Bodega Bay to Fort Bragg

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Photography, Travel
Wine Country and Coastal Highway-043
Highway 1 – Pacific Coast Highway

Monday, July 28, 2014

I had no vestiges of my headache. Neither had the wine tasting brought back the sickness from earlier in the day. Laura and I decided to leave the Napa Valley and explore the coast. We drove back up to Calistoga and crossed the mountains over to Santa Rosa. From there we continued on through Sebastopol, then down to the coast and the little town of Bodega.

It had been clear sunshine in Wine Country and across the mountains. We were enjoying the trip with the top back in the convertible. However, as we approached the town we could see clouds of fog gathering along the coast. It looked very ominous.

Wine Country and Coastal Highway-030
Wine Country and Coastal Highway-003

Bodega is a quaint little town. There were some interesting buildings, such as an old church and school. There was quite a bit of activity along the main highway. However, we had a long way to go today, and we didn’t stop for photos. These were shot from the car as we drove.

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From Greenville to San Francisco

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Family, Travel
Greenville to San Francisco
Taking off from Chicago Midway

Saturday July 26, 2014

It was time for another epic road trip. Laura had finished her summer research with her students and I had finished…well, whatever it is I was doing during retirement. We had planned this trip since the beginning of summer, and with my Mom’s passing last week, the need to get away and see different scenery was even more imperative.

The plan was to fly into San Francisco and rent a car. We would spend a couple of days in the San Jose area visiting Laura’s cousins, then drive north along the coast. Eventually we would reach Coos Bay, Oregon, and spend a couple of days with Laura’s Aunt Ellen. We would continue along the coast and up Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, finally reaching Laura’s mom’s place on Samish Island, north of Seattle. We would spend several days there taking care of things around her place, then would fly back from Seattle. The 1200 mile trip would take two weeks.

Pacific Northwest Road Trip

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Funeral for My Mother

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Family
Casket
Joclair Ellenberg Taylor – 1928-2014

Yesterday we held the funeral for my mother. It was a time of grieving, but also of celebration. Now, with both parents gone, our large family feels somewhat adrift. However, we’ve always been very close, and I’m sure we will come to rely on each other even more as the days pass.

I want to express my sincerest thanks for all of the warm greetings and condolences from my friends, family and colleagues. Even if I haven’t had a chance to respond personally, know that I appreciate each one that has reached out to us during this time.

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Solo Oolenoy in a Problematic Boat

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Paddling
Lake Oolenoy Red Emphasis
Red Pungo 140 on Lake Oolenoy

In the fleet of kayaks I have in my yard is one red Wilderness Systems Pungo 140. It’s got a problem, or, several of them, really. First is a question of ownership.  Chip purchased this boat from Confluence five years ago at the Friends and Family sale. Over the course of the years, he traded it to a colleague for another boat. However, the colleague never collected the boat from my yard, and eventually moved to another town. There it has sat for five years. While I often enumerate it with my fleet, I still consider it Chip’s boat.

More importantly, though, is the condition of the boat.  Some of the kayaks at the Confluence sale were factory seconds.  For example, the Pungo 120 I got at the same sale had the webbing for the seat straps sliced.  No biggy, but I had to replace them. 

To all outward appearances the Pungo 140 looks like a great kayak…

Lake Oolenoy-11

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Fourth of July 2014

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Family, Music, Recipes
Canada Day Fireworks
OK, It’s not Fourth of July, but Canada Day Fireworks photo by Ben_Senior

At some point I’m going to stop beginning my posts with “It’s been a crazy week.” It starts sounding like Garrison Keillor’s standard “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.” But…it has been a crazy week, topped off by a holiday weekend.

Chorale Concert

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the collaboration between the Furman Lakeside Concert Band and the Greenville Chorale. It’s of our most popular concerts, certainly the best attended. We had rehearsals Monday night, then Tuesday with the band. The concert was Thursday.

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Garlic Shrimp a la Lazy Goat

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Recipes
Garlic Shrimp a la Lazy Goat
Garlic Shrimp a la Lazy Goat

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, and we’re still not done. I had big plans to post a 1 year review of retirement. That didn’t happen. I had several photo treks I wanted to take that didn’t get taken. It’s been a week of unforeseen circumstances – the death and funeral of an elderly uncle out of town, and now some serious health issues in our family. This is also a concert week for us – the Chorale is performing a Patriotic concert on July 3 by the Furman Lake, so we’ve had evening rehearsals for that, too.

Sometime in the midst of all this craziness we managed to make it to one of our favorite restaurants, The Lazy Goat. We have several favorite dishes, one of which is the garlic shrimp with tomatoes and arugula. we liked it so much that Laura wanted to see if she could reverse engineer the dish and cook it at home. Here’s our first attempt.

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