Lonely roads
Fallon, Nevada to Tropic, Utah
MinkeyMo left Fallon bright and early (for reals this time) and headed off on Route 50, America's loneliest road. It was pretty lonely.
Driving was definitely shared.
Then the gang turned on to Route 21 across southern Utah, which was even lonelier.
But at the end of the day, the travellers were rewarded with the spectacular Red Canyon and a yummy pizza in Tropic.
Yosemite
This weekend, MinkeyMo and his special lady friend got to go to Yosemite with D and G. They saw coyotes and chipmunks. And trees. And snow. Quite spectacular. Rather than even attempting to describe it, MinkeyMo thinks you should just see some pictures.
Giant Sequoia. There is no way you can capture the size of this tree.
El Capitan. It takes a week to climb this.
Vernal Falls
Halfway up the path to Vernal Falls
MinkeyMo and lady friend at Emerald Pool at the top of Vernal Falls
Tunnel View
More from Tunnel View
Hetch Hetchey Dam
More from Hetch Hetchey Dam
Wapoma Falls at Hetch Hetchey Dam
Berkeley Botanic Gardens in Spring
On Sunday MinkeyMo hiked up the hill to check out the Berkeley Botanic Gardens again. This time in the hopes of seeing some more greenery now that the sun was out.
At the entrance the South African wildflowers were definitely in bloom:
South African wildflowers in the Berkeley Botanic Gardens
From there, it was on to the Japanese Garden section to catch up with the newts. They were there, doing their newty things but so was a stripy water snake!
Water snake in the Berkeley Botanic Gardens
MinkeyMo checked out the California poppies that you're not allowed to pick apparently, as they're the State flower. Or something.
MinkeyMo checking out the California poppies
You may be wondering why we haven't seen a lot of MinkeyMo recently. D and G certainly were. While D and G wandered around the gardens, resting frequently due to hills, they managed to unearth the answer!
D and G didn't catch her name, unfortunately. They are pretty socially inept, really. They are looking forward to seeing more of MinkeyMo's special lady friend in the future though.
Redwoods in Muir Woods
Because they had a car, MinkeyMo, D and G were determined to use it! So on the Sunday, they headed over the Richmond bridge to Marin County to check out the coastal redwoods in the Muir Woods National Monument.
Of course, this was the day that the rain really showed up. Still, how bad could it be? There were boardwalks and big trees to keep the rain off, surely?
Luckily D and G had bought fetching ponchos the previous day, so they got to model them for MinkeyMo who was curled up happily in a nice warm, dry camera bag.
Here's a river, with redwoods. And rain.
River and redwoods in the rain
Here are some redwoods and D in her snappy poncho:
Redwoods towering over D
It's hard to get an idea of how big these trees were in a photo, especially one as rubbish as the one above, but believe MinkeyMo when he says there were some HUGE trees.
Seeing that the weather was really miserable and wet and cold and raining, D and G decided to walk four miles through the woods. Naturally. MinkeyMo retired to the dry camera bag and did not come out until much later.
D and G had a wonderful walk, stopping by the shop on the way out to buy new socks to replace the utterly waterlogged ones they were wearing. Luckily they had both brought spare shoes in case, so eventually their feet dried out, even if their boots were soaked.
It was lunchtime. MinkeyMo wanted to explore Sausalito and maybe get a bit to eat. He saw many restaurants and places to stop, but one thing he did not find was parking. So over the Golden Gate Bridge they all went into San Francisco to see what there was there. The estimable Lonely Planet recommended "Za" as a great pizza place (and one G could find in the car as it was on Hyde street.)
What the Lonely Planet forgot to mention was that in San Francisco, in order to park anywhere, you need to reserve a spot about a decade in advance. After absolute ages, G decided the familiar environs of Rockridge might be more rewarding for the by now starving and somewhat fragile expedition. So this time it was the Bay Bridge that they drove over to a great lunch at the reasonable hour of 4 in the afternoon.
Despite the rain, MinkeyMo thought it was absolutely awesome to have been able to see the redwoods and is planning a return during a drier weekend.
Elk-spotting in Point Reyes
MinkeyMo decided it was time for D and G to hire a car over the weekend because the weather had been so great that a walk through the scenic and elk-filled Point Reyes National Seashore would be a great way to say hello to Spring.
Spring disagreed. It rained mostly, with a few patches of sunshine. Thankfully not very much rain fell on the walk through the Tule Elk reserve, so there was a chance to see the California wildflowers starting to show themselves.
Looking over flowers to the Pacific
Then after about half an hour of walking, MinkeyMo got to see the Elk doing their elky thing!
Elk lying about
Elk standing about
They weren't the most exciting to watch, but it was the first time MinkeyMo had ever seen them, so that was pretty neat.
