I recently visited Santa Monica, which is near Los Angeles. It was during a heat wave, so the weather might have been more spectacular than usual. Whilst I was there I got a CVS disposable digital camera (well, I got two, one to hack and one to use) since Louise was using our normal camera. Santa Monica is a 30 minute bus ride from Hollywood. I went there to check out French General for Louise, but they were overseas so I couldn't. I decided to try out a Hollywood tour, which was pretty good. They don't take you up near the sign, but they take you through Hollywood Land (the older part of Hollywood with nice (expensive) houses.) I didn't see any real celebrities. Hollywood itself is a bit disappointing, there is really nothing to see and it's got a bit of a dodgy character to it. The wax museum demonstrated how difficult it must be to make was models with realistic colouring and dimensions. I found a good pizza shop. Whilst in Santa Monica I got some $2 notes. They are perceived to be rare, and they don't work in some machines (the Santa Monica bus ticket machines don't accept them). It is a shame that tipping is expected here, but if I must tip $2 notes are definitely good tipping currency.
We went for an afternoon walk around Mountain View. We wanted to get photos of the magnolias, since the huge flowers were in full bloom.
On our way to the park, we noticed that the gate to the seniors garden was open. It is a little slice of land between what appears to be a mains water distribution pumps and houses.
There is usually someone tending the gardens when Sean walks past on his way to work in the mornings. We didn't see anyone, but they were probably there at the far end. We got some good photos of an artichoke and other vegetables.
The bee hive is in a little fenced off section of its own.
We left the garden and went to the park. At the park there was a squirrel rummaging through the rubbish.
Here are the pictures we were after.
Check out how large the petals are. They smell lemony.
On the way back home we got this good picture of a bumble bee collecting pollen.
The car is due for a service, so we didn't want to go to far this weekend. Luckily, Shoreline lake and park is literally just down the road.
The lake and park were built on 700 acres that were previously flood plains, a sewage treatment plant, a junkyard, a pig farm and a dump. About 15 feet of landfill raise the land level high enough to prevent flooding. These days it is a park comprising a golf course, a lake, some cafes, Rengstorff House and a nature preserve. The Shoreline Amphitheatre is right next to the park.
From 1978 to 1993 methane was extracted from the ground under the park to supplement the gas needs of the local community. This gas paid for the parks maintenance. Local rumour has it that in the early days people sitting on the lawn at the Amphitheatre used to poke holes in the ground and light the methane that seeped out.
Rengstorff House, now located in Shoreline Park, belonged to one of the early settlers in the area. It is now open to the public, and can be rented for private events. Henry Rengstorff was a German immigrant. He arrived in 1850, but must have decided that he had missed the 1849 California gold rush as he stayed in the bay area as a farm hand. He saved up until he could buy his own farm, where he built Rengstorff House. He used local redwood and other tall timbers, some beams span from one end of the house to the other. By the time he died he owned 6 local farms.
When developers bought the land where Rengstorff House was originally located, the local council bought the house from them for $1. They moved it to just inside the Shoreline Park gates, where it sat for 10 years before being moved to its current location and restored. In exchange for opening it to the public, the council reserved the upper floor for council member offices. The city web site has more info about Rengstorff House.
The 50 acre lake divides the park into a golf course and a picnic family area. You can rent bicycles, boats, kayaks and wind surfing equipment.
Whilst we were walking, we noticed that there are a lot of lizards living in the undergrowth. You can see one if you look closely at the photo below.
As we left, just before we drove past the kite flying area, we saw a burrowing owl foraging in the grass.
There is a virtual tour of the park, with lots of photos and background information, on the Bay Area Governments web site.
Today was the 14th Annual Pt. Richmond Garage Sale. 10% of the proceeds go towards the Masquers Playhouse, so since we had the day off (Memorial Day in the US) we headed to Pt. Richmond and joined in.
Even when we arrived at 9am there was traffic chaos in the town center. Luckily we know of a good parking spot on the outskirts of downtown. Pt. Richmond is a nice little town on the edge of the San Franscisco bay, so it was nice to leave the car and walk around town.
There were garage sales sprinkled throughout town, but you had to be there early to snap up the good bargains. Louise's cheapest item was a dolls house "box of seed packets" which was given to her for free. I got half price on a card terminal, and also picked up some padlocks (no keys) for the lock club at work. We didn't just buy junk though, we got everything you can see in the picture below. We bought a pop-up book, some great shop props, cards, candles and books. Guess how much we paid for that table full of goodies? $20.
Had we been interested we could have bought cars, computers, skis, pianola rolls, a Louisville slugger or a copy of "Baby Boomers Trivial Pursuit".
We also had a look around town. The Chinese restaurant is up for sale (only $1.5M). Depending on which side of the hill your house is on you either have a view of the freeway and railway yards, or the bay. We stumbled across a group of four squirrels, and I narrowly missed a shot of a squirrel peering around the power pole at Louise before it ran off laughing!
Last weekend we went to the annual Mountain View Arts and Crafts festival. They had the usual assortment of food, arts and crafts.
The highlight was running into Conny and Dennis, who make Essence of O branded soap. When we got home we found a picture of them on Louise's Nova Studio scrapbook page.
We saw a collapsed freeway bridge during our travels today. It is going to slow down the commute to Pt Richmond for the next few months.
