These are pictures from a week-long trip touring central Scotland (September 12th-18th, 2013) with Darlene and her friends, Jane and Janie, before continuing on to Norway. I’ve organized the Scotland portion of the trip into three separate galleries:
Days 1-3: Kingdom of Fife and Stirling
Days 4-6: Loch Ness and the Highlands
Just a couple of pics from an afternoon last Friday checking out the Loch Lomond reservoir and park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. And yes, we were the proud crew of that fuchsia paddle boat! We also hunted for a while for a nearby geocache but came up empty.
Darlene and I camped out on the east side of Pinnacles National Park this past Sunday to watch the Perseids meteor shower. We had some fairly dark skies as Pinnacles is in a somewhat remote location. The glow of lights from Hollister and Salinas (about 25-ish miles away) were apparent to the north but the Milky Way was still quite visible. And the crescent moon set nice and early. We spotted probably several meteors per minute. There were a few clusters of four or five.
I made a little video of some time lapse images I captured during the night:
As it was a Sunday night, getting a campsite was easy – most of the sites were vacant — not so on a Friday or Saturday night! There was lots of wildlife though… of the more natural variety. We had multiple visits from human-habituated deer, rabbits and a coyote in our campsite. (I don’t count the yellow jackets!) We went for a hike to see the nearby talus caves and saw a couple of bats but part of the caves were still closed to protect the bat colony. (Talus caves are formed by rocks and boulders falling into a narrow area to form a ceiling and block out the sky.) On Monday, we hiked the High Peaks loop and happened to run into an old coworker from FileMaker. We also saw some turkey vultures and possibly some California condors.
These are pictures and videos from a three day backpacking trip with Stéphane and Darlene to summit Mt. Whitney (14,505 ft). Second time for me! (Here’s the first.)
We chose to camp at Outpost Camp (10,400 ft), a relatively short 3.8 miles from the Whitney Portal trailhead at 8360 ft. However, this made for a long summit day of over 14 miles round trip. We made it though and enjoyed a beautiful day and stupendous views all along the way!
Click on through for the full gallery:
Here’s some pictures from an overnight backpacking trip out of Big Sur, on the California coast, and up the Pine Ridge trail in the Ventana Wilderness. This was Darlene’s first backpacking experience and we enjoyed a lovely quiet site along the river at the Barlow Flat Camp, seven miles in from the trailhead.
These are photos and videos from a twelve-day trip to northern Vietnam and northwest Cambodia from April 23rd to May 5th, 2013 with Darlene, organized and booked through BikeHike Adventures.
I’ve organized the pictures into five separate galleries:
Days 1-2: Streets of Hanoi
Our trip began with some sightseeing in Hanoi including a traditional water puppet show, experiencing the packed city streets and the crazy driving habits. We also visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, The Enthology Museum and One Pillar Pagoda before catching the night train to Lao Cai.
Days 3-5: Villages of Sa Pa District
We arrived in Lo Cai on the night train from Hanoi and drove an hour to our hotel in Sapa. The Sa Pa district is populated with eight ethnic tribal minorities: including the Black Hmong and Red Dzao. Our first day was spent on trail bikes and our second day on foot following roads and paths through and around terraced rice fields and small villages. We also visited the Ta Phin cave. Our second night was at the lovely and secluded Topas Eco Lodge, overlooking the Sapa Valley.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware or prepared for what to expect in the Sa Pa region and how much these mountain villages have become a tourist trap/destination. Everyday large numbers of tourists follow the roads connecting these villages and everyday a similarly large number of village women come out to meet them and follow them for most of the day in the hopes of selling some of their homemade craft (clothing, blankets, etc). I appreciate their effort to supplement their income and make the most of the tourist trade, but it does get sorely tiring to spend each day being constantly plied with requests to “be their friend” and “buy from them”.
Days 6-8: Islands of Halong Bay
After returning from Lao Cai via the night train, we had breakfast in Hanoi before setting off for the coast and Halong (Ha Long) Bay. We stopped along the way at one of several large government sponsored craft stores and factories (employing war victims). We boarded a luxury Indochina junk (a traditional Vietnamese boat) to cruise amongst the thousands of towering limestone islands in Halong Bay.
Our first stop was at a very crowded beach and overlook but later we were able to enjoy some more peaceful kayaking, swimming and exploring. The trip also included an evening paddle around a floating fishing village. Unfortunately our three day cruise was cut short after the first night due to an impending storm and we had to return to the mainland, but we were at least lucky to be able to get a hotel reservation. We spent our extra time on the third day visiting some more sights on the return trip to Hanoi and to catch our flight to Cambodia.
We arrived in Siem Reap the night before and started our adventure in Cambodia the next morning by heading out to Beng Mealea. Along the way, we stopped to visit an active temple-monastery and meet a Buddhist monk. Beng Mealea was easily one of my favorite temples because it has been left in much the state it was found, partial ruins overgrown with tree roots and being taken over by the jungle.
After this, we headed much further out to visit various sites of Jayavaram’s 10th century capital of Koh Ker. We got to camp out overnight next to the step pyramid of Prasat Thom and continued our sightseeing of Koh Ker the next morning before returning to modern Siem Reap for a respite from the sun in the hotel river pool. That afternoon we went to the dark pink stoned temple of Banteay Srei. In the evening, we enjoyed dinner and a traditional folk dance show back in Siem Reap.
Our last full day in Cambodia began with a predawn start to get to the entrance of Angkor Wat by sunrise – with the rest of the huge tourist crowd – and this isn’t even high season! After the spectacular sunrise, our guide knowingly guided us around Angkor Wat to see the other temples of Angkor while the rest of the crowds lined up to overrun Angkor Wat. It was a wonderful plan: we got to enjoy the other splendid temples, particularly Ta Prohm, in relative solitude. We also visited the walled city of Angkor Thom and the splendid temple of Bayon where each of its 54 towers are capped with four massive stone face sculptures. After another midday break from the sun, we finally returned in the late afternoon to slip in and tour Angkor Wat before its closing.
At sunset, we visited a street market on the outskirts of Siem Reap where our guide demonstrated the enjoyment of some insect delicacies! (Yuck!) On the following morning of our departure, we visited a workshop and saw a large variety of crafts, including the sculpting of stone works used in restoration projects.
Here’s some pictures and video from a three day visit in Yosemite Valley, April 10th-12th, to celebrate Darlene’s birthday. The highlight was hiking to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls — and not falling off!
A wet Saturday afternoon hiking along Fall Creek in the Henry Cowell Redwoods Forest State Park with the super cute Darlene (it’s not her fault, she can’t help it):