There were more wildflowers just starting to peek out, as well as many Turkey Buzzards flitting about. Luckily the flowers don't move as fast as the Buzzards, so G was able to get a photo of the plantlife, at least.
Wild flowers, hardly moving
MinkeyMo decided that having seen Elk, buzzards, flowers and LBBs (little brown birds) everywhere, it was time to head off to the other end of the park to check out some more locals. This time, it was elephant seals who were putting in their usual Spring appearance.
Elephant seals lying around
There were a lot of seals. Lying around. Not doing anything much. But still... Elephant seals! Cool!
Cambridge, slumming it in Magdalene College
MinkeyMo managed to wangle rooms in Magdalene College in Cambridge for a few days while D and G were visiting. He had a great view of the river Cam:
MinkeyMo checks out the view of the river Cam from his window
The rooms were decked out in all the usual, tables, chairs, lamps, tea and coffee chest that used to be the Pepys family bible box back in the 1600's. You know, the standard rubbish these colleges have lying about.
MinkeyMo checks out the tea and coffee box
There was also a rather nicely carved chair, if a bit old-fashioned, having been created around 1677
MinkeyMo inspects a carved wooden chair from 1677
Of course, the best part of it all was falling out of the front door of Magdalene and directly into The Pickerel.
London! Londinium…
MinkeyMo took a break from the heady delights of California by travelling to London and doing a bit of touristy touristing. He walked around the City for a bit, taking in the river...
The Thames and a bit of the London Eye
... and fought through the school tours to check out Big Ben...
Big Ben. In case you didn't know.
... and then he did a walkabout of Westminster Cathedral, which was really interesting.
Later that evening, after a super-quick but awesome meal at a Persian restaurant MinkeyMo got treated to an evening at the Royal Albert Hall in a private box and all! He even got to hear the 1812 Overture complete with cannon-fire.
MinkeyMo, after the performance, takes in the Royal Albert Hall from his private box
MinkeyMo has decided that he really likes London Town.
A weekend adventure.
This past weekend lucky MinkeyMo went on a travelling adventure! In a car and everything. D and G took him up to Sonoma to see if this Californian wine is all it's cracked up to be.
MinkeyMo got to stay in a great b'n'b. In the Mural room, which actually was covered in murals. But twas very nice nonetheless, and had a great view of the pretty garden.
There was much tasting of wine (getting a chance to taste from the barrel in one place) and walking around Sonoma town square and then drinking of beer in the grumpiest hotel bar ever. So much of fun!
D & G decided to check out Napa Valley the next day, but thought Sonoma was probably nicer, despite what the photo might make you think.
Napa Valley
Sunday started off with lots of lovely windy (as in with lot of bends, not lots of wind!) roads and Turkey vultures and squirrels and trees. Eventually MinkeyMo got to see the Pacific Ocean from the fantastic vantage point of Highway 1 at Point Reyes, where he slowly made his way to the lighthouse through the mist.
MinkeyMo, bowled over at the Pacific.
You can even watch whales at Point Reyes. It was migration time for the Gray Whale. So MinkeyMo was told.
Whale watching at Point Reyes. Nice weather for ducks.
MinkeyMo did get to see some beasties, though.
Beasties!
All in all it was a lovely weekend. Final conclusion: SA wine rocks. And is cheap. Appreciate it while you can.
UC Berkeley Botanic Gardens
Against all expectations (and several weather reports) the sun was still shining today. Marvellous. So MinkeyMo decided to take a stroll to the Botanic Gardens. Well, more of a hike really. Up hills. At least there were some nice lichen-y trees to look at on the way.
In the end, however, it was definitely worth it. What a lovely garden! After getting lost within seconds of starting on the self-guided walk, MinkeyMo found the tropical house and checked out a real Cacao plant. You know, where chocolate comes from:
After leaving the tropical house, MinkeyMo walked all over the gardens, checking out a laurel bush, a Japanese Plume Cedar, many flowering Rhododendrons and Californian Newts! D was chuffed.
Turns out it's Newt breeding season. Here are some Newt eggs. Not good with bacon. Despite bacon being good with everything.
Carrying on with the walk, MinkeyMo was confused by a bunch of monkeypuzzle trees:
That was enough for one day. After finishing the tour through the gardens in the Southern Africa section, MinkeyMo made his way home. Downhill.
SF MOMA
Today MinkeyMo ventured in to SF to check out the very famous and previously elusive Museum Of Modern Art. G was very excited...
What a neat place! Lots of wonderful bits of art were seen and enjoyed, and a whole lot of other stuff merely seen. All agreed that the extremely large gray canvas was just annoying, but the art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres was really quite special.
MinkeyMo liked this one:
After a long hard day of art appreciation, a beer was definitely in order!
