I have been doing some housekeeping in my photo archive this wintry day and ran across these “biker convention” pics that I have yet to publish.  They were taken in the summer of 2009. I think most of these guys are boomer weekend warriors, not the Hell’s Angels variety. As usual, click on any pic to see a larger slideshow… Continue reading California Biking…

Gov. Jerry Brown acted Saturday to increase participation in California elections and help prevent shootings at colleges, approving automatic voter registration and banning concealed weapons on campuses. Source: Jerry Brown OKs automatic voter registration through DMV – LA Times California has always been kind of “out there” for me but they do things that need to be done much before most other States. Where most of the “red” States are doing things to make it harder to vote, leave it up to very blue California to do the opposite. Thinking about it, it just makes sense that if you are … Continue reading Automatic voter registration through DMV

Central California – Garden Basket of America When we visited central California in 2009 I was expecting to see many vegetable fields but not as big as what I found. The picture above is of an artichoke field of probably … Continue reading The Great American Garden Basket…

Cupertino, CA – Apple Computer One of the things that give America the edge in the world is our technological genius and nothing says that like Apple Computer. Given that they are making some major announcements today I thought it … Continue reading Apple Computer…

California is America’s bread basket—or, more accurately, its fruits and vegetables basket. The Golden State produces 95 percent of the country’s celery, half of its bell peppers, 89 percent of its cauliflower, 96 percent of its tomatoes, 95 percent of its garlic, 90 percent of its avocados—and the list goes on. In fact, the state accounts for nearly one-fifth of the entire agricultural output of the U.S. SOURCE: Epic California Drought Could Change the Way We Eat – Reviewed.com Ovens. Lets face it, we are all addicted to California fruits and veggies.  We expect to have our strawberries throughout the … Continue reading Epic California Drought Could Change the Way We Eat

  This land was made for you an me.  Those words were written by Woody Guthrie. He was one of my favorite songwriters. The picture (that is me in the picture) was taken in June 2009 in northern California during our month long trip out west. Continue reading To the Redwood Forests

Here is my synopsis of California as I promised yesterday.  California is indeed a very beautiful State and the weather is great.  The great redwoods in the northern part of the State are awesome along with mile after mile of pristine shoreline. But I think just way too many people have  “discovered” California.  30 million people; wow! After seeing the local news for almost 4 days I have come to a couple of conclusions:  They can’t see the forest for the trees; even those in the northern part of the State :) .  They seem to want to vote on … Continue reading Trip Log – California dreaming….

We started our day with a quick stroll back to Fisherman’s Wharf to see the Aquarium there.  Quick that is considering all the walking we did yesterday (ha).  The aquarium was outstanding.  The first picture above was of some Luner Jellyfish. They looked unreal but they were indeed real.  We then walked through over 100 feet of clear tubes where the SF Bay water was all around us.  It was amazing all the different types of fish and such that they collected there. After the aquarium we checked out of our hotel and headed south to Salinas. That is where … Continue reading Trip Log – Veggies, veggies, veggies (in search of Garlic)

   Today was a restful day as all Sundays should be. We slept in, had breakfast at our Inn and then headed for the wineries. The one we stopped at was the Benzinger Winery.  They are one of the few family winery’s still left. As is usual with farming Corporate wineries are taking over the family ones by leaps and bounds. Benzinger  is what is called biodynamic vineyard.  It is a several steps above being organic. It is a beautiful place that includes obviously grapes but also many flowers (one shown above) and veggies. Of course we got the full tour … Continue reading Trip Log – Sanoma

I am posting this Sunday morning as I was just too lazy to do it last night.  We spent Saturday mostly on the road to grape country.  We stopped in Santa Rosa to get info from the visitors center.  This was the first chance we had to get Statewide info. The people there recommended we go to Sonoma for our vineyard tours so we headed down that way.  For the last 50 miles or so of our traveling, we saw field after field on grapes.  I knew grape country must be big but I didn’t imagine it was as big as … Continue reading Trip Log – Grape Country

I am making this post on Saturday morning, or afternoon for everyone in Indiana.  Yes, we did make it into California yesterday as evidenced by the sign above.  We entered the State on Hwy 101 so it was a rather modest sign to introduce us to the State. We spent most of yesterday going through the redwood forests of northern California. Yes, they are BIG.  Since we were focusing on the trees in these pictures the people (Yvonne and I) are dwarfed in the photos above.  That is me standing below the large vertical tree.   The story around the tree … Continue reading Trip Log – Oh those redwoods are BIG…