Dead grass and live critters

Went on the Stanford Dish Walk with a friend.  I have never seen it so dry: The grass isn't just dead; it's missing.  You're actually seeing the ground in places.  And they've tilled the ground in a large section for an uber-fire break.  Usually they just mow it, but it's such a tinder box that they've actually tilled it.  The trees look really unhappy too.  We saw lots of critters, though.  An infinite number of squirrels, a blue jay, blue birds, deer, a lizard, and something that must be a tarantula or a close friend.  Not my favorite critter.

We've got rain scheduled for Halloween - and we need it!

Before and after

Doing some landscaping work: After 50+ years the grass and trees in my model railroad have died.  Actually, the color faded in the sun, but the effect is the same, so I'm redoing the landscape.  The residents seen happy with the effects, at least the ones I haven't accidentally knocked over, but a little white glue goes a long way.

Eclipse!

Made by poking holes in a piece of paper and projecting the shadows onto the back of a notebook.  Which is cool.

Quick hikes

There's a little park that's walking distance from my house that's up the hill and is a quick getaway.  Once you go up the hill it's this beautiful silence with only the birds and the wind and everything else is far away.

Clouds mean sunset

Been a while since we've had real sunset action.  Actually rained a little, or maybe a cloud just sank.  Either way, it was quite nice!

California fall

Half Moon Bay in the morning

Took a trip over to Half Moon Bay in the Pony, and this time in the morning!  Carmen, who is normally not functional until noon, wanted to be on the road by about 8:30 since there's only one road over there and it gets crowded, and with pumpkin season in full swing and pumpkin events on the way, it's even worse.  So we were indeed on the road before 9am.  It was a beautiful morning and we had almost no traffic (although the sun was in an odd spot - it was in the east).

We went to our normal beach on Poplar and there were some really fantastic waves crashing.

By about 10:30 we were starving and headed into town to Sam's Chowder House for some clam chowder.  There's a great view from the restaurant of the water and we could see a whole herd of surfers trying to catch waves.

After lunch we went for a short walk down toward the water and it was crazy hot - we did not expect this near the ocean and in mid-October!  We enjoyed watching the waves crash for a while, and Carmen displayed her super powers:

but were baking fairly quickly so we headed back - and the traffic coming in to town was backed up to I-280, so we done right coming over early.

We got home just before 2pm - and I was asleep on the sofa in no time!

Pumpkins

There's a place near my house that's set up for Halloween - inflatable bounce houses for the kids and tons of pumpkins.  I went over to sketch some pumpkins, and I'd never really noticed how different the stems are before!  So here's a little photo study of pumpkin stems (along with my sketch).

Do they know their fates?  Are they proud?  Excited?  Scared?

Montreal and home

Pulling in to Montreal early Saturday morning was quite a sight.  We pulled alongside the city for a while just as the sun was coming up and got the beautiful dawn light where the sky is inky and the city lights are on.

We pulled in to dock around the time breakfast arrived.  We could look across the water and see a freight train going by with dozens of yellow m&m cars!  There was also the one orange tree across the way.  Fall!

My flight wasn't until early afternoon, so I took a half-day tour (it's either that or hang out with your luggage).  It was a bus tour with local commentary, including more than a few comments about the amount of construction: "The orange cone festival" was what she called it, and we had to improvise our route a few times around it.  The city apparently has over 1,000 km of bike paths!  Yay!  They also spend $70 million each year to get the snow and ice off the roads, so I'm thinking those paths are seasonal.

There's a huge cemetery with 2 million residents.  We didn't get to go through it but we did drive by it a few times and it looks really cool.

We did go through the World's Fair site and see the USA dome which is also really cool.

We also stopped at a park and saw a few red leaves.

And at an overlook where you got a view of the city, with the Olympic Stadium sticking up in the background.

Montreal has an entire underground city with five levels of shops and businesses.  Makes sense when you think about the winters.  We visited a church that they had to put up on stilts when they were excavating the city - really amazing architecture and stained glass.

By  noon I was at the airport with my trusty duffle bag.  Customs was empty!  I felt as though I was in the wrong place.  I grab lunch at the steakhouse and chill waiting for my flight.  There are these wild chairs made of faux leather looking out the window, which has a million spiders in it catching all the little guys who get blown into the window by the jet blast.  My first flight is a puddle jump to New Jersey, and I am in the last row between the engine and the lavatory.

Descending into New Jersey (after a brief tour of the clouds) I spot occasional red and orange trees mixed in with all the green, and then we get a nice view of Manhattan across the water as we land.  I have to change planes and have enough time to take the transfer shuttle to the other gates, grab a Dunkin' Donut (gotta do it) and a sandwich (really need that) before hoping onto the next flight.  Thankfully it's half empty so I have room to breath, and after enjoying some cool scenery of the sunset on the clouds, I fall dead asleep for several hours.

When I woke up, the cabin lights were off (most of the plane was sleeping) so you could see the stars outside, and down below - a thunderstorm!  Really very cool to see the clouds lighting up with the stars overhead.  We touched down at 8:30 pm, and this time may bag came with me.

I may not have gotten much fall color, but we had a wonderful time anyway.

Quebec

Quebec is a city filled with steeples and masts.  The churches have these tall steeples, and I think one of the reasons for all of the sharp roofs is so the snow slides off.  No snow when we were there, but it sure was cold in the morning - 28!  Yowza!  It's a great sketching city - lots of cool colorful buildings and cobblestone roads.

And also cafes with outdoor seating so you can sit outside and do the sketching.  We found an antique store with the usual collection of goodies in the window: A globe, an old camera, and eagle, rotary phone... and just down the road was a cool statue like the prow of a ship and a fountain that was brickwork in waves.  We also found a coffee shop with hot chocolate and really good banana bread and gelato.

We took the funicular to the upper city where there's a fantastic view of the world down below.  There were some interesting statues up there and a busker killing every song he sang (I did not buy one of his CDs).  After exploring and drawing a bit, we took the trip back down and did a little quick shopping and grabbed a bite (Vietnamese Thai food) before finding our way back to the ship.  We had a great time just wandering the town and sketching.

This was the night when we went under a couple of low bridges just before sunset.  It was damn cold up top but plenty of people went up since we were going to clear with only about six inches to spare.

Whew!  We made it!  Then ran back inside to warm up.