Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park

This weekend we drove up to the northeast corner of California to check out the volcanic landscape at Ahjumawi State Park. On the south side of the water it's private land so the only access to the park (the red lava-covered part in the picture) is by boat. A perfect chance to bring Thistle out of the garage.

We found her a nice grassy bed for two nights.

Our camp was near the Ja-She Spring, supposedly the largest in N. America or something like that. Fed by groundwater and snowmelt from 50 miles away, the water seeps through the porous lava rock and pops out here.

We experimented with chemical-free bug deterrent methods. How do you like my head net?

On the non-rainy day we hiked out to find the volcano action. Check out the lava tubes and spatter cone! It was an eery, dry, black and red landscape.

It was pretty rainy our last night and morning so we headed out early and found breakfast at a friendly local place instead of eating wet oatmeal. The new dry bag/portage pack, waterproof map case, and water bag were a hit! Boating and camping in style!



One last stop on the way home: Burney Falls. Apparently Teddy Roosevelt called it the eighth wonder of the world. Hmmm.... The water pours over the top and also comes right out of the rock face all the way down since it's porous lava rock. Pretty cool.

Fun on the Patio

This jasmine is actually on the front of the house. It really smells good right now, I'll have to leave the windows open so we can get a whiff inside. The picture's a little fuzzy.

This plant claimed to be an annual but I've been torturing it for years! Scott thinks I should put it out of its misery but I'll keep anything that makes flowers.

Same with the plant in the center below. The flowers get shaggier-looking each year. These sweet peas have yet to deliver.

Here's the big blooming blob of sweet peas. I like how they look messy. They don't really climb or attach to the lattice stuff. Those tendril things are fakers!

Polka Dot Quilt

I meant to spend just the morning of today (the first day of my Spring Break) finishing up the last few dots and getting the border on my quilt top, but I ran into some obstacles [#1, Why did I sew that piece on backwards? #2, Where is my seam ripper? etc...] so it took all day.


Now I'm putting it away until after break since I can add the dots that go in the white stripe one or two at a time on school nights. I've got other things on my vacation agenda! strawberry jam, cleaning out my closet, shopping, playing with the plants on the patio, lots of grading...

We estimated that I have done about 12,000 applique stitches so far on this top. I think there are 22 more dots in the border and we assumed 100 stitches per dot - YOU do the math.

ps: about the sweet peas in the previous post - notice that all the other pots on the table that don't contain spiked plants or other squirrel defense (chicken wire) are empty and sad. And the chives I planted in the sweet pea pot last year seem to have decided to wait until now to grow. More evidence of the gray thumb.

pps: I wish the squirrels would eat the snails instead of both of them eating my plants.

Gray Thumb

There's no way I can claim to have a green thumb, in fact I'm probably closer to the black thumb. But look! I grew some sweet peas from seed and they actually have flowers now. We've been lucky with rain - maybe that's what did it.

I've got a much bigger bunch of them in another container but I'm waiting for them to flower to show them off :)

L.A. Marathon

Two really tired guys!

Scott and our friend Nate and Nate's dad Jerry ran the L.A. Marathon March 21st. Even though they're "slowing down" these days, I think they're all quite impressive. I was pretty proud to see their names printed amongst the top men in the L.A. Times the next day. Scott and Nate were the 26th and 27th men overall. Not PRs, but respectable for such busy guys. Jerry finished in the top half in his first marathon ever! Way to go!

The last 400m!!

The traffic was INSANE, especially on race morning. People were getting out of their cars and running down the freeway to get to the start at Dodger's Stadium because there were so many people getting dropped off. Luckily Scott and I had scoped out the situation the day before and snuck in no problem through the back way. The race start was delayed because of the traffic jam!

We met up with some U of I friends and had lunch and dinner after the race - that was a treat! And the highlight of the driving portion was coming down from Fort Tejon Pass on I-5 on our way home. As we descended into the Central Valley the view through the windshield was nothing but purple wildflowers. It was like driving into a sea of purple - it was so cool. Too bad the camera was in the trunk. There were lots of purple, white, yellow, and orange patches all the way along. I would say that spring is the best time to take I-5 between L.A. and San Francisco if you MUST do that drive. UGH.

Shrinkage

Woo hoo! Done with all 20 squares!

Unfortunately my quilt will end up smaller than planned, but I don't want to make any more plates so I'm moving on. I smartened up and started cutting my background squares larger than necessary too late. I cut my first few squares to 12.5" before appliqueing and of course now they're too small. To make all the squares the same when I was squaring them up I've had to cut them to 12", so 11.5" finished. I'll have to remember that for next time. After adding my first 3 in-between polka dots I think it still looks good.

9 more dots to go and then some half- and quarter-dots along the edges, then the border.... then the quilting... dun dun dunnnnn....

No school today - better take advantage and get some less-fun grading done.

Ano Nuevo

You can reserve a spot on a guided walk at Ano Nuevo State Reserve, north of Santa Cruz, during Elephant Seal breeding season to get up close and personal with the action. Without a guide you're not allowed in. The only opening we could find was early this Saturday so we went! It's near the end of the season, so there wasn't too much "action" happening, which was just fine with me :)


The abandoned lighthouse keeper's house in the background is on an island that has broken away from the coast only in the past few hundred years. Now it's infested with seals and sea lions.


This "weaner" was checking us out between yawns and belches. These babies are left behind by the adults to grow big enough to head out to sea on their own.

Some others were testing out their swimming skills in a pond in the dunes, and we even saw one little guy push another little guy into a ditch where they both floundered for a while before climbing out. That was really funny.

Here's a harem with a big male (check out his snout!) in the middle and some females feeding their babies. The lucky lady on the left has a GPS device glued to the top of her head and a number died into her fur (they say it's Clairol). You can see both if you zoom in on the photo.

We also caught a quick glimpse of two big males facing off. Scary! We had seen a similar scene further south, closer to San Simeon another year at some random beach beside Route 1. Ano Nuevo is much better protected from people and has facilities and information.

The walk was fun and interesting - I'd definitely recommend it if you can get a reservation. Our docent knew quite a lot and clearly cared a lot about these cool creatures.