle of the darkest bits. I may love my corners but I also want to arrive at my destination in one piece.

This road is one of the Great Coast Drives. It certainly compares with the Great Ocean Road back 'ome. I think it was built with a similar goal to the Great Ocean Road - that of job creation. Tourism of course followed but really the road was created to provide jobs. It is an amazing drive and we will have to do it again, when it isn't dark. LOL