Lake Tahoe 2017

The weather finally took a turn to the sunny side and we took a turn toward Lake Tahoe.  Last Friday night we took out the sailboat with Peter, Rachel and Sylvan.  We didn't actually sail because there was not a breath of wind, but we motored out and it was beautiful. Sylvan was not thrilled to be wearing his life jacket,

but he warmed up to the boat pretty quickly.

Calvin was in his element and I even enjoyed floating on the lake.

We stopped in Tahoe City for dinner after the sail and looked at all the water rushing through the dam.

Peter and Roque show their style at Fanny Bridge.

We took our kayak out for the first time on Monday. It was a perfect day to paddle.

The only bad news is that the lake is so high a lot of beaches are under water, so the beaches that are still dry were crowded, even on a Monday afternoon. Still you should never really complain about water in a desert and we aren't complaining.

Yosemite Spring 2017

We were in Santa Barbara for a few days at the end of March and decided that Yosemite National Park would be just a short detour on the way home. This wonderful wet winter that we have been enjoying has closed a few entrances to the park, so the short detour was a little longer than we planned and snow was still present on the valley floor, but we had a camping reservation thanks to Peter so we enjoyed a brief but spectacular visit.

Our first stop in the park was at Bridal Veil Falls.

 And I am sure that chunk of granite behind us has a name, but I don't know what it is.

After we checked in at our campsite we walked to the trail head for the Mist trail and Calvin pointed out that he will be on this very same John Muir trail next summer.

The Mist trail climbs up 1000 feet to the top of Vernal Falls and then another 900 feet to the top of Nevada Falls.  I opted to hike to a spot where I could see rainbows and the top of Vernal Falls.  Calvin climbed to the top of Nevada Falls, but he didn't have a camera so we only have rainbow pictures.

Amazingly we did manage to reconnect on the way down the hill.

The campground was a still cleaning up from the winter and because it was cold there was serious smoke pollution from the campfires, but it was fun. We saw snow in the shady spots and big stacks of trees everywhere that had been cut down and were waiting for the road to open so they could be hauled out.

After a hearty camp dinner that Calvin chose consisting of a lot of cookies and chips, we joined the rest of the photographers for sunset pictures of Half Dome.  It never fails to impress.

The next morning we took a gentle accessible trail to the bottom of Lower Yosemite Falls.  More rainbows.

This gives you an idea of how big the falls are. Those are really big boulders that came tumbling down.

A pretty spectacular place right in our own back yard...more or less.

On the road in the South Island

I promise this is the last post on New Zealand, but there were a few more cool things I wanted to share.
Calvin handled driving on the left like a pro for the thousands of kilometers we covered. ( We were stopped for road construction here.)

We took another great ferry ride to the south island. We had amazing views as we came into the harbor at Picton.

We stopped for lunch at Nelson which is a pretty resort town on the north coast. I wish we would have had more time to explore there, but I loved their clock tower.

Motueka was the gateway to our kayak tour at Abel Tasman National Park.  There is a pretty little stone church there that is now used as an art center.

After our Milford Track hike we spent an extra day in Queenstown. It sits at the side of 50 mile long Lake Wakatipu. We drove to Glenorchy, a small town at the end of the lake.  This is where Calvin was pulled over for driving too slowly. It was a rare rainy day on our trip.

We also found a pretty stone church on the shore of Lake Tekapo.  It is shared by both the Anglican and Catholic communities.  It boasts no stained glass but has a giant picture window that looks out over the lake toward the glaciers at the far end.

We stayed two nights at Wanaka, which is the gateway to the Mt Aspiring National Park.  There was so much to see in the park that we didn't see much of Wanaka, so we left this gorgeous lake mostly unexplored.

On our way back to the east coast we stopped for a sidewalk lunch in front of an old bank converted to a restaurant.

 Our last major stop was in Dunedin on he Otago peninsula.  It was first settled by Europeans in 1831 and has a history of being a major city in New Zealand. The train station is noted for being one of the most photographed buildings in New Zealand, so we, of course, took a picture.

This is the First Church of Otago. We didn't see a lot of dramatic churches in New Zealand, but this was pretty impressive.

It seemed a little ornate for a Presbyterian church, but I liked it.

On our last day of sight-seeing we drove out to the end of the Otago Peninsula to see some penguins.  There is a small colony of yellow-eyed penguins here that they are trying desperately to save. There are only about 4000 yellow eyed penguins in the world, and all of them live around the south island of New Zealand.  We visited a preserve that is trying to create a safe habitat for the penguins in the wild.  These penguins do not survive in captivity.  Despite the best efforts the numbers continue to decrease. These penguins were in the infirmary for just a short while, hopefully to give them a better chance of survival.

We were able to view the penguins in a semi native habitat by walking around in underground blinds.

We saw a couple swimming in a pond. It didn't look too appealing to me apparently penguins like it.

After the penguins we went to an albatross sanctuary.  We had a nice lunch there, but didn't see any birds.

And finally a nod to Queen Victoria who gets her name and statue everywhere.

And really the last picture: sheep, green grass and a waterfall.  New Zealand: we almost saw everything.