Birthday Weekend in LA

Matt surprised me with a birthday trip to LA and spend the weekend in Torrance at Betsy & Evan's new house. Here are the pics of some of our activities.

Camping

We went camping this weekend with friends Kevin, Heather and Greg as well as Sunapee and Bridger. This brought us back up North towards Mendocino, only not on the coast so with much nicer weather. We stayed in Hendy Woods (with about 100 other groups) which was pretty nice, especially for a last minute plan.

First order of business (well, second after lunch and a beer), was to bring the dogs to the river for a swim. Then we enjoyed the day setting up camp, cooking some steak, chicken, corn on the cob, playing cards and enjoying each other's company around the fire.

Sunapee is very confident with the river and had more success than he normally does in the ocean.







The hike to the river and the swimming definitely tired out Sunapee.


Kevin cooked and ate with what Heather calls his Crocodile Dundee knife.

Mendocino Weekend

Matt and I spent a long weekend in Mendocino to celebrate our first anniversary. We had a nice drive up, with a pit stop in Mill Valley so Matt could tutor and I played with Sunapee at the dog park. Also along the way, we stopped at the Marin Mazda/Subaru dealership to buy/install a dog gate in the wagon, allowing us to bring Sunapee's travel crate into the hotel and not have to traipse it in & out. Using our guidebook to having a dog in California, we had a burger lunch at an oceanside (and parking lot-side) grill with the Pee at our feet in Bodega Bay.

We stayed at one of the MacCallum House buildings and enjoyed a great room with a private patio and hot tub. Friday in Mendocino was clear and beautiful so we enjoyed a drink on the deck before dinner at the MacCallum House restaurant.

Saturday, Matt unfortunately woke up feeling ill, so he spent the day in bed napping, watching the Yankees and consuming saltines and ginger ale. I spent the day on our private deck reading and hanging out with the Pee.

View from MacCallum House deck Friday

Walking around town Saturday with Sunapee

Ferry

I haven't used a car ferry in quite a while, but we had occasion to do just that this weekend while driving out to look at puppies. The dog breeder lives on Ryer Island which is accessible by either of two ferries or an out-of-the-way bridge. We took the larger ferry, dubbed "The Real McCoy". I kid you not. It has to cross quite a current despite the narrow path.

We did also drive past the other ferry, which is a cable ferry. Very neat.

An unexpected side-effect was hearing a new instruction from our TomTom John Cleese voice. We felt as if we'd heard all his instructions but this was new. Unfortunately, it was not quite as amusing as my personal favorite, "bear right, beaver left".

Truckee & the Snowhawk

About 22 miles and 2+ hours after leaving the cabin, we stopped in Truckee, CA for a pit stop. Outside one shop in Historic Truckee were these three snow creatures. I guess when you get this much snow all winter, every winter, you get pretty creative and move beyond snow people.


We certainly never went fast enough for the "snowhawk" to blow off the car.

Luckily we didn't stay too long in Truckee, or we too would have been stuck on I-80 when it closed.