if you squint real hard you'd see the top of a whale and a puff of spray toward the right side of that picture. there were dolphins, too, but i wasn't fast enough to take pictures of them. doesn't matter, because even if i got nice shots, they still wouldn't do any justice. one of those things that needs to be experienced live.
that's one of the whale watching platforms up on the santa barbara bluffs, officially known as shoreline park. i'd like to call this spot church.
late wednesday afternoon i went for a walk along the water with g and marissa. i didn't bring my camera so i borrowed g's snazzy little canon. i must have taken hundreds of pictures of our excursion. half of them were of this guy.
12 april 06
reminds me of my friend wendall. back in college, well before i knew who he was, i'd find him along the water in montana de oro. he would sit on the bed of his truck strumming his bass guitar. all alone. it was inevitable that i would go introduce myself to him.
friday jg made a surprise trip to sb. even though he threw all my weekend plans out of whack (as opposed to keeping them in whack), it was nice to see him.
hitting the bluffs bright and early saturday morning
saturday afternoon we went for a hike. jg didn't bring any proper shoes but that didn't stop him.
paved trail head aka tunnel road
gate with decorative vandalism
we decided to take the seven falls trail. by we i mean jg because my desire to hike went poof when i saw how the creek was lined with healthy poison oak bushes.
jg flirting with danger
waterfall i think, not very impressive
the trail got impossible right about there so we went back to take the mud path, where the poison oak was just as healthy.
someone lost her cherokees
fast moving newt
hobbit
it was fun to climb over fallen branches and crawl under low canopies. for about a minute. about two thirds of the way in, the trail got real narrow and i promptly gave up. i just couldn't handle all the plants brushing up against me. jg tried to hike ahead but he never made it to the pools. i was so very glad to get back into the open again.
molesting califonia native salvia, a jg favorite
budding salvia bract
we spent the rest of saturday lounging around, happy to have escaped the poison oak forest relatively unscathed.
jg hand in hand with independent+margarita
we spent sunday, you may very well guess, cleaning. mostly we tidied up the yard, which had been neglected for years.
leaf blowing, another use for the shop vac
after lunch, i talked jg into going up to franceschi park, a place i couldn't manage to find on my own. i like that it has a fairly comprehensive outlook of santa barbara.
fran-ches-ski
blind man's lens
what a terrific afternoon, warm, sunny and clear. made for a completely pleasant weekend. and a decent panorama.
isn't it fantastic? that's donner lake seen from the rental cabin where jg and i stayed this past saturday. we spent the entire afternoon in the backyard basking in the views.
sunday morning we went to the sugar bowl, my first time snowboarding this season. the weather was warm and beautiful until around 1:30, when it began hailing.
goofy outfit for goofy foot
schmeebird at rest
we were both drenched by the sleet around three so we called it a day. sadly, i had only made eleven runs. that's it for 2006.
in the parking lot someone backed his car over his board. i didn't get a shot of it but i did upload more pictures from the weekend on to flickr. hopefully i'll come up with a better snowboarding photo essay next year.
