Arnon

Legos

2010-02-02T20:15:00.001-08:00

(1985) just after the beginnings of our legos obsession.

Ever since I was about 5 years old, I have loved legos. My best friend, Nir, and I, used to play with legos just about everyday, for hours. I would come to his house everyday, and we'd pull out his enormous box (I didn't have much legos) and have at it. In fact, we became friends in kindergarten because of a mutual obsession for legos.

I think legos were really good for both of us. Not just in the social sense of giving us something to do together. But it also helped our imaginations, as well as our technical skills. We are both engineers these days, and I attribute much of that to legos.

Recently, Tobia and I stopped inside a lego store. After I got passed all the envy of "we didn't have this when I was growing up", I came across a classic collection of lego people. It totally took me down "memory lane" and I felt nostalgic.

I can actually remember playing with every piece before 1993 extremely well.

Misc Farming

2010-01-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

a couple/few times a week the farm opens up the farmstand for people to come in and buy whatever is available.

In my last post, I mentioned Full Circle Farm. We visited the farm for the first time on Sunday, November 29 (2009). The farm has bees, chickens, lots of crops, a farmstand, and even a greenhouse.

I really loved the place, and feel very fortunate to have a farm, here in the Silicon Valley (South Bay) so close to home. Plus, I could stand to learn a thing or two from them.

We bought really great carrots, garlic and some herbs at the farmstand. Here are some pictures from our visit:

they are raising chickens at the farm. Currently I believe they only sell eggs (not meat).

nice rows of spinach, broccoli and other fall and winter crops.

it was really warm, as expected, in the greenhouse; helps extend the season when it's too cold otherwise.

strawberries and artichokes nearby; some trees and not yet utilized land in the background.

I couldn't resist putting up a picture of my eggplants from early October last year. I am using it to remember better gardening times, as our weather is absolutely terrible for growing anything right now.

Gardening in 2010

2010-01-05T20:23:00.001-08:00

2009 was a reasonably good year- producing lots of tomatoes, eggplants, beets and cucumbers. I also tried a new variety of heirloom peppers that never materialized. The various heirloom tomatoes and eggplants, in particular, were really good!

I was still battling the same battles of squirrels attacking my soil and digging up seeds. I finally got some common sense and built small cages around the boxes. These cages are built of a sturdy 2 foot tall thin-metal fence, which is 7 feet long by 5 feet wide, neatly surrounding the 6' x 4' boxes. As roofs to these cages I put chicken wire which I twist tied to the fence. I bought some greenhouse plastic cover as well, which I think I will use when we get into the high 30s and below in terms of temperature.

These cages have been in place for abut 3 weeks now, and despite the squirrels hovering around the back yard a lot, the boxes and seeds are unharmed. I am currently trying to grow celery, lettuce, beets, carrots and radishes. By far, the radishes are the most promising. I think the carrots will also make it, but I'm not sure about the others.

I'm expecting a better 2010 than 2009. I know more, am better equipped, have made many mistakes (and learned some lessons from them), and have a better plan with dates in place. I even have a new tumbler compost bin which is very easy to work with, and doesn't allow ground rocks and unwanted thick twigs and branches to mix into my compost pile.

In the Spring, I plan to grow chameh (Korean Melon) from saved seeds, and watermelon; not in the boxes, but along the north side fence in the back yard. And this year I swear I'm gonna start the summer crops earlier than I always do (typically closer to July).

We also planted a few new trees and other existing ones yielded some fruit. The new ones: avocado (nothing yet), clementines (about 20 yielded this year), and apple (nothing yet). The existing one: the pomegranate tree yielded about 2 dozen fruit, some were perfect, others a bit sour, and our lemon tree is still currently yielding nice meyer lemons (about a handful of nice ones that I can see so far). The persimmon, mandarin and apricot trees (they're really just overgrown twigs) are still bare.

I'm excited about this year's gardening potential, hoping to produce great fruits and vegetables to augment what I get at local farmer's markets, along with the recently discovered wonderful Full Circle Farm (in Sunnyvale, less than 4 miles from home).

Israel Trip, Final Thoughts

2010-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Some general thoughts and other random things about the trip:

People helped a lot when I asked tons of questions about directions.
People are also impatient, often rude to unknowledgeable customers or those who don’t understand how things are supposed to work.
Horrible, horrible directions on the road, if any at all. We lost so many hours going in the wrong direction. Sometimes sign comes up pointing to road right in front of it.
I learned so much about the country (Ben Gurion, Abraham’s well, Makhtesh existence).
Can't believe we had to pay for parking at hotel where we were staying.
Nickel and dimed so often at places (like parking, and internet); kinda reminded of Vegas in that regard.
Unbelievably good breakfast(s) at every hotel.
I still vomit too much when I fly- hate to fly really badly. Though Dramamine seems to help some.
Just like CA, Israel has many terrains and faces. Amazing for that to be the case for such a small country.
Humidity is unbearable.
Driving is tougher in cities; pushier, more crowded, harder to park. I honked a lot and occasionally screamed out to people (seemed like I was right at home when I did).
Frustrated that internet is blocked at every hotel and you must purchase plan for anywhere between 30 minutes to 24 hours- and it's quite expensive.
Impressed to see an Olympic sized hockey rink in Israel. Ice quality was not so good (maybe because of summer), and facility not as large as I expected, but still very nice.
So much history, sites, faces, important people in Israel.
Have learned a great deal about Israeli geography on this trip.
Learned that there are a lot of places in the country (not just Jerusalem) that are important/holy to Christians and Muslims.
Drove 2nd worst road ever, behind Windy Point Road (in Lost Coast near Punta Gorda Lighthouse)- en route to Mt. Sdom lookout.
Way less censorship; for example, Nat'l Geographic is simply amazing in Israel, with better shows and the shows portray more without cutting or dumbing down content. Can't imagine watching it the old way again.
Only in Israel can a police man find it more important to lead me to the restaurant I'm going to eat at over stopping a guy driving the wrong way on a 1-way street right in front of him.
We put 1889 kilometers on the car (3936 km - 5825 km) on our trip in Israel. This doesn't include Petra, Jordan trip. The round-trip to Jordan was 230 km. (Mileage totals- Israel: 1174 miles; Jordan: 143 miles).
Gas is really expensive in Israel. It was $50 just to fuel half a tank at most places. You pay sheqels per liter, and typically that's about 6.40, which works out to roughly 6.37 dollars per gallon.

Israel Trip, Day #10, Monday September 14th

2010-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Last Breakfast (Dan Caesarea)

We woke up as late as we could, which was roughly 9am this morning. We packed and headed to breakfast at our hotel in Caesarea.

Following breakfast, we headed to Latrun to see a theme park that represented a mini-version of Israel. It had so many things in it, and the attention to details and little things were really awesome.

Mini Israel (Caesarea)	Mini Israel (Haifa)	Mini Israel (Zefat)	Mini Israel (Western Wall)
Mini Israel (Ben Gurion Airport)	Mini Israel (Mazada)	Mini Israel (Mazada, Roman Ramparts)	Mini Israel (Timna Park)

As it was still only 2pm, and we didn't have to be at the airport until 8pm, we decided to drive off to Jerusalem, which was only 20 miles away. We found some free parking garage, took advantage, and set off on foot in the Old City. I could not believe how incredibly well Tobia knew the Old City. She led me through various parts of the city, going through souks and eateries (seemed like a confusing maze to me), and eventually we reached the Western Wall. We also saw the Mount of Olives and a few other significant sites.

Jerusalem

Me at Western Wall

Tobia at Western Wall

Golden Menorah

Lunch in Jewish Quarter

We had a quick and simple lunch of pizza and burekas at one of the small eateries near the Western Wall, and ultimately returned to our car to drive to Ben Gurion Airport.

