Recent Blogs
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February 23, 2014
Ryder and I both had Presidents Day off on Monday, so we headed up to Muir Woods for a hike.
The redwoods are very pretty, and we hiked for a while along a babbling creek.
Our hike took us through some of the redwoods and then out into Mt. Tamalpais State Park, which meant most of our hike was sort of an average, partially sunny-partially forested hike, and not that many redwoods... (read)
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October 31, 2013
Happy Halloween from Shaggy & Daphne!
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September 30, 2013
Recently, Ryder and I have done some hiking a bit closer to home: the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve and Foothills Park, both of which are run by the city of Palo Alto and are within a few miles of our home.
Arastradero is mostly rolling grassland hills, with some views across the Bay.
Looking across the Bay (in the far, far distance)
A lone tree amidst the grass
Foothills Park (at least the part we hiked) was more varied – steeper hills, a stream bed that looks like it will be quite active when it starts to rain again, and a nice assortment of flora... (read)
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July 6, 2013
A few weeks ago, we drove east to Kings Canyon National Park, where Ryder’s parents had lovingly prepared a tent for us in the 6500′ elevation campground of Azalea. It was a great campsite for our first camping trip in years.
Mike and Paige had a bit of a head start on us, having been hiking and camping for weeks as they made their way west, so we did our best to keep up with them... (read)
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June 1, 2013
A few weeks ago, our dear friends Jordan & Elise came for a visit! They suggested a trip to Yosemite, which we dared do in a day (it’s a 3.5 hour drive each way). We were a bit wiped out the next day, but it was definitely worth it! This place is beautiful!
Yosemite Valley. We spent a while driving (and walking) around the valley, looking at the mountains and waterfalls and generally marveling at the beauty... (read)
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May 18, 2013
When my brother, Dave, was here, we spent an afternoon driving up the iconic Highway 1 along the California coast. We started from Big Basin, headed to the coast, and drove north, stopping along the way to experience the windy beaches, explore rocky cliffs, and admire the views.
We stopped at Año Nuevo, a state park where you can see herds of elephant seals... (read)
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May 4, 2013
Yes, it’s true, we went to Hawaii! We spent a week on Kauai, in a cute island cottage with palm trees outside and chickens roaming the property (turns out that’s an accurate description of any place on the island, including the beach).
Some highlights included hiking to Hanakapiai Falls, snorkeling in super-clear water and seeing giant sea turtles, and long walks on the beach... (read)
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April 17, 2013
Since Ryder and I have birthdays four days apart, we get to string our celebrations out for the whole span. How better to celebrate than with two cakes…
 (chocolate cake with speculoos cookie butter frosting)
 (surprise cake from work)
… some new (real) cacti to go with my crochet cacti collection…
… strawberry-banana daiquiris…
… and cookie stuffed cookies for Ryder’s labmates to enjoy... (read)
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April 14, 2013
While my brother was in town, we took a day trip to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. It’s about an hour from our house, the last half on winding roads up into the Santa Cruz mountains. Big Basin has some of the largest old-growth redwood trees in this part of California, which was our primary motivation for choosing this park.
Two of the largest trees, the “mother of the forest” and the “father of the forest” are 15 feet in diameter and almost 300 feet tall!
Besides those two huge redwoods, there were many, many more huge redwoods... (read)
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April 7, 2013
My brother Dave came for a visit recently and we took the opportunity to do some more exploring. First up was a visit to the Palo Alto Baylands Park and the adjoining Byxbee Park. The Baylands park itself wasn’t much more than a Duck Pond and some trails among the marshes, but Byxbee Park was a bit more interesting.
Pole Field is an art installation featuring poles... (read)
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March 26, 2013
I don’t know if California really is prettier than Atlanta, or if I am just more apt to take walks since the weather is great pretty much every day. Or maybe it’s that I now work from home and have the luxury of taking walks around the neighborhood when I need a little break!
Oranges in the sun – seems so appropriately Californian
Flowers peeking through the fence
A sunset from our driveway
Funky old pickup that lives in our neighborhood
Pretty lilacs wisteria
Beautiful blooming tree (Anyone know what kind of tree this is?)
Evening sky on our walk home from an emergency tortilla-chip-acquisition-expedition
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March 3, 2013
A couple of weeks ago we went for a wander around Stanford’s campus and admired some of their pretty architecture.
Walking through some of their archways.
 The main quad.
 The facade of the campus church.
The rest of the main quad (this is what you see standing in front of the church).
We also saw this little hummingbird perched on a tree!
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February 9, 2013
Today was our first expedition into the vast array of parks that this area of California has to offer. Wunderlich Park is a county park about 15 minutes west of our house – a mostly wooded, hilly park between the Pacific Coast and the populated area along the Bay.
We spent a few hours there this afternoon, hiking along some of the trails and marveling at the trees... (read)
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February 4, 2013
A few evenings ago, I spotted this beautiful sunset out our front window:
Yesterday, the weather was sunny and warm, and we enjoyed it by taking a stroll around our neighborhood. These ducks were enjoying the “creek”.
This is the “creek” – enclosed in a cement ditch for its entire length (at least in mile or so of it that we’ve seen)... (read)
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