Jackie's Blog

For the last three weekends we've gone on a hike every weekend. The first week it was Uvas Canyon County Park (waterfalls and trees), then Calero County Park (great views and hiking around the reservoir) and today Mount Madonna. It was a fairly steep walk to start with and quite humid after last weeks rain but worth it..

I could spend hours here taking photos...

Yet another great photograph opportunity :-)

There was a small bird of prey show at the Taste of Morgan Hill too...

This weekend was probably one of the hottest of the summer- temperatures of 105F+, so we decided to go early on Sunday morning. It was still too hot really and we were glad that the car show was not as big as it had been the day before. /s320/IMG_0341.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393780897392717634" /> It was still fun to take photos though!

Playing with my new camera in Capitola, a pretty town on the coast, south of Santa Cruz.

We continued the weekend with a peaceful drive up to Mount Madonna to a Buddhist monastery. The views were wonderful above the clouds.. Their statue of Buddha is huge and is guarded by lions..

Deborah came to visit for a weekend with Kiwi.. Deborah bought Kiwi along when we went wine tasting with a group of friends. No she didn't have wine but she was interested! Mashing and turning the grapes at SYcamore Creek winery.. We finished off the day with a BBQ at our house. This is Dick and Big Carl relaxing.. :-)

A gently used Canon Eon 40D :-) A birthday pressie from my hubby..

I can truly say that I have still been taking photos. Admittedly not every day but quite a lot anyway. I've also managed to take my 365 personal pics just about every day- it's just been about having the time to post them. I have some good excuses for not having the time to post, but I'm forgiving myself and moving on. What follows is a summary of the last month, but first let's start with today.. Dick and I went to our favorite fish shop- Poppy's (see previous posts) because they were having a mini Oktoberfest. Beer and all you can eat for $30, so we decided to support them and go along for the afternoon. These two pictures should say it all.. BIG beers!

I'm trying to find ways of updating my blog more easily, like on the bus from my cell phone. This time I'm trying by email. Let me see if it works! Today is my birthday :-) Sent from my iPhone

Ok. This is a test to see if I can post to my blog from my cell phone by text.

Plan B was to drive over the Sonora Pass instead- a route a little further north. So the next morning we drove the very twisty windy and beautiful route. 9624 feet up. The down side was it took us several hours. A long drive through western Nevada and we finally saw the eastern side of Lake Tahoe. So blue! We were staying at Northstar- a ski resort which turns into a mountain bike and hiking haven during the summer months. We arrived too late to go on the slopes but not too late to go and enjoy the sun going down over the lake. There was a really interesting cloud formation, and so the sunset was lovely.

So yes, we've been away. We had a great time, and there is lots to tell, so here goes. We left rather late than usual on Friday lunchtime, having made a detour to our local bike shop to buy another bike rack. Dick was taking his mountain bike with us and we couldn't find a way to put it in the car safely. We bought the perfect rack and got going. The plan was to drive to Mariposa- just outside Yosemite to meet Joel and Stevie, and then to drive over the Tioga pass- a beautiful scenic route from Yosemite over the Sierra Nevada mountains. We decided to take the scenic route and visit Groveland CA first. Dick had read about this town that had the oldest continuously operating saloon in America- the Iron Door Saloon. It turned out to be an interesting place but just a good place for lunch really. Once we arrived in Mariposa, it was much hotter than we thought, but luckily Joel and Stevie arrived about the same time, so we headed out for a cold beer/wine and then had dinner. The ba...

My boss brought me in a very heavy "thing" yesterday from his mum's garden... It is next to two large cookies and my 24 oz water bottle to give you an idea of its size. It weighs about 10 pounds- really! and it has sharp spikes. At first I thought it was a pineapple, then I realized that it was a kind of pine cone. But it really s VERY big for a pine cone. It turns out it comes from a monkey puzzle tree He said that they had to take down the tree because it had produced about 70 of these cones this year and was now like a lethal weapon. Imagine one dropping from a 70 foot tall tree! He said they had to check the roof every time one fell on it, and they had to stop anyone walking or working nearby. Amazing!

I work for an aviation company, and at the end of last week, I had to take lots of pictures of the artwork for various reasons. While I was wandering around I noticed the number of model planes in just one cube... alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376703404317192386" />