Road Trip: Hitting the Highway

We need some road trip music here.  Here's a list of classic road trip songs.  I dunno.  They're not all about driving.  How about Willie, Steppenwolf, or Joni.

Heading south, we passed by Castroville, the Artichoke Capital.  I'm not always impressed by all those "Capital of" places since I live in one, but the artichokes were magnificient.  We bought some.

So were the bananas, but we didn't buy any.

Handy offered to pull over so I could take this picture.  That's unusual. He usually doesn't like to interrupt his driving with stopping to look at things.  I've learned to live with it.

Here's the Point Sur lighthouse.  

There are tours on the weekends, but we were driving by on a Monday.   

However, we did stop for a delicious lunch at Nepenthe, a place we'd been driving by for years.  Check their website for some interesting stories.

The view was quite nice.

So was the other view.

The phoenix rises.  

Let them eat cake.

We'll have pie.  Banana cream pie, to make up for the bananas we didn't buy earlier.

After I digest, I'll continue the trip.

Road Trip: Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

Soundtrack music:  classic Otis Redding, or perhaps you would enjoy John Mayer, Sara Bareilles, or Pearl Jam.  Again, I draw the line somewhere.  This time at Michael Boulton.

Now am I going to go classic on you?  But how can I pass over my love of Eddie Vedder?  Sigh.  Well, this is a classic road trip, so classic would win out only I can't get one to play here.  So click on the artist of your choice.

An utterly glorious day.  

Makes me want to learn to kayak.  How hard is it, Jenn?

It was windy.

Have I mentioned I adore lighthouses?

And sea lions.

And the owner of this strange shoe.  This is the only picture I got of Ernest.  The foot couldn't duck.

I also adore flocks of pelicans.

This pelican was napping and missed the flock.

"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking... 

you talking to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who the f*ck do you think you're talking to?"
                                                                                                         -- Travis Bickle Seagull

Pretend...

this...

is a...

panorama.

Next, we'll be hitting the highway.

Road Trip: On the Boardwalk

We need to start with some background music.  Do you want the classic Drifters version?  Or something a little different?  I've found Mellencamp, Rickie Lee Jones, Bette Midler, and the Stones.  I draw the line at Bruce Willis.

Well, I'll go with the classic here.  But you can pick which version you want.



Now I can get started.  We took a road trip to Santa Cruz this weekend.  We were taking Ernest to a mountain bike camp.  Taking isn't the actual word.  Escorting?  He wanted to drive himself but we thought that perhaps he should be dropped off by a parent.  It turned out they didn't really care.  One of the few times I have not had to sign a sheaf of papers absolving them of every possible problem.  Or maybe we did that online already.  


Anyway, we went up the day before and spent the afternoon on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.  I wish I had been under it like in the song because I got a little pink.  Well, you actually can't go under it because it is cement.  Ernest did not wish to do any rides, but he was impressed at the number of them.  And he's been to Coney Island so he is not a boardwalk novice.

It was the most gorgeous California beach day ever.

Why is there a caveman on the skyway?  There was a cavewoman, too.

Oh, that's high.

We did not eat any fried food.


Otherwise, we would have been bulgy.

There were some strange attractions.

And some more traditional ones.


I'll leave you with a cliffhanger.


Hahahaha!  On to the wharf tomorrow.

Paneer, Gromit!

What are you doing, Mom? asked Frank as he passed me in the narrow confines of our kitchen.

Making cheese, I answered, as though that was a routine event and it should be obvious to him.

It all started with a bottle of curry sauce.  Mango curry sauce, to be exact, a birthday gift from my lovely M-I-L.  Well, that sauce cried out for shrimp but what else to serve with it?

Since Ernest is going to India in just about 3 weeks, I decided on Saag Paneer.  Of course, there is no paneer in my small town, so I set out to make it.  It was actually quite easy.  (Except for the cleaning of the stove after the milk boiled over because I had to answer a stupid phone call which turned out to be a recording asking for my husband and so I just hung up on them as the milk boiled over.)  Anyway...

Frank did wonder about the can of chili beans but that was just to weight down the cheese.

Here's the cheese, Gromit!

There are so many recipes out there.  I cobbled it together from 3-4 different ones.  I did not puree the spinach mixture, because after cleaning the stove I did not want to clean the food processor too.  No matter.  It was good.


The finished product:  

And M-I-L?  The sauce was delicious.

Yes, Ernest goes to India in 3 weeks.  On our list of things to do is buy pants.  His group travels in khaki, and with his latest growth spurt all his old khakis are capris now.  It is still nearly impossible to find pants of the right length.  I almost thought I had located them at a store in the big town but when I checked the website -- nope!  Not long enough.  Although the manufacturer has them on their website...so that's where I ordered them.  Hemmed.  I am so over hemming pants.

Saturday PhotoHunt: Clean

It's time for the Saturday PhotoHunt!  This week's theme is CLEAN.

Some little tie-dyed person's been washing that car for 9 years.  Now he's 6'1" and can drive it.  But he won't let me take a picture of him washing it anymore!

Skyward Woman

I asked for something different for my birthday.  An experience. I made this so easy I even sent the link to the website to my husband.  Because the Saturday of my birthday weekend was cloudy and windy, the event was postponed for a week.

So last Saturday, I got what I wished for!   A GLIDER RIDE!  Cross one off the bucket list!

Getting into the glider was about like getting into one of Handy's former cars.  Ooh, I'm glad his current car is a tiny bit more sensible.

Bye-bye, honey!  He doesn't like heights.  He was happy to stay on the ground.  The glider pilot told me it was the same way with the earlier flight.  Earthbound man...

Skyward woman...

Anticipation...

We're already in the air! Wow, that was fast!

So smooth!
The plane towed us up UP up UP up UP!

Over the top of the mountains I saw the ocean blanketed in the June Gloom.




Ooh, the lake!  Many years ago, Handy's grandpa was the night watchman there.

Handy climbed one of those towers when he was 19.

Then it was time to pull the yellow lever!   (This picture was not taken at the exact moment.)

Tethered no longer.  Free floating.  It was magnificent.  And quiet.

People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know.
--Joni Mitchell

On top of the world!  Well, my little world.

That clearing earlier?  A close-up of a former President's ranch...

That tilt/shift effect is due to the curvature of the window.

A "castle..."

Descending...wineries just across the bridge.

The high school.  Not Hogwarts.

Landing all too soon.

It was so beautiful.

If my sons ever read this, I want them to know:  "It was WAY less scary than the paragliding at Tahoe."

Saturday PhotoHunt: Taste, Creative, Magical

It's time for the Saturday PhotoHunt. This week's theme is TASTE.

Mr. T wanted so badly to TASTE Ernest's birthday cake, he could hardly control himself.

I missed a couple weeks. Here is CREATIVE. Ernest would always make CREATIVE structures. I'd turn around, and there something would be, just like the chairs rearranging themselves in Poltergeist.

Here is MAGICAL.  Ernest had a MAGICAL party for his 9th birthday.  We invited his entire class and had a magician.  It was one of the best birthday parties ever.  Here the magician has just put a supposedly full glass upside down on Ernest's head.  Ernest is expecting a face full of liquid at any moment, but the glass is magically empty.