We put lots of miles on the car

Our trusty rentral car

We got to the airport at 6pm, two hours before the initial check-in for our 11:30pm flight to Atlanta, so we pulled up at a cafe and took advantage of the free Wi-Fi that they have all over this place.

I took a couple of dramamines before boarding, and slept really well on the 13 hour flight from Tel Aviv to Atlanta. It also prevented me from vomiting. I also caught "The Hangover" movie a few hours before landing, and enjoyed it.

Israel Trip, Day #9, Sunday September 13th

2009-12-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

Beautiful Haifa

The Dan Panorama in Haifa was the best of all hotels we stayed at in Israel. We woke up around 7:30am and went to have breakfast. Around 10am we picked up my grandparents, as well as Rina a few minutes later, and the five of us headed to Bet She'arim. In typical style, the signs were really bad and we struggled to find the destination.

Once we got there, though, we had a wonderful time. We had a tour guide for the five of us. We saw catacombs of Jews from the 2nd and 4th centuries. There were a number of caves we were able to walk through as well.

Beit She'arim with Grandparents and Rina

Burial Sarcophagi

Cave where glass was made

Some folks joined our group

Great Restaurant in Atlit

After dropping the 3 at their needed destinations, Tobia and I started heading to Caesarea for Yaron and Inbar's wedding. On the way we stopped in Atlit to have a great lunch which consisted of humus, various salads, fries, and fish. It was delicious. It was a quick drive to Caesarea from Atlit.

We rested in our room for a while and showered/prepared, and finally headed to the wedding at 6:45pm. We saw the bride and groom, hung out, had a nice meal, and ultimately came back to the hotel to wrap up the night.

Yaron and Inbar's Wedding (set-up) in Caesarea	Beautiful View and colors	Self Portrait
Happy Tobia	Yaron, Inbar - Under Huppa	Yaron, Inbar- Dancing

Israel Trip, Day #8, Saturday September 12th

2009-12-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

Me at breakfast at Tulip Inn

Migdal

I clonked out hard last night at 9:30pm and woke up naturally at 7am. After a slow breakfast, we left Tverya towards Migdal to go see some ruins of Mary Magdalene's home. The problem was, we couldn't find it. I ended up walking into a Synagogue to ask about the place, and was eventually helped out as well as given food after conversing with the gentlemen doing the morning prayer. Prior to giving me directions, the Rabbi sat me down with a whole bunch of people, someone came up behind me and put a Yarmulke on my head, two guys took my hands, and apparently there was a prayer that involved me. It felt pretty awkward for me, as I was "blasphemously" dressed in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt (on the Sabbath), not to mention, I’m not exactly what one would call a "person of religion".

We followed the new directions and were able to see some ruins that are said (by some) to represent Mary's home.

Rosh Hanikra looking South	Israel-Lebanon Sea border	Inside Grotto, beautiful water colors	Loud, mysterious flow	Serene and beautiful
Awesome colors	Rugged Cliff	Distances	Tropical Fruit Stand

From there, we headed off to Rosh Hanikra- the north west corner of Israel, which has, to the west, the Mediterranean, and to the north- Lebanon. There were pretty impressive coastal views from atop the Rosh Hanikra mountain, as well as a cable car that led us down close to the water where we saw lovely grottos with parts of the sea flowing into them. I think it was one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

Yotveta Drinks

Without very solid plans, we tentatively decided to drive south into Haifa. We ended up going to Bat Galim where we had cold Yotvata drinks, which were delicious and cooled us down despite the 37 degree weather outside. During drinks, we decided we'd make a quick trip to Nazareth before meeting up with my grandparents at 6pm later in the day. It was around 1pm at this time.

Getting to Nazareth took about 25 minutes. It took another 35 just to cross about a mile of the old city and see the Church of the Annunciation- built on top of the grotto where Mary lived. We observed Catholic mass. I will remember two things from Nazareth: the first was the church as an architectural piece, and the second, the horrendous traffic flow in the city. There was 1 lane in each direction, but roughly 2 or sometimes 3 pseudo-lanes were being created by cars cramming into lanes that simply were not there. Folks were U-turning in the middle of the road, and people forced their way into spaces that did not exist. There was very little honking, and people were quite calm driving, but I gotta say that was the most tough driving of my life and I was anything but calm. I was probably the only person that was rattled. At some point I just had to laugh about it, there was simply nothing I could do.

Nazareth Souk	Church of Annunciation	Mass inside Church of Annunciation	'Respectable' attire
Mary's Grotto	Worst Traffic Situation of my life #1	Worst Traffic Situation of my life #2	Worst Traffic Situation of my life #3

From Nazareth, we had just enough time to get some lunch before heading off to my grandparents' house. We returned to Haifa planning to eat at an awesome restaurant we both love- Abu Yusef, in the downtown. A bit lost at one point, a cop car pulled up to us and the two cops helped lead us to the restaurant we had trouble finding. The food was marvelous!

Abu Youssef #1

Abu Youssef #2

Abu Youssef #3

Beautiful Haifa

After the restaurant, for one of the first times in the trip, we didn't need a map, because I had actually remembered this part of the city from my childhood and led us up to my grandparents' house at the top of the hill. We had a lovely time at my grandparents' house, also meeting my grandma's sister-in-law, as well as my cousin Lital, and her whole family.

A couple hours later, we all headed off. Tobia and I checked into our hotel at Dan Panorama in Haifa, and wound down for the night. We made tentative plans to meet up with my grandparents for a short day trip the next day.

Israel Trip, Day #7, Friday September 11th

2009-12-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

I woke up naturally at 7am this morning. The previous night I fell asleep just before 9:30pm, clearly tired following the Mazada early morning trip.

After a good breakfast at our Tverya hotel, we took off to the Mount of Beatitudes Church.

Breakfast at Tulip Inn

Mount of Beatitudes

Nice view

Inside Mount of Beatitudes

From there we continued on to Qiryat Shemona, and then Metula, where we first saw the Lebanese-Israeli border (The Good Fence), followed by Canada Centre, an olympic sized rink hockey facility.

The Good Fence

Canada Centre

Canada Centre Ice Rink

We continued down south to Nimrod's fortress where we hiked around the ruins for a while. Just down the mountain from the fortress was Banias, a location where we were able to see Pan's temple as well as other Greek ruins.

Nimrod's Fortress	Nimrod's Fortress Close Up	Nice view from Tower
Octagonal Tower	Large Water Cistern	Temple of Pan
Sand Verses, Banias Nat'l Preserve	Pan's Grotto	Lovely Scent and Sight of Figs

I really wanted to see Syria and Mt. Hermon, so we headed up the Hermon mountain, getting lost a bunch of times and passing by two Druze villages along the way. After Mt. Hermon, we got lost a couple more times en route to driving around the eastern part of the Gallilee. We came across a great lookout point in the Golan Heights that overlooked a ghost town (Quneitra) in Syria. In the distance, I think we saw Damascus (not sure though).

Village of Majd El Shames below

Mount Hermon

Syrian Ghost Town of Quneitra

We then cut South West and got to Rosh Pinna, a small town which had a few lunch places open. As it was Friday, and we knew that meant things would be closed in the more religious city of Zefat, we decided to pull over and eat. We had some delicious falafel at a small restaurant off the main road there.

Falafel Lunch outside Zefat

Stairs up and down town of Zefat

Following lunch we made the drive up the hill to Zefat. We walked around Zefat, which was fairly quiet due to the Sabbath, but we did come across a very friendly soldier who gave us some suggestions of places to visit in Zefat.

Pretty tired at this point, we decided to return to our hotel in Tverya. We briefly stopped outside a museum containing the Ancient Gallilee boat from roughly the year 100 that sunk in the Kinneret. From there it was a 10 minute drive back to our hotel, where we wound down at the bar with free drinks and some snacks.