Last night a tanker truck, that had just filled up with petrol, crashed while negotiating a freeway interchange. The driver took a taxi to hospital to have his second degree burns treated.
ABC7 have a video of the bridge collapsing. CBS5 has a helicopter view of the result. SFGate have a lot of photos. MotherJones has a report on the crash that pulls few punches.
We went to the Chinese New Year celebrations in San Francisco on Sunday, heralding the start of the year of the pig. The celebrations included street markets during the day, and a 3 hour parade at night. It was fitting that we watched our first Chinese New year parade in San Francisco, considering that the first such parade was held in that city in the 1860s. We spent a total of nearly 11 hours in China Town and Telegraph Hill.
During the day several streets were closed off for a street market. A lot of the stalls had spinning wheels where people could test their fortune coming into the new year. There were lots of small fireworks on sale in preparation for the parade. Some of the stalls had showbags filled with free food, but the lines stretched around the block. We took some time to look at the Fortune Cookie Factory, and to visit the Old St Marys Cathedral. Old St Marys is California's first cathedral, it survived the 1906 earthquake that destroyed a lot of the city.
We left the festivities for a while so that we could check out the view from Coit Tower. At 210 feet high Coit Tower has magnificent views of the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. It was a big climb up Telegraph Hill, but we got some great photos.
Louise booked seats for the parade, which turned out to be smart considering that tens of thousands of people turned out, some even sitting on top of bus shelters to watch.
The Chinese Chamber of Commerce decided not to let the Falun Gong participate, so Falun Gong practitioners were handing out leaflets instead. Falun Gong may be wacky types, but it takes a lot to stand up against government sponsored genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. They were allowed to participate in other Chinese New Year parades in the US and Canada.
The parade featured a variety of dragons, dancers, school groups, marching bands, politicians, business representatives and martial artists. Miss China Town and Yul Kwon also had floats. There were plenty of opportunities to touch the dragons for good luck, and some of the floats threw sweets to the crowd to offer everyone a sweet new year.
The school groups were outstanding, with children dressed as papier mache pigs and dragons.
It took a while for the parade to reach our seats, since we were near the end of the route. By the time the parade reached us the street was littered with crackers and silly string. We also mistakenly thought it had finished three separate times because large gaps developed between floats. The giant finale dragon was worth waiting for though.
Our friend Tonya is looking after some orphan baby squirrels. They are large enough to release, but because it is winter they can't be released yet. Squirrels build nests in the trees during Autumn, to keep themselves out of the cold. Since all of the autumn leaves have been cleaned up, they can't be released until it gets a bit warmer.
Today was Presidents Day, the day when America celebrates George Washington's birthday. The Wikipedia article explains that in the 80's advertisers in many states expanded the theme of the public holiday to encompass Lincoln and Jefferson, although the state of Virginia (Washingtons home state) stuck with "George Washington Day". Following in the tradition of the Queens Birthday celebration, today is not Washington's birthday at all. Happy Birthday George!
To celebrate having a day off, we went to Carmel, current home of Clint Eastwood. The shopping district runs from the CA-1 down to the waterfront. It is a cosy town with tight streets, nice houses and lots of trees. There are lots of expensive cars in the streets, people walking dressed up dogs, inns and nice shops. I was looking at diamond rings in through one shop window, and I noticed that the 6 digit numbers on the tags were prices, not part numbers.
The Carmel beach has beautiful white sand. The sun was out and there was barely a cloud in the sky, but it was windy and cold, so we didn't stay out on the beach for too long. The people flying kites appreciated the wind.
We had lunch at The Cottage Restaurant. Having passed a few artichoke fields on the way in, we tried their Artichoke Soup. It was delicious, with the consistency of pumpkin soup and the flavour of artichokes. If you visit Carmel, we recommend stopping at The Cottage for soup and salad.
We also found a wine shop that specialises in southern hemisphere wines, appropriately named Southern Latitude Wines. Their prices seem to be the same as you would pay on wine.com, which is suprising for a physical store in a town like Carmel. We have been looking for a wine to keep for a few years, after Malcolm advised us to drink the 2003 Mont St John Pinot Noir we had set aside for that purpose. We picked up a Yalumba Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2002. We don't know that much about wine tasting, but the wine advocate gave this wine a good score. We also got bottles of Sauvignon Blanc and Rose' from New Zealand.
On the way back we passed a sign for "Capitola/Soquel", which I misread and thought "Why is there a street sign up for venture capitalists Sequoia Capital?" I guess we've been in the Bay Area for too long :)
Santa Monica is a 30 minute bus ride from Hollywood. I went there to check out French General for Louise, but they were overseas so I couldn't. I decided to try out a Hollywood tour, which was pretty good. They don't take you up near the sign, but they take you through Hollywood Land (the older part of Hollywood with nice (expensive) houses.) I didn't see any real celebrities.
Hollywood itself is a bit disappointing, there is really nothing to see and it's got a bit of a dodgy character to it. The wax museum demonstrated how difficult it must be to make was models with realistic colouring and dimensions. I found a good pizza shop.
Whilst in Santa Monica I got some $2 notes. They are perceived to be rare, and they don't work in some machines (the Santa Monica bus ticket machines don't accept them). It is a shame that tipping is expected here, but if I must tip $2 notes are definitely good tipping currency.
