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Retriever in Carmel

Walking along the beautiful beach in Carmel, it was totally a "dog beach" with packs of mutts running along and lots of dogs shaking off their wet ocean fur. This dog was excellent, its owner throwing the tennis ball into the surf and it swimming out to diligently fetch it.

On this throw, the surf started thrashing the ball around and the dog returned to shore to rest. It seemed that it may have lost the ball, but then the dog plunged back in and found it right away. You can hear me and my Mom cheering as it gets close and then fetches the ball.

Some Last Random San Francisco Trip Photos

At the Laguna Seca track, I pretended to be a spacewalker.

In the evening, after our action-filled days of miles of walking and seeing cool things, we would have a happy hour, with a little ice-cold white wine, some multi-seed crackers and savoury olive tapenade. Perfect little appetizer before dinner.

For Joe.

And then, after dropping my parents off at their gate for the flight back to Vancouver, I settled in for a wait at my gate, reading good books and looking one last time at the town. The symmetry of the airplanes here, I thought it was kind of neat.

Also neat, that the airport provides bicycles to the staff to get around.

Carmel Memories

Some more photos that I hadn't yet had a chance to post. I arrived at the San Francisco airport late at night, and we drove the two hours down to the Monterey Bay/Carmel area, where we would stay for the next few days.

What a slice of paradise!

This place is completely idyllic, full of quaint shops, and fragrant flowers. Painters composing landscapes.

On the first morning there, after a nice relaxing breakfast in town, we walked down to the beach and strolled along the sand.

We crossed underneath the greens at the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Course and Dad found a golf ball.

Oh, and so cool, on the beach there were these massive washed-up jelly-fish.

It was a beautiful morning, watching all the dogs leap in the surf, and listening to the water, and feeling the sand in my toes. Perfect morning.

Laguna Seca Speedway

On one of the days out on the West Coast, we drove out to the Laguna Seca speedway for the Rum Bum speed challenge. This was GREAT - I'd never been to a race before.

Before the races started, we strolled around the pits and looked at the vendor tents, one of which was the Land Rover sales. They were letting people test drive on the crazy terrain course, so I got behind the wheel and went bumping along and leaning around steep angled turns. Totally fun!

On the walk back to the parking lot, it was windy from the ocean and my big umbrella that I was using as a solar protector, it started taking off with me like Mary Poppins.

Wildlife in Monterey Bay

Some of my most favourite summer vacations as a kid were when the family would take the ferry across to Bowen Island and then load up the Boston Whaler to sputter across to Ragged Island. We'd stay in a cabin with a woodburning stove to keep warm and nothing more than the ocean and woodsy trails to entertain us. Afternoons on the deck reading books, or making handmade puppets. Hopping back into the little boat, wearing our bright orange lifejackets, we'd chop along waves and get sprayed on our way to Gibsons.

There was a harbour seal that would poke its face out of the water, checking out the world above sea level with its big dark shiny eyes. I loved watching for this seal, spotting it felt like magic.

Monterey Bay has a huge population of seals (or are they sea lions? we took the quiz in the SF pamphlet, and now I can't remember) and it was still fun to spot their little faces emerging from the water to scope out the best rock.

See the guy here? He checked out this rock...

...and then scrambled up for a suntan break.

Another neat moment as we were walking along Monterey Bay, two guys in inflated kayaks charged into the water and their red dog followed after them. At first, I was nervous for the dog, because the guys were paddling around the rocks, and the surf was fairly forceful. I didn't know whether the dog would get tired out, or tossed onto the rocks.

But twenty minutes later, when we walked back along the path, we saw that the loyal dog was still swimming after his buddies. I realized that he was probably having a great time chasing around in the water, dog paddling like crazy.

Bay to Breakers 2008

I love the Bay to Breakers run, it's incredibly unique and absolutely captures the spirit of San Francisco. My first run was in 1997 (in fact, I still have the tshirt from that run, as I'm showing below), and then I did it again on Bay Area Quicktrip 2006.