Israel Trip, Day #6, Thursday September 10th

2009-12-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

Mazada Snake Path 5am

Frustrated and disappointed by yesterday's failure to see Mazada, we woke up at 4:30am this morning. We had a fruit basket from the hotel which we took with us to eat along the way. At 5am we pulled into the Mazada parking lot, bought our tickets, and started our climb- along the snake path- to the top of the fortress to catch sunrise.

We reached the top of Mazada at about 6am, roughly 25 minutes before sunrise- which we saw from the watch tower. There was so much to see in Mazada, we walked all over the fortress for about 2 hours, and eventually took the cable car back down.

Summit before sunrise	Sunrise!	Tobia at Sunrise	Tobia and I at Mazada Sunrise
Harod's Residence	Harod's Residence from above	Tobia and I at Harod's Residence	Great Cliff + Background view
Bar Mitzvah	Guard Tower in the Distance	Nice View down East	Taking the Cable Car back down

Looking at Mazada + Snake Path

Back at our hotel at 9:30am we were starving, having eaten only a piece of fruit each from our basket. Breakfast was a silent time for me (at least in terms of words, I can’t vouch for the loud eating sounds I was making), a chance to inhale some 2000 calories of food.

Cave where Dead Sea Scrolls were believed to be found

Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran

From there, it was on to Qumran, where we saw the cave where the dead sea scrolls are believed to have been found.

Following Qumran, we drove right by the West Bank (which was on our West), headed North, in pursuit of Mount Tavor – the Catholic Church built on top of the spot where Catholics believe the transfiguration of Jesus happened.

While we were at it, we also went to Tabghe, the Churc of Fish and Bread, the Church of Primacy of Peter, and Capernaum.

Mount Tavor

Inside Mount Tavor Church (Transfiguration)

Capharnaum

Ancient Roman Ruins

Church of Bread and Fish (Tverya)

We had lunch/dinner at a Lebanese food restaurant, with great view of the Kinneret (Sea of Gallilee). Afterwards we checked into our hotel, walked the promenade, had some ice cream, internet’ed in the lobby and ultimately crashed in our room.

Israel Trip, Day #5, Wednesday September 9th

2009-12-27T20:51:00.000-08:00

Eilat Underwater Observatory

View from top of Observatory

I finally woke up at a more reasonable hour this morning, at 6:30am. We went downstairs to have breakfast, but this time it was a nice leisurely one.

We headed south from our hotel in Eilat to the underwater observatory. At a certain point we were well underground and got great views of underwater life in the Red Sea. We saw lots of rare fish, sharks, and other animals. At the top of the observatory we were able to see out to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Sinai. I really enjoyed the concept of seeing those countries- most for the first time in my life.

Beautiful colors

Nice coral

Underwater coral and fish

Nice, clear water

Tough Road

Mount Sdom

Following the observatory, we hit the road headed north to Mt. Sdom. It was tough to find the right exit (even though I would hardly call a partially paved road an exit) to get up to the lookout point on Mt. Sdom. The terrain was horrible there, and 4x4 cars were recommended. This unpaved path was second, in terms of difficulty of drive, to Windy Point Road near Punta Gorda Lighthouse (which still ranks as the toughest, scariest drive of my life).

Nice reflection

Nice saltwater

We reached the lookout some 20 minutes later. It was 40 Celsius out there (104 F). It was humid and just unbearable to be out there. Still, we walked around with lots of water and tons of sunscreen. We were able to see the Dead Sea as well as Jordan on the other side.

North of Mt. Sdom, we spotted the cave, above which is the presumed location of the pillar of Lot’s wife. We chatted with some folks excavating the cave. They were very friendly and gave us some history and some help with directions.

Lot's Wife Pillar

Around 2pm we checked in to our En Bokek Spa Hotel. I found it to be a bit pretentious, but it was a comfortable and nice enough a place. We dropped our stuff and headed out to lunch.

View from our room

After lunch we drove out to Mazada to see the old fortress on the cliff. Unfortunately, they close early, and we only managed to check out the museum at the base.

Rather disappointed, we returned to our hotel room, back to the drawing board, to determine how to squeeze everything in for tomorrow.

Israel Trip, Day #4, Tuesday September 8th

2009-10-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 4:30am again this morning, totally nervous and excited at the thought of heading out to Jordan to go see Petra. Despite being an American and carrying a US passport, I was still born in Israel and felt a bit apprehensive about entering Jordan- an Arab country. I feared my presence would not be welcomed.

We were to be picked up at 7:30am outside our hotel room by the touring company assisting the tour. We had to squeeze in a quick breakfast (which started at 7am) at the hotel before heading out. The opportunity to eat would not present itself until 2:30pm, the itinerary showed. We were not allowed to carry food, and they would not sell food at the site at Petra.

Leaving Israel

Following our rushed breakfast, we lined up outside and waited for our ride to arrive. As 7:40am passed, I started entertaining thoughts that our tour group was just a scam to get our money. After all, we had booked on the internet all the way from back home. Finally, at 7:45am, the car came to pick us up. We were briefed while driving out of Eilat- towards the Israeli/Jordanian border- about how the border patrol would work. It all seemed so formal and serious, somewhat intimidating even.

Walking the No Man's stretch to Jordan

We reached the border roughly at 8am, and after waiting in about 6 different lines (3 for each country), and walking a "no-man's land" stretch of a few hundred yards, we were in Jordan. We had to wait about 30 minutes to get our Jordanian visas. From there, we hopped into a minivan and headed off to Aqaba, Jordan's southernmost city.

Reached Jordan

Our group consisted of Tobia and I along with two Argentinean Jews. Our tour guide, Samer, was a young Bedouin guy, spoke English extremely well, was very knowledgeable, and I took an instant liking to him. He even got American nuances, culture, slang and mannerisms... I was most impressed. The entire drive out to Petra we asked him so many questions about culture, life, religion and anything we could think of. He graciously answered all of our questions and explained life in Jordan to us, from his perspective.

Aqaba

We reached Aqaba 20 minutes into our drive in Jordan. It is a nice coastal town. Samer explained that it used to be a Bedouin area up until 2001. It seemed to be developed quite quickly, because we saw a Burger King, Quizno's, McDonald's and even a Safeway Market. It still had some original local touch too.

Petra from a distance

Wadi Musa

Following Aqaba, we drove roughly 2 hours through the desert with a couple of quick stops along the way to get to Petra.

Kitty on horseback

Once in Petra, there was a lot of walking to do. During the first stretch of the walk, horseback rides were available. Tobia hopped on a horse and rode it, with the help of a nice gentleman for a small portion of the stretch down to the treasury. The entire walk to the treasury was downhill and took 45 minutes. Along the way, Samer pointed out historically significant things that took place and were constructed at Petra.

When I got my first glimpse of the treasury I was completely in disbelief. It is enormous- pictures can't even begin to do it justice. It was a nice reddish colored stone, and it was simply carved into an enormous mountain. Samer gave us a brief history and gave us a few hours to roam the entire place. The misconception about Petra is that it's all about the treasury. It doesn't take a lot of walking further down the trail to see much much more.

Tombs

Narrow passages

The Shrine

The Treasury

Camels for people who want rides

As we walked down, we were constantly passed up by gentlemen on horses or camels offering to give us rides in whatever direction we needed. It is a very touristy place, and the locals know how to work their magic. "A camel is like a desert Ferrari, come along for a ride". I gotta give them credit for being entertaining. There were also little booths all over the place selling lovely goods and art. We bought a variety of things.

Eventually we reached a stadium, saw hundreds of tombs, and finally saw Aaron's tomb. It was quite an impressive tomb.

More tombs

The stadium

Nice colors

Aaron's Tomb

I like this scene.

It was extremely hot all day, but it felt particularly hot as we made our 1 - 1.5 hour walk back to the top to meet with our driver and Samer.

Me, Marcos and Daniel at lunch

Lunch

Roughly at 3pm we ate lunch at a nearby restaurant. We were all so hungry, but the food just kept coming and coming, and we simply could not finish all the good food.

