1st week of work

I survived my first week at my new job!  And I have decided to give it another week. Honestly it was harder that I expected and I thought it would be really hard!  I had an incredibly warm welcome from the folks I knew there already and from my new team.   I hope this will be my new work home for many years.  

Fremont Older

Did a hike with our Sunday Hiking Club at Fremont Older - a place I have never been.  It was an awesome trail with stunning views of the valley.  Cousin Lisa joined us.

Hops and her coworkers

These are all of Hops’ coworkers!  Clockwise starting with Hops, Maya, Hank, Amber and Oreo. Good dogs!

Cherry Boondoggle

We decided to do a winter boondoggle out to Cherry to see what we could see!  The first thing we see is a water plane tootling around the lake.  It floated around for awhile and then took off!

Jim spent some time flying the drone while G and I hiked around with the dogs.  Then we had a little picnic and soaked up the sun.

Cottonwood road to Sonora was completely covered with snow

I wanted a new rock for the front yard, so we went on a hunt!  We found this cool piece of broken granite with red coloring.

This is one of the hardest hit areas from the Rim Fire - you can still see how completely devastated it is almost 6 years later.

We stopped at the river to do some more drone flying.  It will be cool to see the footage because he flew it way up the river.

This was an interesting find - at Early Intake there was a pile of old scrap.  We figured it was for some old pully or flume system.  I wonder where it came from.

All in all, a good boondoggle!

Ruh Roh

Just was we were getting ready to leave the cabin to come home, I noticed a drip coming from the faucet to the washing machine.  Ruh Roh!

I went out to the driveway to get G, who was already loaded up and we went to investigate further.

We pulled out the washer and dryer and found that there had been a slow leak for some time.   So we shut off the water to the house, drained the water from the pipes and left a bucket under the faucet - just in case.  Glad I did one last check before we left!

Puffy Faced Weener

Looks like Ahi had another allergic reaction to something.  She threw up at 2 am and then at 8:30 am she looked like this!  We quickly started benadryl but it continued to get worse until it finally started to subside around 2 pm.  At about 1 pm she got a new dime sized bump on the top of her head!  A hive???

Last time we attributed it to a tick bite but this time we couldnt find any ticks although we had been hiking ealier in the week and we had picked some ticks off of Hops.

Look at the swelling on the top of her snoot!  Looks like a beak.

San Francisco Staycation

Succulent crab - I want one in my front yard!

The day after my last day of work at Yahoo G and I took a short trip to SF.  We went to Alcatraz, rented bikes and rode them across the Golden Gate Bridge, saw Beach Blanket Babylon and wandered around Chinatown.

We got dessert at Ghiradelli!

Alcatraz

We really enjoyed the Alcatraz tour.  We happened upon a talk by a Ranger about the first 3 escape attempts and loved listening to the details and thinking about what it must have been like out there.

Alcatraz

We stayed at the Argonaut Hotel and it was very nice, very comfortable and a really convenient location.   In fact, we walked everywhere except to the train station.

Speaking of the train, we took the train up to the city and had to get off early and take a "bus bridge" the rest of the way because they were working on the tracks.  That was an adventure in itself because we sat across from a young gal who talked really loud on her cell phone the whole trip and talked about "hooking up", setting up her friend with a nice Christian boy and porn!  The bus was packed with people and she flapped her gums the whole time for everyone to hear!

Found a new yummy candy - gummy pineapples

Chrissy Field

Coit Tower

We really enjoyed Beach Blanket Babylon - it had long been on my bucket list and I am really glad we made the time to see it.  I will definitely go back in a couple of years.

Overall it was a great staycation in a city that is so close but that we don't usually make the time to see.

Tabletop

 We did one of my fav hikes today - Tabletop Mountain - to see the wildflowers.  It did not disappoint!

Yosemite

We went to Yosemite on a beautiful Monday and there was almost no one there.  We walked to Yosemite Falls, checked out the Yosemite Cemetery and walked out to Happy Isle.  We saw the devastation in a Curry Village caused by this winter’s storms.  It was crazy to see how many trees were down and how much damage there was.  It must have been frightening to be there during the storms.

Yosemite Falls

Our travel companions

This was the trip where Ahi thought I stepped on her so she attacked my leg!  Then she was super sensitive the rest of the day and kept thinking she was being attacked.  So she attacked Hops when she thought Hops stepped on her too!  Crazy weener!

So many trees down - BIG trees!

Crushed housekeeping tents

So much water coming off the mountains - this is the road to Happy Isle