Peter's ski videos

This is Peter's ski video from a few weeks ago.  We had blue skies and perfectly groomed runs, just my kind of skiing.  Bur Peter and Calvin needed the added challenge of taking a video while skiing down hill.

Winter 2012

Winter has been hit and miss this year.  We've enjoyed so many beautiful sunny days, but we do get snow now and then.

We got an inch or two of snow on Wednesday morning.

And Calvin happily plowed the driveway for us.

We also get to have Friday Fun Day Ski Days.

Peter has a nifty new camera and takes pictures and videos of us.

Here we are with skis planted firmly beneath us.

Here I am with ski not firmly planted.

Here is Calvin gathering up my lost equipment.

The best part of the day..snack time.

Frog Lake Overlook December 26, 2011

In a good snow year we would be skiing the day after Christmas, but this year hasn't been a good snow year, so the day after Christmas Calvin, Peter and I took a hike to the Frog Lake overlook.  We started at the Donner Pass rest stop and the first thing I did was slip on the ice while leaving the rest stop and hit my head.  Not a great beginning, but things got better after that.  The hike is short, a mile or two, but it was uphill, which is not my favorite direction.

You might think that this is the Frog Lake Overlook, but it is not. This is Calvin's artistic picture of Peter and I walking off the edge of a cliff. (We didn't actually walk off the cliff, and it wasn't really a cliff, more of a swell.)

One of the goals of the trip was to use the GPS to locate the Frog Lake Overlook.  At this point in the hike the GPS indicated it was 13 miles north of us.  The good news is that it was only a few hundred yards up the hill and the even better news is that Calvin figured out the reason all of his GPS readings seemed to be 13 miles off.
 It should be noted for full disclosure that Calvin was the only one who actually hiked all the way to the top of the hill to overlook Frog Lake.

Honduras December 2011

We spent the first two weeks of December in this lovely home in Roatan.  There is a blue tile infinity pool at the right side of the picture and a lovely double kayak half way up the steps.  That pretty much covers what I did for two weeks,  a little lounging by the pool, a little kayaking.  Calvin was more ambitious and did a little diving.  It was just a nice place to hang out for two weeks.

There was a green lizard that shared our space.  He's on the branch.

Here he is sitting in the sun.

And here he is climbing a post.

There were some shore birds that we didn't identify.  No bird books in the house.

A couple more views of the house.

 There was a small resort just across the bay called Marble Hill where we had lunch or dinner a few times.

One day we took a dive trip to the other side of the island.  This is BJ's, a local institution where everyone gathers to gossip. BJ also hosts live jam sessions on weekends.

This is Calvin preparing to dive Calvin's Crack, a famous location on the reef.

We also ventured out one day along a washed out dirt road to have lunch at La Sirena, a highly recommended restaurant.  We were the first people to have lunch there in 3 days.

Our lunch choice was lobster with mashed potatoes or lobster with rice and beans.  Calvin had the rice and beans and I had the potatoes.

It was a clear day, so we ventured to the end of the road and got a great view of several other bay islands.

Not  a bad way to spend a few weeks!

Mono Lake or Friday Fun Day 2

We have often driven past Mono Lake and thought that it would be a fun place to kayak, so when we had spectacular weather Nevada Day weekend Calvin and I decided to take a kayak/fall color trip to the eastern Sierras.  We drove south on Friday afternoon, and although we read that you should never start a kayak trip on Mono Lake in the afternoon because of dangerous winds, we started our kayak trip in the afternoon.

Mono Lake tufa

As it turns out, Mono Lake isn't all that interesting a place to paddle once you have seen the tufa.  We tried paddling toward the island, but it was further than it looked and kind of a slog, so we gave up after a couple of miles and paddled back to shore.

This is the view from the front of the kayak looking toward the island.  It looked like this for a long, long time.

I discovered on a paddling break that if I put the camera on the top of my head pointing backwards it takes a very nice picture of Calvin.  Who needs to frame a shot?

After we finished paddling and started to dry we discovered that we were covered with a pale slippery mud from the lake.  The kayak hasn't been resting under a flock of pigeons, this is Mono Lake splashes.  This may not be a destination we need to kayak twice.

We spent the night at Mammoth Lakes and then visited Convict Lake in the morning.  This is a really pretty alpine lake, but it is heavily used with a walking path all along the perimeter.  This Saturday morning it was swarming with fishermen competing in the last fishing derby of the season and one obligingly took our picture.

I had read in Sunset magazine that this area was a good place to go" leaf peeping" in the Sierra and it probably is a little earlier in October, but most of the leaves were gone by October 29.

In the afternoon we put the boat in at Twin Lake and it was just beautiful.  The water was just like a mirror.

Sadly the wind came up and we decided to be prudent and paddle in.  But it was a beautiful way to end the kayaking season.

Life just doesn't get much better than this.

Friday Fun Day October 22, 2011

Calvin usually does not work on Fridays, so we have instituted Friday Fun days.  We usually kayak in the summer and ski in the winter, but sometimes we do something different.  This Friday we hiked to Eagle Lake on the west shore of Lake Tahoe.  We have lived in Reno for 27 years and this is the first time we have been here.

This is a bridge across the creek.  It is a pretty spot so we took a lot of pictures.

You can't see it in the picture, but the sun was sparkling on the creek behind Calvin.

We made it to the lake and Calvin figured out how to take a delayed picture.

We tried to hike around the lake and tried a few more delayed pictures.

I was looking for some fall color as a background, but the leaves hadn't quite changed.

I almost made it around the lake, but this boulder field defeated me.  Calvin forged on looking for a path through the boulders, but I was happy with view across the lake especially if it meant I didn't have to do any more boulder hopping.

Hope springs eternal...

It is the middle of October.  Usually we have put the garden to bed and Calvin is waxing up his skis by this time of year, but this year we are enjoying a long lingering fall.  We grow lavender at our house because lavender loves poor rocky soil and we have that in abundance.  Lavender needs to be trimmed each year to keep it healthy, so I try to use the trimmings in creative ways.  This is my third attempt at a lavender wreath.  They tend to shed and fall apart and last year birds built a nest in it, but hope springs eternal and I tried it again.  It will look good for a few days at least.

Peter has been our garden "watcher" this year and spotted this surprise.  We have a second crop of raspberries maturing.  There was one that was a brighter red, but Calvin ate it last night.

We still have a bumper crop of tomatoes.  We have had only one cold night so far this year and Peter made a cold frame to protect them, so now they continue to mature in abundance.

I thought that I had picked the last of the summer roses a few weeks ago, but new buds are still opening up.

Our annual geraniums beneath the greenhouse window are still in full bloom and attracting bees.  We try to do our part to prevent hive collapse.

And we have apples this year!  We probably only get an apple crop every three or four years, but this is a fruitful year.  Still, if we had to survive on what grows in our yard we would be hungry this winter.

And last but not least...

Today is Calvin's birthday.  I loved you then and I'll love you forever.  Happy birthday sweetheart.