Here are the pictures and video from our annual week of skiing and tabletop gaming, this year back at the Cottonwood Canyons in Utah with a full house: Jon, Jim, Stan, Lewis, Tom, Bill, Kat, Darlene and myself. We were fortunate to get quite a heap of fresh snow early in the week and sunshine for the rest as we visited Alta, Snowbird and Solitude over five days.
Here’s some pics and video from our longest run yet with the cats in the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle – five days on the Sonoma coast from Bodega Bay to Fort Ross, coming back home on New Year’s Day.
After another rough start with the cats (they still aren’t too keen on being trapped in the big, noisy moving house) and after cleaning up a messy episode with Pan, they eventually settled down for the journey. We spent a couple of nights at the Bodega Dunes campground exploring the area on foot and finding a few geocaches by day. On the following day we only ventured up the coast a few more miles and overnighted in an overflow area at Wright’s Beach. We then continued on to visit Goat Rock to watch the crazy surf, check out the harbor seals at the mouth of the Russian River and hike out to the mammoth rubbing rocks. We got to Fort Ross just before closing on New Year’s Eve and slipped in the exit gate to run around and check it out before they kicked us out. On New Year’s Day, we started making our way back, watching for whales far off-shore as we made leisurely progress heading home via the Russian River valley.
The cats seemed to be doing well with slow speed travel and frequent stops and they definitely enjoyed a nice, extended lunch stop off-leash on some empty, grassy school grounds in Santa Rosa. After five days in the traveling cat adventure vehicle, it was really going well and seeming like this was ready to work for extended trips. Unfortunately, we had a bit of mishap just before getting home. One of the solar panels came loose and started smacking around on the roof before we realized what was happening. It broke free before I could get off the freeway and we ended up pulling over to assess the damage. Before I knew it, Darlene was off running across the freeway to retrieve the lost panel and then we attracted a highway patrolmen who came over to scold us (and see if we needed assistance). The noise and drama was all quite traumatic for Pan and a lousy ending to an otherwise promising start to future extended traveling cat adventures. (And of course now I need to redo the solar panel installation.)
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It’s been quite a while since I’ve put up a gallery of Pan and Hera pictures, so…
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Some pictures and video from a December visit to see the Monarch butterflies wintering at Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz:
They winter here from November through February, depending on the weather. If you go, choose to get here during the warmth of the middle of the day or they won’t be very active. And bring binoculars and a long telephoto because they’ll be mostly way up in the eucalyptus trees.
After Thanksgiving day, Darlene and I loaded up the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle and headed down the coast south of Monterey. My intention was for us to stay a couple of nights at the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park campground, but I forgot it was still closed from the impact of the Soberanes fire earlier this year. D’oh! So we kept heading south as the sun set (there’s no overnight parking allowed along the highway here), passing several alternate, full campgrounds until we found space at the San Simeon State Park campground. We walked to the beach in the rain the next morning before heading out, stopped to let the cats out for a scary adventure when the rain let up later, caught a tour of “Nitt Witt Ridge” in Cambria and made it to Morro Bay by nightfall. On Saturday night, the campgrounds were full so we found a nice out-of-the-way spot to boondock for the night. On Sunday, we visited the bay, the rock, the natural history museum and the Monarch butterflies before heading home in the evening up 101.
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Pictures from last night’s Halloween/birthday dinner party for Kathie – with Dave, Rachel, Dan, Lisa, Kevin, Vanessa, Darlene and myself:
Just some pictures from another little overnight excursion with Pan and Hera in the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle, this time in the redwoods of Butano State Park.
We’re slowly building up to longer outings with them and they do seem to be adapting to it as a second home. They’re also learning to go out for a little exploration in their harnesses. Hera’s become quite the little explorer while Pan is still pretty nervous and reluctant. Neither of them are happy about being in the vehicle while it’s in motion though.
Eric joined Darlene and I at a pair of events at Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton: the Big Trees Scottish Gathering & Highland Games and the Harvest Faire & Steam Festival. Lots of bagpipes… and kilts… and steam:
