Month: March 2015

Finally broke free of the greater bay area traffic today.  I spent the night in Santa Rosa visiting with family – I had a great time playing with my two nephews  (minecraft and Top Gear videos on YouTube with one – tickling and playing peek-a-boo with the other)

I managed to stop and take some photos of Mt Shasta  – it was a such a clear day – see the photos below.

I was barely able to make it to the first mill on my list – in Eagle Point OR (see below).  I arrived a few minutes after their official closing time but they were still hanging around.  I was able to convince them to sell me a DVD on the mill and its operation, along with some stone ground corn muffin mix, pancake mix and cookie mix!  I also picked up a home made ginger cookie – it was great!

I had a short talk with the owners about their mill and they turned me on to the Society for Preservation Of Old Mills  (www.spoom.org) – I haven’t taken too much of a look at it tonight but will check it out definitely

I am having a great time and the scenery is beautiful

I spent the day, yesterday (3/2/15), with my Sister-in-Law out and around Solvang, CA.  We went to a great lunch place  – Industrial Eats in next door Buellton.  We had a great pizza and salad (plus take home prosciutto and a baguette).  Very fun place!

The weather yesterday was on again/off again but with neat clouds.  Tenley took us over to a new client’s winery to see if the light worked for some photos the winery wanted taken (name with held for pub launch purposes!).  She used her full rig – I used my iPhone 🙂

a neat place and a great location – Happy Valley Road – Santa Ynez Valley.

If you are reading this blog, you probably have figured out that I am intending on making my way across the country from San Francisco along the northern part of the country via Oregon and Idaho.

So of course, I am taking the ‘direct’ route and immediately headed south to visit family – in Solvang CA  (Pete and Tenley).  The drive down was easy, but I did get hit with sporadic showers, heavy down pours and one time really heavy hail which slowed traffic on the Interstate down to a crawl – I was able to see over an inch of ice accumulation on the road – then “poof” and we came through the other side.  Any rain at this point in California is welcome but I don’t think the sporadic nature of this particular storm will put much of a dent in the drought.

Photo below is of the morning fog here in the Santa Ynez Valley – a great way to greet the morning with a cup of coffee!

Ha –

properly quoted or not, I am hitting the road today.  Had a wonderful dinner with Jacque, Pat and Gina last night at McCormick & Kuletos  – Thank you very much guys for taking me out to dinner – it was really fun.  AND we got to see all the paper sky lanterns flying away (not sure who was launching them from Aquatic Park, but they launched probably 2 dozen up into the night).  Sort of like launching your trash into the next county – but still very pretty as well

Here is a photo of my last stuff before it got put in the moving van and also sunrise behind the statue of Juan Marichal at AT&T Park near my old apartment