June 2012: trip to Montara, CA

Sunset on the first day

Sunset, looking toward the lighthouse

Lighthouse at Montara

From the lighthouse grounds, looking toward the house we stayed in

The Pacific, from the small beach in the above picture

From that small beach, looking up toward the house we stayed in

Some cliffs by that beach, reminds me of Bryce Canyon

The pier where we bought salmon and crabs off fishing boats

Ocean and lighthouse view from the house after the clouds parted

Another ocean view from the back of the house

Front yard of the house we stayed in

Montara state beach, the fog rolling in

Crabs we got from a fishing boat at the pier, before cooking

Same two crabs, now cooked and ready to serve

July 2010: trip to Monterey

After my sister's wedding, we drove down to the Monterey bay area. This is a shot at Asilomar State Beach, looking South at around sunset.


This one is from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.


This is a zoom in on those rock formations in the middle of the previous picture.


This one is from a turnout off 17-Mile Drive at Pebble Beach.


This is the famous Lone Cypress on the 17-Mile Drive.


This is the vacation house we stayed in.

July 2010: my sister's wedding

The wedding reception was outside at a local history museum. It was a sunny day, not too hot.




The tables were named after places in Yosemite.

NC beach trip July 2009

Wrightsville Beach:

Wrightsville Beach, looking southwest toward the pier.

Wrightsville Beach, looking inland.

North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher:

An alligator at the Aquarium.

Some colorful frogs at the Aquarium.

Fort Fisher State Recreation Area:

The beach there, looking northeast.

The beach there, looking southwest.

California trip June 2009

Yosemite:

Here, Half Dome is near the center of the picture in the distance. El Capitan is that big rock on the left side of the picture. Bridalveil Fall is at lower right. This picture was taken about a third of the way up from the Inspiration Point trailhead at the Wawona Tunnel overlook.

This is a picture of The Ahwahnee, a grand hotel in Yosemite Valley. Also notice the sheer cliffs in the background.

Here's Yosemite Falls, the highest waterfall in North America.

I think this is Upper Yosemite Fall, as seen from Curry Village, where we stayed the night in canvas tents.

This is Half Dome from behind our canvas tents. You can see some of the canvas tents at lower right.

Here is Half Dome from the other side, Olmsted Point on Tioga Road.

Lake Tahoe:

This is the gondola ride we took to get up the mountain to see Lake Tahoe.

This is Lake Tahoe from the deck up on the mountain. To the left of the trees you can see the casino highrises on the Nevada side, then no casinos on the California side.

This is another view of Lake Tahoe, a bit to the west of the previous picture.

These are pictures of Emerald Bay, and Fannette Island, the only island in Lake Tahoe. See that little castle-like structure at the top of the island?

No? Here's a better view of it.

Emerald Bay, from a different viewpoint.

The other side of Fannette Island.

game with Arne, bot played blue F.

In Memory Of
Apollo 1
Challenger
Columbia

~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~

other space news:

• Neptune may have large population of high inclination Trojans - may be bonus for New Horizons
• Sea Launch exploded at launch pad

There and back again: a tale by TranquillicFlow

It was 12 days before New Years Day, the day I set off to visit relatives on the West Coast. The flight out to SFO was uneventful, though little did I know the return trip proved otherwise.

Before we went up to Sacramento, we visited the Golden Gate Bridge. The place at the south end of the Bridge wasn't all that interesting, though the drive across the Bridge and the view from Hawk Hill at the north end made it worthwhile. It was a sunny day and the red suspension bridge and the shiny city of San Francisco were in clear view.


We drove up to Sacramento the Saturday before Christmas to visit other relatives. A place we visited while in Sacramento was the California State Capitol. Too bad the Governator (Arnold) fractured his leg while skiing so we didn't get to see him there.


After getting back to the Bay area, we went to The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. It's a good place for kids to learn about technology hands on. We also visited the Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford. It really is a place for art enthusiasts.

Besides museums, we also drove down to Andrew Molera State Park and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park near Big Sur. They're both great places to visit.

A view inside Andrew Molera State Park

A view at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Another view at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Then it was Friday before New Years and it's time to head back to North Carolina. The day started with a delay at SFO. I didn't think much of it at the time, but that started a chain of events that completely threw my return trip out of whack.

Not only did the flight take off more than an hour late, when we got near Dallas, the weather was so bad that we had to divert to Midland. We sat on the tarmac at the Midland airport for hours, then finally the weather cleared up enough for us to fly back to Dallas. By the time we landed in Dallas, it was past 9pm local time, and many flights, along with mine, were cancelled.

After a long wait to get to a counter, in order for me to get back to NC on Saturday, I had to go through New York. Normally, it would have been a direct flight back to RDU. Considering that the alternative is to camp out at DFW for two nights, I settled for that extra connection through New York. The flight leaves around 11am Saturday, so now I have more than 12 hours to kill at DFW.

In the past, I find those TV news reports at the airports to be quite useful. It was from one of those news reports at the Detroit airport that I found out the UNC men's basketball team won the NCAA Championship in 2005. This time, however, was a much different story.

Maybe it's because this turned into a 12+ hour layover, the news reports kept repeating the same news over and over, it got a bit annoying. When everywhere you turn, you see the TV screen showing Saddam's hanging over and over and over, what you thought to be a nice thing becomes just useless. I'm glad I didn't choose to stay at DFW for two nights. The rest of the trip went as expected and I finally got home Saturday night, a day later than planned. At least I didn't spend New Years watching replays of Saddam's demise.

What else is going on (from www.spaceflightnow.com)?
The Delta 4-Heavy prep for April launch. I thought the launch was late this month. Why the delay?
Definitive evidence of the presence of lakes filled with liquid methane on Saturn's moon Titan. A Titan surface mission is looking more and more interesting.

IDWP