A fishy conference

Last week I was at a great, but exhausting, fisheries conference in Newport, OR. It was really fun to catch up with friends from all over the west coast, and to get to know my current coworkers better.

While I was at the conference, Steve was volunteering for a Puget Sound trawl survey with some of the people I work with! It sounds like they had spectacular weather and great food on the boat. But unfortunately, he started getting sick on the boat and is now vegging on the couch, trying to get better quickly since we have a date night tomorrow to see Pretty in Pink in the movie theater. : )

I didn't bring my camera to the conference, so I had only my phone for pictures. The conference hotel was on the beach and we also had great weather for a couple of days. The final social event was held at the aquarium in Newport, which was SO MUCH FUN. I took a gazillion pictures of fish.

Here's a few...the rest will go on facebook.

 This guy looks like he's smiling for the camera!

 Touch tank!!

 This is my happy place:

 Acting our age...

 Me and a bunch of my awesome coworkers:

 Selfie with friend and fellow Juneau student, Jane.

 Random pair of shoes on the beach...

 Agate beach, right in front of our hotel.

 Ah, sunset on another fabulous day.

 Trying to get a beach fire going...it took forever, but finally it took off.

Aaaaand now it's February

I would say that I don't know where time goes, but I do. School. Work. Work travel. Last minute trip back to ND-MN. January flew by. Now it's the weekend between two work trips for me - both to Oregon - and we're packing and cleaning. Steve came down to Portland for a day to see me last week since it's so close. That was only the second time he's joined me for a work trip and it was fun.

One of the women at the meeting with me brought her new service-dog-in-training. The dog is Edie, a small, 9 mo. old black lab who will be her gluten-sniffing dog. She (the owner) is severely sensitive to gluten, and due to work she travels a lot, including field work at sea. Edie will eventually be able to identify minute traces of gluten in food and since she's small she can fly on big planes and tiny puddle jumpers, and since she's a water dog, she'll still be able to swim for exercise when out in the field for days at a time on the water.  But the best part is that she'll be at our 5x per year meetings and when the service vest comes off, she's just a dog who I can play with! She was incredible at the meeting - I can't believe that at 9 months old she was so quiet and unobtrusive under the table. It was really interesting to learn about the amount of training scent dogs like these need; Edie is just barely started on her training, but training started at ~9 weeks old! She came from a breeder-trainer in West Virginia who specializes in drug, bomb, and mine-sniffing dogs.  Since Steve came down to the meeting in Portland, he got to meet Edie too, and we all went for a walk together. We're going to need another dog again, someday. The picture is of Edie sitting at a meeting chair (which is not how things were during the meeting - we were just having fun after the meeting wrapped up for the week).

While in Portland we stopped at Powell's Books, which is the bestest, most amazing book store in the whole world. Steve bought a mug. it's black with eyeballs all over it, then when you fill it with something hot the black disappears are reveals an underwater scene with angler fish and squid and other critters...he's pretty delighted with it.  : ) I tried to post a video of it, but it's not loading properly.

Finally, we took the TRAIN to/from Portland. It was great, I wish I could just take the train everywhere. It was quiet, on time, inexpensive, and so much space inside. When have you ever been on a plane and been able to stretch your legs fully out in front of you?  It was great!  Sorry for the poor quality of pictures - I have only had my phone with me lately.

Belated happy holidays!

We are back from a warm(-ish) trip to central California for the holidays where we met Dad and Barb in the Santa Cruz area, with a pit stop in Yosemite for Christmas day then Sequioa & Kings Canyon National Parks for New Years.

Scroll down to see the pictures from the start.

We timed our trip home just right - yesterday is was clear and sunny and perfect driving weather. Today much of the route is snow and rain!

XO

Sequoia and Kings Canyon NP

After several days on the coast, Dad and Barb headed home and we headed to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

We'd booked a cabin at a KOA in Visalia, CA, about an hour from Sequoia. This one had nice warm heated showers (in a heated room), but the campground was in an industrial area of town and smelled like cow poo and other mysterious, not so nice smells. It wasn't my favorite place.

Sequoia NP was ok. We didn't get there until about noon, most of the park drives are closed (snow) and we had to wait quite a while to chain up. It was New Year's Eve, and the park was busy enough that it was hard to find parking to see some of the sites. We didn't get out much (our choice). I was crabby.

Kings Canyon was similar, except we stayed to road areas where we didn't need to chain up because it was a pain in the rear. I was really frustrated by the visitors to these two parks - nobody seemed to pay attention to the signs telling people to stay behind fences and not trample the ground around the big trees. Someone left litter on our car while we were out walking, and there was a garbage can less than 20 feet away! It was just a frustrating couple of days. We'd like to go back sometime when we can hike more and get away from people and see more of the park.  We left thinking it was underwhelming and frustrating, and that made me sad.

