A Good Day-Beginning To End

First off, I need to give credit to Ann for taking the vast majority of the pictures in the photoshow. You will see that the photos are mostly a day in the life of our dogs, with a couple of us humans and how we get to be a part of their simple little world. Hopefully, it will give you the sense of just how easy they are to please. Maybe we can learn a little from them. I know that I always feel a little freer and a little more at peace during the times I am out with them.

Okay, now for the tale of the day. It started out great with Red Dawn Duna What a Good Boy Am I winning another point towards his championship. We are all very excited about that and look forward to a celebration when he is done. After the dog show, we all headed for the beach where we could give the little guy the best present we could think of, a romp with all his extended doggy family. The tide was high but we found a nice secluded spot that provided us with enough room to walk without getting overtaken. Of course, the dogs don't worry about those sorts of silly things. We spent a couple of hours there and really got the pups tired out, which was a good things since there was more fun ahead for the humans. After the long day at the show and then the beach, it was off to Kate and Jeff's for a fabulous evening of good food shared with good friends. What more could we want in life?

Another East Bay Regional Park Hike-Briones

Briones Regional Park is another in the East Bay Regional Park system. The land in this park is from what use to be a Ranch, a 13,316 acre ranch. I am not sure how many miles of trails there are in this particular park but suffice it to say there are enough for the dogs and me to get our exercise and then some. This ranch has a little different landscape than Black Diamond and Morgan Territory. It is much more full of knotted oak trees. It is much cooler here than the others because of the shade. Beautiful none the less. As usual, the dogs had all kinds of fun. They love going to a new place. They take such pleasure in the simplest things like new smells. I don't know how they do it. Wish I could be a little more like them. Our walk was relatively short as it gets dark so early now. I walked about 3 miles. Of course, because the dogs were excited by the new place, they probably doubled my distance. They have been fed and are now all cozy in their doggy sleeping bags.

Thanksgiving Day-2008

Well, another Thanksgiving has been spent enjoying a hike and meal with friends. I can't think of a nicer way to spend it. Today Christine, John, Suzy, Stephan and I took the dogs to Morgan Territory Regional Park for a nice hike. We all arrived at about 9:30 to complete an approximately 6 mile hike. As you will be able to tell from the little photo show, there was quite a bit of clouds at the start of the hike. This is wonderful because it helps to keep all the hikers and dogs cool. It certainly did that for the dogs. They ran non-stop. We are really lucky to have places like this to hike with the dogs. They are much happier creatures with the right amount of exercise. Although the hike was long, the company was wonderful. Conversation flowed about numerous subjects. I had a great time. We had planned on having our Thanksgiving meal at the park after the hike. Once we got to the vehicles, we pulled out the food-cornish hens, potato salad, green salad, and a wonderful carrot/leek soup. There is nothing more satisfying after a long hike than a hearty meal. Boy, did we have that...hmmm. Christine was gracious enough to make a wonderful vegan pumpkin dessert. Very tasty!!

So now that the hike and meal is over, the blog entry is complete, I can go and take a little nap. What a satisfying day.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!

Another Photoshow

Have been meaning to put this out on the Blog. Still trying to perfect my skills using the software to put this together. So please bear with me.

We spent another lovely day at the beach on t Sunday with human and doggie friends. After the walk, we had a nice lunch and visit at Chipolte's. The photoshow includes pictures of Walter, Kate, Susan and Eddie. Good times. :-)

Update on the Prius with the McCain bumpersticker. Haven't seen it back in the garage since that day. Funny.

Bay Area Road Trip

Today I decided I was going to take a trip around the San Francisco and North Bay Coast. I haven't been around the North Bay coast for years and thought it might be fun to play tourist today. I started out the day (left the house at 6am) taking the dogs to Fort Funston. Boy was it foggy. The tide was low so we had lots of beach to walk on. I walked (dogs ran and ran) for a couple of hours. Once back to the car, I headed out to the north bay. The first stop was at the vista point over the Golden Gate Bridge. You wouldn't believe the difference. There was no fog once I was on the Marin side of the bridge. I was there for about 25 minutes, taking in the sights, taking a few pictures for myself, and taking pictures of the tourists with their cameras. It was really beautiful. There were a lot of people there. But there always are. The next destination was Muir Beach overlook. It is an area hundreds of feet above the coastline. It is beautiful on clear day but equally beautiful when the cloud bank is in. That's what we had today. It looks the same as when you are in an airplane above the clouds. Pretty cool really. There were some open areas where you could see the water. Quite stunning really. Next, I had lunch in Olema. It is a little town along the coast right before you get to Point Reyes National Shoreline. It's claim to fame is that is was at the epicenter of one of the earthquakes (I should know this but don't). I then headed up to Point Reyes. There is a lighthouse at the very tip of lands end. I was hoping to see the whales migrating. When I arrived there were so many folks there I couldn't find a place to park. Even though I didn't make it to the lighthouse, I was still able to overlook the shoreline. I am always amazed at how beautiful this area is. On my way out of the park, I stopped at South Beach (not the Miami one) and took a few more pictures. I really enjoyed the mini road trip. I forget how much there is to see around here.

Above is a little photoshow of some of the things I saw today.

Fun on the Lake

Part of my weekend in Kentucky entailed being pulled around by the boat on a tube and holding on for dear life (see picture to the right). I have never done that before but had a kickass time. We spent between 3 to 4 hours each day on boat. We took turns out on the tube. The first day, there were two of us on the tube at a time. My uncle was the driver on Saturday and was a little more gentle on us in the beginning but as the speed built up, it reached a cresendo as we were pried from the tube by centrifugal force. It took a tremendous amount of grit and determination to hang on. On Sunday, my cousin was the driver and there was no build up. It was gangbusters out of the gate. We did some solo tubing on Sunday. It was fun too because you could get a better grip and use your weight to stay on the tube. I was really amazed at the amount of energy it took to hang on. I was really sore on Monday, even the muscles between my lower chin down to my collarbone, all from gritting my teeth. Below is a link to a photoshow. Take a look.

Mememe & Grandpa's 70th Anniversary Weekend Photoshow

Click on the link above. Commentary to follow.