Alexandria October 2012

We had a fun week last week visiting kids and grandkids.  We started in Washington DC where Calvin attended the annual Anesthesia Conference.  While Calvin was slaving away at the conference I got to visit with Sarah, Toby and Clare in Alexandria, although you might think from the pictures that I only visited Clare.

The weather was beautiful and Sarah took some time to do a little gardening.  Their yard really looks good.

I watched Sarah work and took pictures of Clare showing off her walking skills. (Hope this works.)

We took a walk to Kings Street one afternoon.  Clare and Sarah had matching shades.

We tried to walk past the playground without stopping, but Clare would have none of that, so we stopped for a swing break.

I apparently have the attention span of a two year old and stopped to take a picture of some cook bricks.

Clare is a "girly" girl.  She has a gold necklace in her toy box that she puts on first thing before she begins to play each day.

Somebody likes to play dress up.  Could be Clare, but possibly it is Grandma.

97 miles on the Green River

 We took a nine day canoe trip on the Green River.  We paddled about 97 miles and I took pictures at the rate of two per mile.  I won't post all of them.

Here we are at the Ruby Ranch put-in, ready for adventure

We had a heavily loaded canoe, but it still managed to float.

The second day out we paddled through a thunderstorm where the raindrops turned into hailstones that were floating along the river with us.

Calvin looks about the same in the back of the canoe as in the back of a kayak, my favorite shot.

We hiked to a narrow fin that separated a big meandering bend on the river called Bowknot bend.

The not so green river was swirling clouds of silt.  You couldn't see anything in the water.  The fish in the river are kind of ugly, so I didn't mind not seeing them.

We had a room with a view every night.

In the evenings we had a campfire

 and watched the sun set on the red rocks

and the moon rise.

We took time out to view several ruins along the way and explore a few side canyons.

We're all smiling on day 9-the jet boat is here and we're headed back to Moab.  Can you guess who didn't use sunscreen?

On the way home I'm hanging out with a few Archaic Barrier Canyon friends.  You never have enough pictures of rock art.

Moab

We are in Moab doing the final packing for our Green River adventure which begins tomorrow morning, and since I have a few minutes I thought I would share a few pictures of our weekend in Moab.  Peter and Roque joined us in Moab for a weekend of adventure in the Red Rocks.

Saturday morning Calvin, Peter and Roque biked the Slick Rock trail while I went shopping in downtown Moab, where 

kokopelli is king of the gift shops.

In the afternoon we all hiked to a great swimming hole that Roque had visited about a year ago.

Peter and Roque braved the freezing water of the pool...

and even jumped off a cliff into the pool.

This morning the bikers rode the Gemini Bridges trail

while I tracked down some really great petroglyphs.  This is the famous birthing scene found up Kane Creek Canyon. I took dozens of photographs of petroglyphs.  You can find petroglyphs all around Moab. It has been a cool place to visit for millenia.

Cherry Creek Canyon September 6-8

A couple of weeks ago Calvin and Peter took a hike in the Sierras.  I discovered Calvin's pictures hiding in the camera, so although I didn't go on the hike I'll share the views.

 Peter coming down the trail

A nice looking beach

Their tent is snuggled up next to a pine tree about in the center of the picture.

Cherry Creek without much water.

Peter 

For more details talk to Peter or Calvin.

Lake Tahoe Kayak Tour 2012

Last week Calvin and I took an inn to inn kayak tour of Lake Tahoe.  Calvin arranged about 45 miles of kayak touring and places to stay on the west side of the lake.  We have never kayaked on the west side of the lake, so this was all new territory for us.  We started at Commons Beach in Tahoe City.

Commons Beach is a very nice public park with easy kayak access. 

Here we are ready to start toward Kings Beach to our north.

The classic picture of Calvin as we leave Commons Beach behind.  We paddled as far as Carnelian Bay and had lunch at Garwoods with the rest of the boating crowd.

One problem we encountered is that hotels aren't usually labeled on the "lake side" so it was sometimes hard to find them, especially our first night at Mourelatos.  A second problem was that if the hotel doesn't have a restaurant you have to walk to dinner.  Our first night we walked to the Safeway store in Kings Beach and had a take out dinner on the beach.

This is the view from our balcony.

Tuesday we turned back south around Dollar Point, past Tahoe City and on to Sunnyside.

This is looking back on Kings Beach. 

Sunnyside does have it's name on the dock.  It was a very welcome sight as we had struggled against a headwind for the last few miles.

I liked Sunnyside.  It is kind of like the old lodges you find in the National Parks.  We had dinner on the deck that night.

Calvin on the beach at Sunnyside ready to start Wednesday morning.

 We pointed the kayak toward Meeks Bay

You can tell that this is a different day because Calvin is wearing a different shirt.  You can see how smooth the water is in the morning.  Easy paddling.

This is Meeks Bay, it is absolutely gorgeous, but the Washoe tribe runs the concession for the Forest Service and they aren't really interested in attracting any clients to their lodging.

I got up early on Thursday morning to watch the sun rise on Meeks Bay.  I had the beach to myself.

We had just a short paddle on Thursday down to Bliss State Park. We found a nice private beach that we only had to share with..

 a flock of Merganser.

We paddled back to Meeks Bay for a second night where we had a full moon paddle.

We took a lot of pictures trying to get the moonlight on the water.

This is the view from the other end of the kayak.

Friday morning we paddled all the way back to Tahoe City.  We were very happy to have the wind at our backs, and very happy to see Rosie and Jay who met us at Tahoe City and spent the rest of the weekend.  A great end to a fun week.