On our drive back to the border, we chatted the entire time with Samer. We talked about Islam and the Koran among other things. Samer shared some nice messages from his religion, and we could get the sense that he was very thoughtful.

Kitty, Samer and I

I found Jordanians to be very nice and respectful a people. One thing that moved me in particular was how when they walk up and down streets or other outdoor locations, when they recognize someone, they will stop to shake hands and talk. There is no concept of pretending not to see one another, as is common here in at least California and the Bay Area. And it didn't matter if people were of different "classes". So many times I would see well dressed folks, or even Samer just go over to elderly street cleaners, exchange some pleasantries, shake hands, and chat for a little while. There's truly no "I'm better than you" and I appreciated and respected that very much. It just felt genuine.

Leaving Jordan

Returning to Israel

We got to the border at around 5:30pm. We said goodbye to our driver and to Samer, we actually exchanged emails (and have kept in good touch since), and we made our way back into Israel. It took about an hour to cross. In large part, we believe it took a long time because one of the Argentineans had what seemed on the Israeli side to be a troublesome/questionable family background. He got interrogated for quite some time and we had to wait.

Eventually we got back to our hotel around 7pm. We were exhausted but extremely happy with a sense of total accomplishment. We totally stepped out of our comfort zones, saw new places, experienced new adventures, and met great people.

By 10pm we were out cold, sleeping.

Israel Trip, Day #3, Monday September 7th

2009-10-14T23:09:00.000-07:00

Another big breakfast

I ended up falling asleep hard at 9:30pm last night, clearly still jetlagged. Unfortunately, I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't sleep anymore.

We went down to breakfast at the 7am start time and yet again had a fabulous and enormous meal.

Why am I so happy? I didn't even get out of the car.

Panoramas of the crater

We left the town of Mitspe Ramon, fueled up, and drove down into the crater, south towards Eilat. The crater was really beautiful from below. We could see so many eroded columns and different rock patterns. At least a half dozen times, we pulled over to the side of the road to check out the scenery and take pictures.

Mmmmmm ... Yotvata chocolate milk!

A couple hours into our drive, we came by Yotvata, a place I recalled from more than 20 years ago that is known for its excellent chocolate milk and other dairy products. Naturally I had to stop and enjoy some wonderful chocolate milk. Tasted just as good as I had remembered!

Getting back on the road, Tobia was perusing her guide book and noted that there was a safari type zoo nearby, called Hai Bar. The whole premise of the safari is to return biblical animals back to the wild and to keep them from going extinct.

We first took the "indoor" tour, seeing animals in closed off large cages, with attempts to re-create their habitat around them. Following this, we took the safari-like drive. We saw lots of ibex, oryx, Asiatic asses, and ostriches. I found ostriches to be extremely aggressive. Many of them blocked parts of our road, while coming over to size us up. They’d peck at our car with their beaks and use their bodies to intimidate and threaten us. It was a bit nerve wrecking at times, but also kind of an exciting, amused rush at the same time (or maybe just in retrospect).

Various animals we saw

A couple of angry vultures

Dumbass

Woah!

We saw these once the ostriches let us through.

From there, it was on to Timna Park, a really large park full of beautiful different rocks and colors. Some the more memorable things we saw: mushroom and a half rock, mushroom rock, Solomon’s Pillars, cave engravings, and a temple. It was really hot out there- close to 100, and we did a lot of walking. There were also lots of arches and caves with tough hiking involved.

Spiral Rock	Conquering Mushroom and a Half Rock	Kitty at Mushroom Rock	Rocky terrain
Arches	Kitty in arch	Left entrace to crater	Right entrance to crater
I love the different colors.	The Shrine	Solomon's Pillars	Sphinx Rock

With all due respect to these 6000-year old art pieces, I can draw better blind-folded.

Finally, lunch!

I inhaled a late lunch around mid-early afternoon. It was a hummus dip with vegetables and other platters. All the walking and heat took their toll on me.

We left the park and headed off to Eilat. It was extremely hot and humid down there. We checked into our hotel, instantly put the A/C on, and fell asleep for a couple of hours.

Our hotel in Eilat

Later in the evening we went out for a stroll on the promenade right along the Red Sea. Even at 8:30pm it was still 100 degrees out, though completely dark. The promenade was nice enough, just unbearably hot and too full of people (the whole see and be seen environment).

As our feet were hurting, we were dealing with jetlag, and were also preparing to head to Petra the next day, we decided to turn in for the night with no dinner. We shared an ice coffee and headed back to the room to shower and sleep.

Israel Trip, Day #2, Sunday September 6th

2009-10-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

As I laid in bed this morning, unable to sleep, I was also really starving. I had barely eaten anything on the plane, and I also vomited so much the previous day.

Thankfully our hotel's breakfast started at 6:30am. Exactly at that time we lined up outside the dining area, only to be surprised that about a dozen other people showed up right around the same time.

Finally, breakfast!

We feasted like royalty on burekas, eggs, salads, spreads and other sweets, stuffing ourselves to more than compensate for having eating so little the previous 24-36 hours. I was thrilled! For her part, Tobia was less than amused by the two Korean ladies sitting behind us speaking loudly in Korean. It annoyed her that we traveled halfway around the world to come in contact with "her peeps".

Following breakfast, we headed down to Be'er Sheva to see Abraham's well. As we were likely the only people who had come in to that point in the day, the staff treated us with much excitement and attention. From there we continued to Tel Be'er Sheva- which is an (UNESCO) archaeological site, believed to be the remains of the biblical town of Be’er Sheva. Afterwards we continued to the Air Force Museum and I saw my favorite childhood plane, the Lavi. I was obsessed with its development back in ’86. I also got a good look at an F-15 jet.

Abraham's well	Tel Be'er Sheva panoramic	Excited to head down into the cave
Entering the cave	Some of the planes (and parts thereof) we saw at the air force museum	And, of course, my favorite - the Lavi!

Our falafel lunch

For lunch we had a great falafel meal at a small hole in the wall place. The gentleman who ran the place was very nice and extremely helpful in giving us directions. We fueled and headed off to Sdeh Boker to see David Ben Gurion's hut and his memorial. I knew a little bit about Ben Gurion, of course, prior to visiting his hut and memorial, but learned a great deal about the man. I found his life and achievements quite interesting and impressive. I guess Tobia’s love of history had some influence on me here.

The area where Ben Gurion is buried is very beautiful. It’s a nice deep canyon. In the surrounding area, we saw tons of Ibex animals. In fact, we saw two lock horns and fight some 30 feet away from us. It was quite a sight.

Ben Gurion's Hut	Ben Gurion's study	Ben Gurion Memorial
Ben Gurion Memorial	The canyon just beyond Ben Gurion's Memorial	Ibex nearby

Scary overhang above Makhtesh Ramon

Tobia reminding me where the crater is

From Sdeh Boker we continued on to Makhtesh Ramon- the largest crater in the world. We walked around a good deal and got to see many different angles and terrains inside the crater. This was another example of something I had no idea existed in Israel until just prior to going there.

Following the crater, we went to check out a lama and alpaca farm. It was also home to donkeys, camels, and horses. I was able to hand feed the animals. When the lamas are together, they fight for the food and spit. One of them spit and snorted on me- it was kinda nasty but ultimately memorable.

Feeding at the lama/alpaca farm

Lovely teeth

Some of the other animals at the farm

We had dinner here, beside all these soldiers

Around early evening we were completely exhausted, so we grabbed some burekas and pizza slices for dinner and turned into our room for the night. We bought some internet access time and wound down while also watching TV.

Israel Trip, Day #1, Saturday September 5th

2009-10-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, it looked like our streak of annually going on an international trip would end at 1 (last year’s Greece and Turkey trip). Then we got an invite to Yaron and Inbar’s wedding in Israel for mid-September. That was exactly the kind of kick we needed to get our acts together and plan our yearly international trip to Israel.

We left SFO on Friday, September 4th around noon, and arrived in Israel around 4:45pm on Saturday, to our surprise, about an hour earlier than expected. Unfortunately, I vomited 5 times between roughly Greece and our hotel in Tel Aviv.

Last year’s trip was an organized tour. On this trip we decided to rent a car and basically cover the whole country on our own- using one of Tobia’s tour books and a map.

On our way to our hotel in Tel Aviv, we got lost pretty badly due to horrible signs (or maybe it was a complete lack of signs). Thankfully, I was able to ask dozens of folks on the road for help with directions until we finally found our hotel. We ultimately had to settle for expensive hotel parking for our car.

Dan Panorama Hotel

Tel Aviv coastline

The bakery we ate at

There was a lovely promenade just outside our hotel room, and it spanned a good few miles of the Tel Avivian Mediterranean coast. During our walk there, we picked up a few baked goods to eat for dinner.

We walked south to Yaffo, which was nice, and ultimately crashed really hard for all of 4 hours from midnight to 4am. I woke up with a horrendous dehydration headache and couldn’t sleep again.

SFG, Week #14

2009-10-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

I have been really bad about posting about my garden this year, and I've been much more hands off as well. In a sense, that's kind of a shame, because I really enjoy getting out there and doing the necessary tasks for the crops to grow, but I just didn't have my act together this year. Moreover, the automated watering system did its job extremely well, and my involvement just wasn't as necessary.

Fairly easy to grow, small space requirements, flexibility in growing temp, and our love for beets make these a wonderful crop.

I had plenty of large beets about a month ago, and a few more were ready for the picking this weekend. Enormous cucumbers also emerged from the single seed I planted. Most of them were not bitter, which was a great improvement over last year's completely bitter bunch.

A little bit of pruning

I love my tomatoes!

Otherwise, about 35 nice, red, heirloom tomatoes have ripened and I've had a chance to really enjoy many of those. It's the success of my tomatoes that I always use as a gauge to determine if I'm pleased with the season. I expect about 25 - 40 more to ripen over the next couple of weeks.

Looking forward to trying this year's larger eggplants.

Really glad I've had a chance to eat non bitter cucumbers this year, they worked really well with the tomatoes in my daily salads.

On top of that, this year's large "Black Beauty" eggplants are coming along nicely. Within a week or so I'll harvest a handful of those and enjoy 'em too.

As always, I've learned lessons for improvement for next year- watering times/durations, crop pairings, and locations of where to put certain things. Also, I'd like to start my summer crops earlier next year.

Next up for the fall season, I plan to grow some cooler weather crops: radishes, probably more beets, lettuces, chards, and likely broccoli and cauliflower again.

Big Sur Trip

2009-07-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

Clearly longing for the coast after our Oregon trip, I planned a trip to Big Sur.

Nice views below the fog. One of my first stops of the day at Big Sur.

Rugged rocks emerged into view once I descended low enough. I also like the caves down there.

The trip was a quick, one day drive all the way down to Ragged Point. Any further south on Hwy 1 would have led us to San Simeon or Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, two destinations we've already been to, and I believe are outside what is considered Big Sur.

It was roughly 90 miles on Hwy 1 scenic byway, between Carmel at the North, and Ragged Point at the South. Apparently this segment of Hwy 1 is nationally recognized as a beautiful destination in its own right. We have driven this area before multiple times, most recently on our drive back from Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, but this time I wanted to stop at all the vista points as well as other areas that allowed us to pullover.

Right around Bixby Bridge, appreciating the rock to the South.

Just north of Bixby Bridge. I could see the endpoint of the rainbow-y looking arc down at the water below.

I really liked this mysterious looking effect the rugged rock just beyond Bixby Bridge portrayed in the fog.

I ended up walking down dozens of small, barely paved paths that led me to nice views of the Pacific Ocean.

We left home at 6:30 in the morning, headed south on Hwy 17. Right around Santa Cruz we split off to Hwy 1 South, and spent the rest of the drive on 1. Right after Point Lobos (probably the best state park I've seen in this country to date), I started pulling off at any turn-off I could find. It was extremely foggy, but when I was able to get far enough down the trails, I was able to see great views of rocks, ocean and waves. Tobia opted to rest in the car on most of the initial stops, so that gave me a chance to jump around the rocks quite a bit.

At one of the latter stops, we fed pieces of a banana to this chipmunk and others. Clearly they've learned not to fear humans, often getting on their hind legs and stretching out as if to say "I'm ready for food".

This is what Ragged Point looks like. I was able to descend about halfway down the left side of the big cliff in the middle of the picture.

Repeating this stop-and-go process all the way down to Ragged Point, we got to the Point around 11:30am. I walked down a small, dangerous trail at Ragged Point, but it was ultimately too foggy to see much of anything.

We had lunch at Ragged Point Inn restaurant, then headed back up north. Thankfully, on the way back up, the fog was lifting pretty rapidly, and I was able to get a better view, albeit less dramatic, of most of the places I saw in the morning.

I couldn't see this spot in the morning, but it looked beautiful in the afternoon. Reminded me of the rocks right near Piedras Blancas.

I liked this view of many small rugged rocks, overseen by a large white rock.

Beautiful Big Sur coastline.

The fog was slower to lift around here, but it made for a nice view of the rugged area.

My favorite picture of the day. I loved these rugged rocks decorating the coastline.

Much later in the afternoon, on our way back, we stopped by at Nepenthe and Cafe Kevah, both with very nice views of the Big Sur area. We made many other stops along the way; this time, Tobia joined me on most of them.

Ultimately, I hopped back on Hwy 17 and returned home around 5:30pm. It was a lot of fun, and the area was truly beautiful.

SFG, Week #3

2009-07-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

As I look back on last year's garden pictures, I get the sense that things are either on pace with, or a bit slower than '08. The boxes this year get significantly more sun than last year, but I suspect, a bit less water. The automated system sprays the crops twice a day (morning and evening) for a total of 10 minutes. I think it doesn't water deeply enough, though.

So I've started watering by hand after work in the evenings, generally around 6:30pm. I think it's helped the beets a lot, and the cucumber has finally emerged as well.

Technically, the tomatoes and eggplants are 4 weeks old now. The beets and cucumber are 2 weeks old. The 2 week old pepper and lettuce have not sprouted yet. I hope those will make it. We did plant those pretty deep in the soil, so I hope it's depth, not lack of water that have prevented them from popping up.

As for composting- I am without compost bins right now. I'm looking for more of a barrel type compost bin that will prevent rocks and branches from seeping into my soil and degrading it. I expect to get one in the next week or two and resume composting.

Area 1

Heirloom Tomatoes

Area 2

Eggplants in three squares, cucumber in top right corner

Area 3

Bell peppers in three squares, beets in bottom right corner

Area 4

Beets in three squares, lettuce in top right corner

Oregon Trip Thoughts and Reflections

2009-07-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

This Oregon trip was as exciting for me as the Northern California Coast trip was exactly 2 years ago. Technically, this trip was 6 days, starting Tuesday, June 30th, ending Sunday, July 5th.

I think the travel bug has bit me. I love road trips across this country. I'm thinking of Arizona and possibly Utah for next year's 4th of July trip.

Some random thoughts below:

We saw a glider port with tons of gliders (for Beast) in North Plains, Oregon, just west of Portland.
I recommend seeing Twin Rocks at Rockaway Beach. In my opinion, the best viewing spot is the end of S. Minnehaha St. Drive as far as the small road will let you, and walk the tiny bit that's left to get a great glimpse.
There are so many national forests and probably billions of trees in Oregon. And not just inland, but also right around the coast too. Tobia and I joke that one of the most sadistic jobs in the world would be a tree counter in Oregon.
The fog in the Oregon coast is not so pleasant. Most people don't like coastal fog, but I actually like it. I just don't like the Oregon coast fog. Visibility is extremely poor and different than that of California's. I like the gentle gray skies kind of fog, not the one where you can touch something and still not see it. The fog almost ruined our first day at the Oregon coast. It also prevented us from seeing Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. Instead, I had to settle for a postcard of it, purchased at the Cape Meares Lighthouse store.
Oregon has horrendously unhelpful road signs. Often times they didn't have road signs at all! There's something to be said for exploration, adventurousness, and getting lost on vacation, but this was just bad. I simply don't understand why they can't just put a simple sign that says Hwy 101 right turn (or something as simple as that).
Related to above, finding Arch Rock information online was extremely difficult. I'm not even sure how I ultimately found out that it is in Southern Oregon, in Samuel H Boardman park. It is beautiful and would have been a shame to miss. Natural Bridges, also part of the park, is a must see. Oregon needs to do a better job of outlining where beautiful spots are, and how to get there.
The Oregon coast is beautiful. It is different from California's. I thought there were more beaches (compared to length of coastline), many more monoliths (massive ocean rocks) but less rugged a terrain. My favorite area of the Oregon coast is the Cape Perpetua area in the Central Oregon coast. I think Mendocino County in California still has the most beautiful coast anywhere, but Oregon has more beautiful places.
We bought an Oregon Pacific Coast Passport which gave us access to just about all the National and State parks along the Oregon coast. It was $10 and definitely worth it. Just about every coastal destination in Oregon is either a State park or National park, which I think is a great idea, and there is a small fee (which would otherwise ultimately add up to more than $20 if stopping often as we did) to enter or park. Unfortunately, I didn't read up on this anywhere, and there was no advertising (or even mention of) for it. I just happened to talk to a volunteer park ranger at Yaquina Head Lighthouse, and he told me all about it. I highly recommend it. Can be purchased at the park itself in most cases, if I'm not mistaken.
Oregonians seem to obey the speed limit, which is already a good 5-15 MPH lower at every highway when compared to California. Every time someone whizzed by me on the roads, it seemed they had a CA license plate.
We drove roughly 415 miles of Oregon coast, and it took us about 9:30 hours of driving. I don't include our stops in this calculation. There were many, many stops.
We drove roughly 440 miles of California coast immediately following the Oregon coast, for a total of more than 850 miles of consecutive coast (in 3 days). Of course, you can't always see the coast from the road, which often turns inland for significant segments of time. But for all practical purposes, all of those miles were coastal miles.
We drove through Eureka again (we drove there two years ago and I remarked how unremarkable it was), and I still really don't like it. I was consciously determined to find something I liked about it while driving through it, but couldn't come up with anything.
In Oregon, you may not fuel your own car. The instant we pulled into any gas station, the attendant would run out to greet us, I'd give him or her my credit card, they'd run it through the machine, open the gas cap, pump for us, and put everything away, always making sure to give me a receipt. Apparently they should not be tipped either. This is done for safety, but it struck me as bizarre.
Our green car is amazing! I pulled off to fuel in Salem, Oregon just as the car hit 210,000 miles. When the gentleman finished fueling the car, I calculated 55 miles per gallon! Yes, most of it was highway mileage, but we still got stopped and slown down a bunch of times enough where this is really impressive. The car is 13 years old.
My initial trip plan did not include the Westport stop. Knowing that from Florence Oregon to Northern California was already a really long stretch, I had us stopping in Willits for the night of Saturday, July 4th. I had even booked a hotel there. It was in Portland that Tobia suggested that it'd be a lot nicer if we would instead just continue along the coastline and enjoy that for as long as we could.
We drove on Highway 1 (it takes on different numbers in different stretches, but it's still Hwy 1) all the way from Westport to Half Moon Bay before finally cutting inland.
Our days were very long and, by day's end, very tiring. We typically woke up around 6am and would go to bed around 10:30pm. I still insist though, that waking up early on vacation is the best thing. Not only are the roads empty, parks less bustling, but it is beautiful and serene outside. Part of a vacation is to do and see new things, and ultimately to get out of one's routine and comfort zone, I believe. By sleeping in late in the mornings, so much of the day gets wasted and by the time you reach anywhere, it's full of people. I felt this odd rush of getting an early jump start on every day by starting early.
The Crater Lake bug bites passed really quickly. By the next day, there were virtually no signs of bug bites.
We carried a small, light, travel-sized Samsung laptop on our trip. Most of our motels had a WiFi connection and I was able to take advantage to do some last second research on the next day's stops. It also allowed me to keep a daily log of events. The stop at Bandon to see Face Rock was made possible by the previous night's google maps. Also, finding all the information about Westport Inn while in Portland two days earlier, allowed us to change our travel plans on the go.

Highway 1

2009-07-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

I ultimately ended up settling the room tab with the owner around 10pm last night. Knowing that we would leave around 6:30am today, I wanted to leave with a clear conscience. I also didn't want to wake the poor man up that early in the morning. The elderly gentleman was so cool about it when he pulled into his garage and I came up to him with my check.

We left Westport right around 6:30am, fueled in Fort Bragg, and pulled into Mendocino exactly at 7am- perfect time to have a wonderful and fresh breakfast at the Mendocino Cafe and Bakery, which had opened up no more than a couple minutes earlier.

Following breakfast, we continued on Hwy 1 South. We drove all the way down to the junction area with Petaluma (where you can hop on 101), except that this time we decided to drive a new stretch of Hwy 1, one we had never seen before, and which runs just east of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Towards the southern end of Point Reyes is the unincorporated community of Bolinas. Having read up a little bit about it, and knowing that there are no signs marking the directions of how to get there, as well as hearing that the local residents are reclusive and not appreciating visitors, I was really determined to get there this time. We had missed seeing it the last couple times we drove this stretch of road (after seeing Pt Reyes Lighthouse and Chimney Rock on two separate trips) and were actually able to get there this time.

Let me just say that it was extremely unimpressive, I have no idea why people are so protective of it and eager to keep others out. Let the residents enjoy Bolinas by themselves- that dirty lagoon area with poser coastline. Even just driving around, we got unpleasant looks from people who clearly recognized we weren't Bolinas'ans. They don't have to worry about me "intruding" on their land ever again.

We returned to Hwy 1, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, and continued on Hwy 1 to Pacifica. Discussing where we should eat lunch, we ultimately decided on Moss Beach Distillery in Moss Beach, just south of Point Montara Lighthouse. We had been there a few times before and we liked the food. Plus we weren't ready to return to real civilization and the crowded Bay Area just yet. The restaurant ocean views are also pretty nice.

Unbelievably, we ran into our friend Jared, who was having lunch with a friend at the same restaurant! What are the chances?! Jared remarked that we looked exhausted, which we were, given that it was almost 2pm and we had been on the road for probably 7 hours with only a few stops along the way. I ate really hard (like I hadn't eaten in a few days), and ultimately drove us the rest of the 45 or so minutes to get home. We took 92 East to 280 South to Saratoga'er Avenue.

We got home around 3:30 quite tired but extremely satisfied.

Central, South Oregon Coast — Day 5

2009-07-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Scenic drive

Cape Arago Lighthouse

Again, we woke up at 6am this morning, rushing to get out of our extremely nasty motel in Florence, OR. We started driving down 101 South, headed towards Cape Arago Lighthouse. We were eventually able to see the lighthouse on its bluff from a nice lookout point. That was as close as we could get.

Following the lighthouse, we headed south to Bandon. Tobia had read the night before that there were some nice rocks out there off Beach Loop Drive, so we decided to check those out. We saw a rock called Face Rock, which really did look like a face looking up at the sky. There were dozens of other beautiful monoliths in the area.

Rock formations

Coquille River Lighthouse

Face Rock

Closer look at Face Rock

Battle Rock

On our drive down to the next lighthouse, we came across Battle Rock at Port Orford. This was a nice big rock with lots of trees sticking out of it, at the end of the little town. People were sitting all along the main street, waiting for what appeared to be a 4th of July parade.