Coastal CA, part 2

Hello, San Francisco! We headed into the big city for a couple of hours for some of the usual tourist stuff...drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, and walk at Pier 39 (Fisherman's Wharf). We tried to get tickets to visit Alcatraz, but they were sold out until January 5! So instead we had lunch and walked around a bit.

Stinky sea lion on the pier.

The next day Steve and I went back to Pinnacles NP, the west entrance this time, and Dad and Barb went on a Winchester Mansion tour in San Jose. The tour sounded like it was sort of interesting and definitely unique. The other side of Pinnacles had more caves and a tougher hike, but was otherwise similar to the other side of the park.

This time I brought my tripod and got a couple of pictures in and around the caves. It was cold inside them (ice on the ground) and also cold wherever the sun didn't strike.

On our way back from Pinnacles we took a scenic detour though Carmel Valley, which was a fun, twisty road through the countryside. There were lots of small farms - cattle and vineyards (or, as we call them 'grape orchards'):

As I stepped out of the car to take this picture, Steve said "Make sure you get the drool in the shot". I *think* he was referring to the calf.  The cows were pretty wary of me.

Coastal CA, part 1, and Happy Birthday Steve!!

After Christmas we met Dad and Barb near Monterey/Santa Cruz for a few nights. We stayed in a KOA camping cabin, which was pretty nice except that it was really cold at night (we had a good heater) and the showers weren't in a heated building! The showers were nice and hot, but getting out and drying off was pretty brutal since it would be in the mid-30s in the mornings.

We spent a day (Steve's Birthday!) exploring the caves and hiking at the east entrance to Pinnacles National Park (USA's newest national park, created in 2013 from what was Pinnacles National Monument). The park is the site of an ancient volcano, and the caves were formed as chunks of mountain broke off and got wedged in tight places. There are California condors in the park, though we don't think we saw any.

The park from above the Bear Gulch reservoir. It would be brutally hot here in the summer!

 Steve and Dad at the dam end of the reservoir.

The reservoir. It seemed like a weird place to build one. There was a little bit of water from the reservoir seeping into the caves below it, making waterfalls in the caves. I didn't bring my tripod so I didn't get any pictures inside the caves.

Woodpeckers peck holes into the trees, and then acorns get stuffed into the holes - but I don't know if it was birds or squirrels putting the nuts in the holes!

We also spent time walking on the beach and playing on the rocks at Point Lobos. We saw dolphins and sea otters and sea lions and lots of birds.

Christmas in Yosemite

We drove alllllllllllllllllllll day Christmas Eve to get to the Yosemite area...~15 hours total. Fortunately, it was a fairly uneventful drive...a bit of rain in Washington and parts of Oregon, then snow falling but good roads over the southern Oregon mountain passes (didn't need to put chains on the tires), and clouds in N California. We'd booked a hotel room in Mariposa, CA for two nights (a room with a fireplace!) and got in about 8 pm Christmas Eve.  I'm pretty sure this is the first Christmas Eve where I've only eaten fast food.

Steve in front of El Capitan, Yosemite NP.

Christmas morning we ate breakfast at the hotel, then drove to Yosemite, about 1 hour away. There was fresh snow in the park and it was spectacular!  We got to the park about 9:30 am and had to wait in a line a short time to get a space to put chains on the truck tires (mandatory in the park that day). It was COLD outside in the morning - maybe 15-20 - but very, very pretty.  It looked like Yosemite Valley had gotten ~12-15 inches of snow in the previous 24 hours, and it was still cold enough that it blanketed everything. As the day went on though, it started to melt off the trees a bit and it warmed up. We'd packed plenty of warm clothes though, and did some fun, short hikes and exploring in the snow. We even packed our lunch and stopped to make hot coffee for Steve.

Half dome (right), nearing sunset (above).

I've already forgotten which waterfall this is (below), dang it. It's behind Yosemite Lodge:

 
We stuck around the park after dark to try to see the full moon rise. It got really, really cold!  Steve sat in the truck, turning it on from time to time. I would jump in and out to warm up while waiting. This is a long exposure of Half Dome with the moon just about to rise on the left side:

Then this is a wider shot of the valley with the moon up and lighting things up:

I got really frustrated during this part of the day...it was dark out and really cold, but a ton of vehicles driving by. Just as a the moon was coming up, a park police officer pulled over a car in front of us, and he left his flashing lights on, which completely messed up any chance of getting good night shots of the moon!  Grrrr!