Lassen Volcanic National Park 4 day weekend

<-- a lake in Lassen, and active

between Chico and Chester -->

May 17th was the memorial day weekend. Me and Marie took an extra day on top, and headed north. Now we can say we've been to Princeton. That's Princeton, CA, population 400. First stop was luxurious Colusa casino. Bargain luxury room, and a buffet breakfast with deep fried chicken steak, omelette, gravy, etc. Then on to tranquil Chico where we skipped lunch and laid in park.

<-- one of the frozen ones, hopefully not active.

The latest...

<-- Bernal Heights. Marie is 6 months

Historical F-line trolley goes near home to town -->

Here's the latest: not much is happenin'. So when there's nothin else to do, we just go for a bit of a walk locally, or whatever.

Portland, Oregon. 20-22 April 2007

<-- bikes abound

heritage buildings and tram tracks -->

Portland is one smart city. Free WiFi, free public transport in the central area, beautiful historical buildings and tree lined streets that don't have too many cars.

It is surrounded by trees, including huge Washington Park, with it's patches of different greens.


<-- the ceiling of Union train station

golden doors in the financial district -->

Flavel House, Astoria

<-- the formal room near the entrance

a dining table set for none -->

v. spooky -->

Barrelling around Flavel House was a lot of fun. There's so much space, you can feel yourself going insane. 14 feet ceilings, three levels and some interesting antiques gave it a millionaire eccentric feel.


<-- staircase to the third floor, with the ghost of Marie checking out the camera

step outside yorself and let your mind stray -->

Wandering around Astoria, Oregon

<-- near Cathedral Tree

near the Maritime Museum -->

Astoria is full of surprises. We walked around it's quaint streets on the side of a hill overlooking the wide Columbia river, and close to the Pacific Ocean. Nice coastline there, with those small rocky islands, and misty rain.

<-- some wharves wait for restoration

The waterfront trolley is immaculate and fun -->

Calaveras Big Trees

<-- ones that are still up

one that fell down -->

The trees here are big enough that they could cut a hole in one and drive a car through it. Another stump was big enough to put a pavilion on it. A few of them are still standing even. Those ones are amazing. You can't guess how high they are until you walk along one that fell down. That takes a while.

Yosemite National Park

<--Mark & Marie

Yosemite -->

Yosemite has huge valleys, steep rocky mountains, and waterfalls. We had a nice walk around the place. We drove a bit much, so everyone ended up catching a lot of sleep in the car.

Weekend away 7-8 April 2007

<-- Mark skates amoung the teepees

Having a go in the carpark -->

This is Mark's new skate thing. It's like a snowboard. It's got 6 wheels, and the ones in the middle swivel around, so it's really unstable. We crashed it once each.

Mark visits

<-- Mark

Marie -->

Mark is Marie's nephew. He was snow board instructing in good ol' West Virginia. People from over East have false teeth with their initials engraved on them, so if they leave them behind, they can ring up wherever and get them back. He had his couch thrown onto the fire, along with anything else containing wood.

3 March 2007 Orinda, CA

<-- Orinda movie theatre

Last week we went to the beautiful old movie theatre at Orinda. We saw the Last King of Scotland, not a bad film at all, and nice to hear a Scottish accent.

I made this, could you? -->

Tennessee 16-18 Feb 07

<-- the horse near Government House in Nashville

Carnton manor, Franklin -->


Marie has to travel a bit over the next three weeks, so instead of her spending time flying back, we decided that I should go out there. It's more fun that way, and saved her at least 12 hours flying.

Nashville is a mid sized city with small streets, some skyscrapers and a lot of gorgeous heritage architecture. The home of country music has bars with live music all down Broadway, and other places. We went to the Grand Ole Opry, the longest running western music show in the country, the high church of country and western. An old dude, probably famous, cracked jokes about his latest album which was released in 1963 etc, he was great. Some old lady got on and sang a song about God and the war, and how they'd find it was all worth it.

<-- Columbia's main square

Marie on Main St, Franklin -->

Driving out of Nashville, the suburbs of large graceful homes and finely manicured properties gave way to the larger homes and properties, then the town of Franklin, which was very pretty. At Carnton plantation, we had a tour, looked out on the battleground for Franklin, saw the blood stains on the floor from the Confederate wounded, and were moved by the stories of the soldiers, and all the people who come every week to put flowers on their ancestor's graves. Tennessee calls itself the Volunteer state for its history of volunteering for military service.

Idaho 10-12 Feb 2007

<--Boise (boy-zee) Adults on the Oregon Trail -->



Lucky for us, we got to go to Idaho. Boise has mountains on one side, and the wide plains on the other. Young drunk people were hanging around historic downtown when we got there. We saw a country band who were tight, professional and sounded excellent with their 4 guitars & subtle drums. They put on a good show for the ten people in the bar, and we stayed out till about 1am, which is a record for us. The food here was great, and we ended up in excellent places every time.

Outside Boise, there is the Sun Valley ski resort. Most people were out walking their dogs, and dog people are always so cool.


Half frozen stream near the road north to McCall -->

Heading north up to McCall was even more amazing, lots of white fields, snowed in streams just starting to break through the ice, and the greenest pines. Wish we had much more time!


<-- the road to McCall

Phoenix, Az. Jan 26 - 29

<-- Petrified Forest Jerome -->


Arizona is a fantastic. There's something to see in every direction. We took a 3 day weekend, and saw things from Grand Canyon, village ruins from the 1100's, petrified logs that are 225 million years old and some great historical towns.



<-- Salt River canyon Tonto National Monument -->

Burbank

You've heard the news, now see the pics. It's pretty amazing to think there's another individual kicking aroung the place. He/she's only 12 weeks, and you can hear the heartbeat, see the legs and arms whizzing around.

Happy New Year

<-- The new Surly Long Haul Trucker. Note front racks. This baby can carry a lot of baggage, and it's so long I don't touch them with my feet. -->



Well Santa didn't fit down the chimney, until a week after Chrissy. Lord knows how he got this bike down, it's huge.

We got 3 days off for New Years, hung around town, went for a couple of rides. We had dinner, kept the wait staff waiting, drank a couple of drinks at a bar and walked home straight after midnight cause we're borin'.

Merrrrry Christmas 2006

<-- near Vacaville
Capitol park -->


We went to Sacramento. Everyone was asking why, but they always say that. We started at Fairfield, a pretty little town, and cycled to Winters first. Leafless trees sat close to some of the road, and opened out into freshly ploughed farmlands. The road was quiet and beautiful, getting busy on the approach to Davis and through to Sacramento, partly running right next to the stinking 3 lane highway 80.


<-- Discovery Park, Sacramento
Amtrak Capitol Corridor is a great train line -->

Davis was a pleasure being the only platinum graded friendly town in the whole US. Sacramento has an excellent rail museum, and very pretty suburbs, but downtown is scarred by the Interstate-5 which unfortunately belches stink and much noise into most of downtown and old town.

San Jose Sharks Ice Hockey Dec 21 2006

This is a pretty exciting spectator sport. With about 3 sets of players being substituted regularly, the pace is furious. Regular crunches into the perspex is great to see, kinda like gladiators. Players grab each others sticks and jerseys; they need a video umpire damn it.

Oh, and my team, the sharks, went down about 3 to not much.