The next stop along 101 South was Cape Blanco Lighthouse. This one was reachable, and we got to take many pictures and see it from many angles. The surroundings to the north and south were very nice, with lots of small islets. Knowing this would be a long day, we continued on south to Samuel H. Boardman scenic park, just north of Brookings, which is just 6 or so miles north of California.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse in the distance

Interesting rock formation near Cape Blanco Lighthouse

Cape Blanco Lighthouse

The Boardman scenic park was spectacular! We got to see Arch Rock as well as unique other rocks that had trees coming out of their tops. Quite a unique set of rocks. Tobia seems to really enjoy these rugged rocks with a single tree sticking out of them, so we went in pursuit of quite a few of those.

Rock formations

Arch Rock

Tree-topped rock formation

Natural Bridges

From the scenic park, we zoomed into California, past Crescent City and all the towns we saw two years ago on our CA coast trip. We pulled into Garberville (unfortunately our favorite restaurant in the area, Mateel's Cafe was closed due to 4th of July) to eat some pizza in the small main street area at Sicilito's Pizzeria.

The start of the Lost Coast

Where the Lost Coast and the Mendocino Coast meet

Afterwards, it was on to 271W to cross from Leggett to Westport. Right before Westport, we got to see the actual spot where the Lost Coast ends and the Mendocino Coast begins. The difference in rock structure and slope is really noticeable. We stepped out to take pictures, walk around to loosen up, and continued on about 5 miles south to our Inn at Westport.

Westport

We had passed by Westport 2 years ago, but never took the time to explore it. Well, we had a chance to do that and thought it quite charming. There is a small headlands area, a grocery store, and a small population of folks. The inn keeper was one of the most easy going people I'd ever met, having stepped out for 4th of July celebrations (presumably) and simply leaving the key inside the room for us, along with a note saying to come in and make ourselves at home (and that we would settle the bill later).

Completely exhausted by 4 days of lots of walking, driving and sight-seeing, we went in and crashed for the night.

North, Central Oregon Coast — Day 4

2009-07-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

The alarm clock went off at 6am this morning. 20 minutes later we were having breakfast downstairs at our hotel. By 6:45am we had already left Portland and were on our way to the coast and Seaside. The plan was to start at the north of the state and work our way down to Florence, Oregon, about halfway down the coast. The idea was to see at least Cape Meares, Yaquina Head and Heceta Head Lighthouses.

Chapman Point at Ecola State Park

Northern view of Ecola State Park

Postcard: Tillamook Rock Lighthouse

As we had done the previous days, we drove through acres upon acres of trees and national parks. Around 8:15 we got into Ecola State Park where we saw our first views of the Oregon coast. The views were gorgeous, more spectacular than I had seen in pictures and imagined. We walked around the trails for a while, enjoyed the views, and eventually decided to make the Catslop loop that would take us to the closest lookout onto Tillamook Rock Lighthouse.

Clearing a path for Tobia on the Catslop loop at Ecola State Park

Ultimately, despite walking for close to 2.5 tiring hours, we could not see the lighthouse, because it was unbearably foggy. I think the visibility could not have been more than 15 feet. Tired, we returned to the car in search of haystack rock and some food.

Haystack Rock

We drove a few miles south to Cannon Beach and had to walk as close as we could to the haystack rock, because the beach was unbearably foggy as well. I collected an uncomfortable amount of sand in my shoes on the walk to the rock. After returning to the main street, we stopped by at a nice bagel and coffee shop for some bagels and to hit the road again.

Twin Rock

On the drive down to see Cape Meares Lighthouse, we made dozens of stops along view points and the coast in general to take pictures and see the Oregon Coast. It was quite beautiful, but I thought it was most so around Central Oregon.

Cape Meares Lighthouse

After what seemed like at least a few hours, we finally made it to our first lighthouse- Cape Meares. It was a nice lighthouse and I loved the surroundings, which included some monoliths and rugged rocks to the north and south. About 1/4 mile up the hill from the lighthouse is the Octopus Tree- a weird looking, multi-branched tree that is unlike any I've ever seen. We took some pictures, hung around and ultimately hit the road for Yaquina Head Lighthouse.

View of the cliffs around Cape Meares Lighthouse

Rock formations at Cape Meares Lighthouse

Giant rock near Cape Meares Lighthouse

Octopus Tree

Some 2.5 hours later, we reached Yaquina Head Lighthouse. Again, in the process, we stopped repeatedly to look at the coast at just about every possible stop. The lighthouse is located in a National Park, and at the end of the large Yaquina Head rock. The lighthouse itself was very well preserved, tall, and quite nice. Its surroundings were also nice, less attractive than Cape Meares' though.

Cape Foulweather with Yaquina Lighthouse in the distance

Yaquina Lighthouse in the distance

Yaquina Lighthouse

The Spouting Horn at Cook's Chasm

On our final long drive of the day, we headed to Heceta Head Lighthouse. That drive seemed to take forever, because I believe the most beautiful part of the Oregon coast (at least to this point) is between these two lighthouses. I think Cape Perpetua is magnificent. In particular Cooks Chasm was one of the nicest coastal destinations I've ever seen!

Shortly after Cape Perpetua, we reached Heceta Head Lighthouse. I was so excited, I climbed some dangerous rocks to get unique views of the lighthouse. Heceta Head Lighthouse is truly unbelievably beautiful. The only other lighthouse in its league is Point Conception, I believe. It is perched on an awesome, rugged rock, with some monoliths in the area and at the north end of a tiny cove. I couldn't get enough of it.

Scaling the rocks around Heceta Head Lighthouse

Heceta Head Lighthouse

Heceta Head Lighthouse in the distance

We had a subpar meal at this casino

When we finally got our fill of the lighthouse, we went to check into our (nasty) motel, went to have buffet dinner at a casino, fueled and headed back to the motel to crash after a tremendously fulfilling, exciting, but exhausting day.

Silver Falls and Portland — Day 3

2009-07-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

I woke up naturally at 6am this morning. Before 6:45am we were already on the road, having decided to skip formal breakfast and just eat granola bars and bananas in the car. We started out on Hwy 97N, followed by 58W. From there, it was back up to 5N, and finally to 214E to get to the Silver Falls.

Odell Lake

Along the drive up to Silver Falls State Park, we came across a very nice lake called Odell Lake. The interesting part about this lake is that there used to be a computer game when I was in elementary school, used for educational purposes, called Odell Lake. I used to enjoy playing it in class a good deal- controlling a fish in the lake, trying to determine when to eat other fish, when to run away, or when to ignore other underwater life. I found a link for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odell_Lake_(computer_game).

About 30 minutes north of this lake, on the right side of Hwy 58, we saw a vulture eating a dead carcass, no more than 6 feet away from our car. It was really raw and somewhat horrific. Still, the image stuck with me enough to remember writing about it.

At 11am we pulled into Silver Falls State Park. It was amazing! There were many waterfalls, ranging from roughly 30 foot drops to close to 200. What was further amazing was that one could walk behind and around a couple of these waterfalls. We probably hiked a total of 6-7 miles, climbing and descending to and from waterfalls. Around 2pm we stopped by the lodge at the park and voraciously ate lunch... we were starving!

North Falls	Winter Falls	Middle North Falls	Drake's Falls	Lower North Falls
Double Falls	Twin Falls	South Falls	South Falls

Powell Book Store in Portland

Following the park, we headed to Portland along Hwy 214. From there, it was on to Hwy 213E and ultimately 205N. We pulled into our hotel, figured out some places to visit, and headed out. Our first stop was Powell's Book Store- the largest independent bookstore in the world. It had everything I could think of; an enormous 3 story bookstore with a diverse collection of books. Following the bookstore we went to get some dinner at a place called Wild Wood, a really excellent restaurant a couple miles away from the bookstore. I had researched for good places to eat prior to coming to Portland and I'm glad we found that place.