So we were up at the crack of dawn to catch the BART into San Francisco for the 2008 Bay to Breakers.

The tradition continued in the start area, where we emerged from the train station into an absolute chaos of bodies and flying beachballs and tortillas sailing through the air. We saw guys with armfulls of these tortillas, huge sacks from Costco. So, of course, we had to partake in the flicking of the tortillas.

Out of nowhere, we were suddenly counting down and the surge of people started to move. We crossed the start line and slowly started running. The first mile was more of a walk-run, and it was incredible to see the tens of thousands of people in front of us and behind us.

There were tons of cool costumes, like stormtroopers.

Crayola crayons.

Vikings, complete with a ship (carrying beer, of course).

Some guy in a tall corn thing to promote corn. And the most prevalent costume was Juno's boyfriend in his tracksuit. TONS of people dressed this way.

And many cases of men wearing NO costume at all.

At one point, everyone started cheering and people were coming through the crowd in the opposite direction - - it was the salmon! They had started the race at the finish line and were making their way upstream.

We were having a blast, lots of good bands, lots of neat things to see.

The Hayes hill is the killer part, the "Heartbreak Hill" of the Bay to Breakers.

But then from there, it's an easy run along Fell Street and into Golden Gate Park. The weather quickly changes as the microclimate of the park approaches, and fog and misty ocean breezes roll in to cool things off.

So we crossed the finish line, got our waters and walked the mile to the Footstock festival to grab our tshirts.

Then we got in line for the bus. Again, HUGE improvement to not fly out that afternoon, since it took forever to get on the bus and then the bus took forever to get downtown. We were back in Millbrae at 1pm.

Totally fun run!

Monterey Bay, Beautiful Bright Pink Flowers

Driving along the coast in Monterey, we took in the view of the bright water, the scampering sea lions below, the bright homes along the road, and the breathtakingly bright pink carpet of flowers coating the pathway. It reminded me of Christo's pink-haloed islands, except that instead of pink plastic, these were flowers, millions and millions of flowers.

Bay Area Quicktrip 2008

Taken on my Bay Area Quicktrip 2005

I love my Bay Area Quicktrips! In 2005, I had a zip out to Pleasanton for a glorious 3-day weekend, including a cruise down to Monterey to visit Suzy and the boys and a day of poking around my favourite Berkeley places, like Caffe Strada and one of the best bookstores in the world, on Telegraph.

That trip was enough of a taste that the next year, I squeezed in a weekend trip out for the Bay to Breakers. I remember cruising along the highway in the early morning, heading back to Monterey for my annual Suzy visit, listening to Death Cab for Cutie and loving the scenery. I skipped last year's Quicktrip, since i had just started the new job and all, and so this year, I'm resurrecting the tradition. It's back to the Bay Area!

This time, I'm going to stay in the Monterey/Carmel area for a few nights so that I don't have to rush my time there (though Suzy and family have since, much to my envy, moved to Steveston, those lucky bums!!). Then, after the 7.5 mile Bay to Breakers, I'm staying in SF that night. Lesson learned from last time.

In 2006, I finished the run in a great time, but had forgotten from my 1997 experience that after the finish line, it's a mile-long walk to the Footstock, plus a line to pick up the race tshirts, plus a line to get the bus back downtown from Golden Gate Park. And then, once on the bus, it's a loooooooooong long drive, since the roads are closed for the run and there's midday Sunday traffic. I got back to the BART station last time, caught a train and literally sprinted to the rental car to hustle back to the airport for my flight. I made it. But, wow, that was a quick Quicktrip.

So this year, I'm wisely adding a leisurely couple of days, as opposed to this whole "fly to the West Coast on a Friday night and depart on the Sunday" deal.

Wheeeeeeee!!! Hello West Coast, here I come!

Getting Excited For Thursday!

Okay, I am already getting totally pumped for my little mini-vacation to San Francisco this weekend!! Sunshine, rest and relaxation!

Oh, and a little athletic endeavour along the way as well: