Friday Fun Day-Kayak Outings

We have had such a busy spring that we haven't been home for very many of our Friday Fun Days.  And when we have been home the weather hasn't been great for kayaking, so we didn't get on the water until May 31.  Usually we can snatch a beautiful day in April to start the season. We were really late starting this year.

Our first outing on May 31 was to Lake Tahoe.  Lake Tahoe continues to be a spectacular destination and we always love it.  Here is Calvin getting ready to launch.

And here we are heading out of the boat ramp at Sand Harbor.

There is not much snow left in the mountains surrounding the lake.

Here is my favorite shot of Calvin.  I have to take pictures because I can't see what he is doing behind me. Is he even paddling?

 Our favorite beach is starting to reappear.  We have had some high water years and the lake has been so full the beach has been under water.  There still isn't much beach.

 The only thing I don't like about Lake Tahoe is that we see very few birds, but we did see a little family of mergansers.

Yesterday it was 100 degrees in Reno, so we headed for some cool water.  We thought Lake Tahoe might be crowded, so we tried a new destination-Stampede reservoir.  On the way we stopped to take pictures of some fledgling red tailed hawks nesting near the Truckee River.

One of the birds got on a high perch and spread its wings, but wasn't quite ready to fly.

 When we launched at Stampede we asked some kayakers coming in where we should paddle and they directed us to the west end where we could see some bald eagles. It was late afternoon and the light was beautiful.

It was late afternoon and we were looking directly west at the eagles.  Not the greatest shot, but you can see their white heads.

They were perched near their nest, but not on it, so we don't know if they had babies in the nest.

Calvin waited patiently in the back while we eagle watched. We actually had four eagle sightings, but we aren't sure if there were four eagles or we just saw two twice.  Spectacular either way.

This lake had lower water and not great beaches, but it wasn't bad.

On a Friday evening we had the beach to ourselves and saw just a few other boats on the lake, so we may come again.

Back in Santa Barbara

I think there will be several trips to Santa Barbara this year. But our latest trip was spurred by having both Sarah and Rosie on the same coast for a weekend.  We don't get to see either of them as often as we want, so we couldn't miss this opportunity.  We took our new Altima, which gets great gas mileage and is fortunately big enough to carry Calvin's bike. The first trip Rosie and I made to Santa Barbara ten years ago we wandered around on little side roads looking for the most direct route.  This little road that cuts off toward Santa Margarita is the most direct, but clearly not the fastest.  I thought at the time it would be a good bike road and Calvin has decided the same. 

Sarah and Toby were in town for a wedding, so on Saturday we got to play with Clare all day.  She was just a delight, swimming, making friends with everyone she met, going out to eat, even taking a nap all without a tear.

We visited the Santa Barbara mission to view the chalk drawing festival.  It was amazing to see the works in progress.

But the mission is also just a fun place to sit and relax.

This is Clare's favorite place to be, tucked right up on Sarah's shoulder.

Sunday afternoon we just hung out at Rosie and Jay's home. 

We also got to try out hand at archery.  My arrow hist the target (not the bulls eye) once but Rosie won the 2 arrow competition.

And we finished the day with pictures in front of their barn. Notice the favorite T-shirts.  Have we seen the A-Team before?