For the last several years, I’ve kept a wooden bowl in my house, where I deposit receipts, papers, trinkets, and sea shells and sea glass throughout the year. And then on the last day of the year, I take them all out and sort through them, remembering the good and the bad, the hard things, and the wonderful things, that happened. It’s time for the 2016 edition. There’s no way around the hardest thing, the one that has colored the rest of my year: 2016 was the year my Dad died. So many times this year, I have wanted to…
Year: 2016
Hearst Castle at Night
On a whim, friends suggested a twilight tour of Hearst Castle, and while it was hard for me to get good photos in the dim light, the tour itself was amazing. I last saw this place when I was a kid and remembered only that it was big and fancy. Like seriously over-the-top fancy. My memory served me right, as you will see in this post. The main castle is four stories, at the very top of the mountain so it’s a five mile shuttle bus ride (along really winding narrow roads) to reach it. The main entry is all imported…
Weekly Update: Dec 28, 2016
Wow, the last week of the year is here already. When I think about trying to put the whole year into a post, my head kind of explodes. As Charles Dickens wrote so long ago: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So I’ll just stick to the last week in this post, that much I can handle. I did move from Sunset State Beach (and the all-night irrigation noise) to New Brighton a day early and was rewarded with this lovely sunset over Capitola. I will never not love this place, this view from…
Weekly Update: Dec 21, 2016
Yesterday was the last day of fall, today the first of the winter season. Seems like a good idea to show the last autumn sunset right about now. I spent most of the week at New Brighton State Beach, enjoying mostly daily walks down the long stretch of sand, and one evening, at low tide, walking along the cliffs to Capitola. It is a wondrous thing to walk below those towering structures and realized that a few epochs ago, they were 60 feet underwater. The seasons change, the planets change, and so life goes. Sometimes that life is pretty unexpected,…
Sunday Serenity: Purples Haze
With a lot of the US caught in the polar vortex and seeing seriously cold and snowy weather, I thought that sharing my favorite purple flowers might soothe souls and share the promise of springs to come, however far away that feels today. Only 91 days till Spring! You can keep count using this webpage, which might help during the rest of the winter storms that must be endured.