"Home" to San Francisco

I have been very remiss about blogging since I got home and I heartily apologize. 

My only excuse is the ungodly hot temperatures I've been having to endure here...they really sap you of all energy for tasks physical and mental. All I've felt like doing after work is napping, showering (repeatedly), watching TV (I've started watching Dollhouse and re-watching Deep Space Nine, and we're almost through the first season of Deadwood) and listening to interviews on NPR and elsewhere with the Breaking Bad folks, in eager anticipation of tonight's opening of the final half season.

All very fine, pleasant, passive activities, that require less mental energy than finishing up my California saga. But I'm determined to take care of that today.

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So, enough with excuses.

After our memorable drive down California's Highway 1, we spent our last night in the Golden State in Novato, just north of San Francisco and as close as we could get without breaking the bank. The location allowed us, after figuring out how to buy a toll pass to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, to have a nice chunk of time in the city before heading to our various airports.

We had already decided that we wanted to spend most of that time in the Cable Car Museum. On our previous quick visit, a week ago, Joan and I had really enjoyed the San Francisco Railway Museum, a tiny jewel that just happened to be a block from our hotel. Where we learned the difference between cable cars, streetcars, and trolleys. (Please don't ask me what it is now, though!)

The knowledgeable and informative folks working there also told us about their larger, even more interesting sister museum, and we hoped we'd have time to see it.

(As it turned out, we could have spent even more time there, or perhaps somewhere else in this beautiful city, since our flight was—again—substantially delayed. Argggghhh!)

Of course everyone knows at least something about San Francisco's cable cars, if only from old commercials...

But it's something else again to learn about how this ingenious method of pulling people up and down the city's very steep hills actually works, and to see where the cables are actually pulled, around their gigantic pulleys...

Cable central

cable slot out on the street

car in action

...not to mention to learn more about their fascinating history. It reminded me of the London Transport Museum, which was also really fascinating. You don't think too much about how you get around from point A to point B, do you? But it's always something of a little miracle and it always has an interesting history.

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The Museum also has the benefit of being in a really lovely part of the city, Nob Hill, so when walking back to where we'd parked (yes! we found a parking place in downtown San Francisco!) we took a little time to admire the architecture of the neighborhood.

the Fairmont Hotel

the Mark, minus its Top

a handsome fountain in Huntington Park

a pretty unidentified building

railing outside another intriguing unidentified building

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Although both of these photos were taken on our way out of town, I couldn't close a post about San Francisco without some images of its most iconic structure.

Having something of a love/fear relationship with bridges, I'm always awed by their construction and appearance, especially when they're as gorgeous as this one.

It was difficult to leave this fabulous city after such a short visit, but relaxation in the mountains didn't sound like a bad idea, after our very full and rewarding California vacation.

I took something of a break from picture-taking while I was finishing up my time off in Colorado, but I did take some and we did bestir ourselves for a few activities, so I will try not to be so tardy in getting those posts up. But since school starts soon and work will be getting more hectic—plus the temperatures show no sign of cooling off...well, I'm getting my excuses out there in advance.

Looking down along the coast

No matter how spectacular the scenic vistas might be along a road such as California's highway 1, it always pays to, at least occasionally, bring your focus in a bit and take a look at the micro-scenery, too.

Anyone who's looked even a bit beyond the San Francisco skyline, either north or south, has seen the rolling hills covered with golden grass...

...this is a typical scene that I happened to snap on our "Earthquake" hike at Point Reyes, showing what that grass looks like close up.

Since Henry wasn't with us and he loves taking pictures of dead trees, I couldn't pass up this photogenic specimen, spotted along the Point Reyes shoreline...

We weren't through with live trees, either, after our magical time in the redwoods, although the trees right on the coast aren't nearly as big or as numerous. But on one short hike out to the cliff-edge, there were some lovely conifers...

Not all of the micro-scenery was flora, though; there was plenty of fauna as well...

an astonishing number of sea lions on a convenient beach

an alarmingly large banana slug! spotted at the side of a road in Point Reyes

But I admit to being partial to flowers and most of the photos I took when looking down are of these lovely California residents:

They're not just pretty by themselves, but they also make great framing elements for shots of some of the larger pieces of scenery, too...

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I'm just about finished with my California posts. All that's left is our brief return visit to San Francisco to catch our flights home. That's next up.

What else is in a redwood forest?

As magnificent and overwhelming as the sequoia sempervirens are in coastal redwoods forests, if that's all there was the groves wouldn't be nearly as interesting or photogenic.

Some of the most fascinating items in the forest are the smaller things that grow on or around the big trees.

Like the mushrooms you sometimes see (as on the right).

Or the flowers and berries that manage to thrive, despite the small amount of sunlight that filters through the boughs of their larger neighbors...

One of the prettiest plants we saw was the redwood sorrels. Their clover-like leaves provided a lovely contrast with the massive tree trunks, and they especially seemed to like the downed trees that I loved taking pictures of.

We saw a very few little buds and blooms on some of these plants, and wondered if we'd missed their

flowering, or come to early for it. Or, if they just put out a small number of blooms each summer.

Even without blooms, they're very pretty plants. The bright green of the topsides of their leaves is contrasted with a maroon-y-purple underside. I hope the photo on the left gives you some idea of the beauty of this colorful ground (and trunk) cover.

But of course the trees still provide the most photogenic elements in the forest, but not always just the sheer mass of their trunks and upper branches.

Here are some more mushroom-type growths I spotted...

this is a closeup of the delicate white growths you see in the photo just above

Downed trees, as I've mentioned often, provided some of the most gorgeous photo opps...

But the standing trees also display some great micro-ecologies that beg to be photographed...

...not to mention the many burls that, not surprisingly, adorned many of the trees...

Some of these growths could easily be mistaken for animals, or at least totems, especially given the magical vibe the groves give off...

Which brings me to my last category of forest "microscenery." Especially in the very old parts of the forests that we visited, where there was lots of moss, we "saw" all kinds of strange creatures and structures...

a dozing monkey

a downed log being slowly enveloped

a more snake-like protuberance (or is it "Stumpy," from Tremors?)

wild boar? unicorn? a yacht's prow?

But no matter how old the forest, there's always new growth to notice and celebrate:

And, of course, photograph!

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Next up: "micro" scenery along the coast.