Rose Garden Arena

Pretty exhausted after dinner, we walked one of the bridges that separate Portland into two sides, and had a chance to see the Rose Garden, where the now defunct Portland Lumberjax (NLL lacrosse team) and the Portland TrailBlazers call home court. From there we turned into the hotel to crash really hard following another long, tiring, but exciting day.

Crater Lake — Day 2

2009-07-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

We woke up at 6:45 in the morning in Willows. As it was uncomfortably hot all night, we ran the A/C the entire night. There was a Denny's right across the street and we decided to have breakfast there.

97: my hockey number

By 8am we were well on our way to Crater Lake National Park. It was supposed to take just over 6 hours to get there. Due to kind road conditions on Hwy 5, and a generous speed limit, we made it there in 5 hours, finishing out the final leg on Hwy 97.

Mount Shasta from the road

Mount Shasta from the town of Weed

Along the way we hit the unremarkable Oregon-California state borderline. I expected more than just a worn out sign that was partially faded welcoming us to Oregon. We did, however, get some very nice glimpses of Mt. Shasta, which had quite a bit of snow. The view of Mt. Shasta from the town of Weed was really great. I also thought the Sacramento River was beautiful.

Our first glimpse of Crater Lake

Amazing blueness

We had lunch at a restaurant right at the south entrance to the park around 1pm and then made our way up to Crater Lake. Crater Lake was amazing! The color of the water is a deep, dark blue, unlike any other blue I've ever seen.

Wizard Island

Phantom Ship Rock

There was a large island inside the big lake, called Wizard Island. There is also a rugged rock structure called Phantom Ship Rock. I loved the latter rock.

Someone finally took our picture

Initially the plan was to walk a long trail. But ultimately the walking trails didn't enable us to see enough of the lake. Eventually we decided to drive around the entire lake and walk the short paths at each of the roughly two dozen stops. Each stop gave us a different angle of the lake, and something new to see.

The Pinnacles

Close to the end of the two dozen stops, we pulled off to a place called The Pinnacles. There we saw amazing rock formations made of lava ash that looked like smoke stacks. This reminded me of Cappadoccia, Turkey and the landscape we saw there last May. Right at the tail end of the loop we saw a few small water falls.

The bugs thought I was delicious

Unfortunately along with amazing scenery all throughout the park, there were also tons of bugs that bit us and left us scratching ourselves at many of the stops. Hopefully this will be gone by tomorrow.

We left the park in the evening and headed back south on Hwy 97 to Klamath Falls, where we had dinner and slept the night.

One final observation for the day. Breakfast at Willows, lunch at Crater Lake and dinner in Klamath Falls all reminded me that the Bay Area is so much more tolerant and diverse. At each of our three meals today, folks looked at us like we were out of place and didn't belong. It certainly didn't make for a very comfortable set of meals today and it's unfortunate. I don't know what the whole country is like in terms of diversity and acceptance, but I expect Portland (being a big city) to make us feel more welcome tomorrow.

Heading to Willows — Day 1

2009-07-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

After having seen all the California lighthouses I was interested in over the last few years, we decided to take off to Oregon for the 4th of July. There are a number of beautiful lighthouses in Oregon that I looked forward to seeing. I also wanted to finally experience the Oregon coast as well.

Tobia and I both went to work today, but thought that we should get a jump start on the long trip to Oregon. Initially we thought we'd fly out to Oregon, rent a car, and drive all the way back down. But ultimately there were other parks and locations we wanted to see that would be made more difficult by flying up. Not to mention, driving is much more enjoyable for me.

We left the Bay Area just before 6pm and made our way up 880N to 680N. We pulled off at Walnut Creek hoping to catch dinner at Crepes a go-go, a restaurant we like a lot. They had moved their business a few blocks from the old one and have still not opened the new location. So we decided to eat at Hubcap's Diner, just a few hundred feet away. It was a wonderful dinner.

After dinner we hopped right back on 680N to 80E. Traffic was surprisingly gentle the entire time. Around Vacaville we split north on Hwy 505, which later merged with Hwy 5. We were able to fly through Northern California, with little traffic, a smooth road and a loose speed limit of 70 MPH. Along the final hour or so of Hwy 5, we must have had 100 bugs' guts on our front wind-shield. It took a fair bit of scrubbing with the squeegee at the gas station to clean up.

We got into Willows surprisingly early, having checked in by 9:30pm already. It was 90 degrees outside that late at night, and we could not cool down despite the A/C running the entire time. Willows seems like a small town, conveniently off Hwy 5- a pleasant place to stop for a night. The plan is to get into South Oregon tomorrow. The quick stop at Willows saves us about 3 hours of driving for tomorrow.

Square Foot Gardening (kind of), 2nd Year - Week 1 (sort of)

2009-07-05T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'm far behind on my SFG blogging this year, but thankfully the garden is not. We had a big front and back yard project done by a landscaper. Unfortunately weeds had overtaken my back yard over the last 4 or 5 months. I had to wait to set in my new boxes until the landscaper had finished enough of the project. I was, however, able to start the tomatoes and eggplants in containers and just kept them outside, very close to where my future boxes would later come to sit.

Chaos in the old backyard. I took the time to build new boxes while the landscaping started.

Finally, I got my act together and set up for the new year a few weeks back. I started out by making 12 inch deep boxes this year, instead of 6 inch boxes. This is to enable crops to establish deeper roots, and by extension, grow larger. One of the things I dealt with last year, which was disappointing, was small size of crops. After doing some reading, I learned that by not being able to establish deep roots, my crops would not grow very large.

This year the boxes are 1 foot deep. They are 6 feet long by 3 feet wide.

The other thing this deep box enables me to do is grow more root type vegetables, in particular carrots, which I really enjoy.

I decided on two boxes this year, each box 6 feet by 3 feet, with 1 foot depth (as mentioned). A 6 x 3 box allows me to allot an area of 1.5 feet by 1.5 feet for each "square foot". With the increased size, crops will have more space to expand. Last year, I found that the crops exceeded their square foot boxes all too often.

I laid down the new boxes in areas that get even more sun than last year.

To keep things under control this year, with a busier job and less time to spend with my crops, I thought that working on two boxes will be a lot easier for me. Also, each box has 8 (1.5 by 1.5) squares, for a total of 16 crops, which is quite manageable.

I still believe in square foot gardening. In fact, I'm still using the Mel's mix in my new boxes. I think I need to continue to tweak things around to find what works best.

I re-used much of my Mel's mix from last year's boxes to ammend the vermiculite and peat moss that I bought this year. For the compost part, I used all the compost I generated over the last year from banana peels, dried leaves, and other kitchen scraps. I also went to shovel humus, chicken manure, and some other types of compost in local areas around here.

The concurrent landscaping project enabled me to take advantage of auto-watering.

Putting things together, the boxes were set in last week. The landscaper set up an auto-watering system that gently waters my crops early in the morning, and later in the evening. I will change the times as the weather and sun pattern change.

This year's set up. In the far end of my second box, my tomatoes and eggplants are growing.

I'm currently growing tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce and beets- all from seed. The tomatoes and eggplants are 2 weeks old right now. The other 4 were just planted today. I messed up (no idea how) with the peppers two weeks ago- while doing the tomatoes and eggplants- so had to start again today, after coming back from an Oregon Coast trip. I know the peppers take as long as the tomatoes and eggplants (the other 3 thankfully take about half as long) to grow, but given that I started my gardening on July 5th last year and succeeded, I'm hopeful that things will work out again.

Eggplants are still tiny here. The squares are 1.5 ft by 1.5 ft this year.

The tomatoes are coming around nicely.

One reminder for myself for next year- start earlier! This pattern of starting my summer crops around late June or July is not very wise. I believe I'll finally get it right next year.