California Adventures (part 3)

In case you didn't see, I posted last night, so skip down and start there if you haven't read the post yet... :)

Anyway, moving right along, we had a great Labor Day weekend and headed full-speed into last week.  I started the clinical immersion part of my fellowship, so I spent alot of time in the Stanford hospital and clinics learning about medical care (specifically in rheumatology) and looking for "needs".  It was incredibly eye-opening and didn't take long to come up with quite an extensive list of 'needs" that were identified.  Bridget had a great week of nannying and also found some tutoring clients!  So, she's starting up with them this week.  She's pretty excited about that, to say the least. :)

Anyway, back to last week.  We went back to the volleyball gymnasium for another match.  This time Stanford played Penn State, which had the longest win streak in NCAA history until last season.  And Stanford lost to Penn State in the national championship game last year, so it was a rematch of near-epic proportions.  And the match was intense!  Every point was a battle, literally.  There were times when two, three, even four players ended up sprawled on the floor.  One player almost jumped into the stands to save a ball!  Needless to say, it was an extremely entertaining match to watch.  And Stanford pulled out the win in the end!  They won 3-1 (Stanford won 3 of the "sets" and Penn State won one).  The whole arena was going crazy toward the end.  It was a blast.  And one of our friends whom we met last week joined us, so it was even more fun with her there.

After the game, we all came back to our apartment and had dinner and played Wii for awhile.  I realized that we hadn't even plugged in our TV yet, so I had to run all the cords and setup the Wii sensor bar and all.  And the craziest part is that we haven't missed watching TV at all.  I had missed playing Wii before, but never had the time/energy to hook it up... :)  Anyway, it was alot of fun.  Definitely a good Friday night. :)

Saturday morning came pretty early, and Bridget and I decided to go to Muir Woods, which is a national park just north of San Francisco (across the bay).  So, we drove up to Sausalito (the first city north of the Golden Gate Bridge) and took a shuttle to the woods.  We checked the prices ahead of time and decided to get an annual pass to all of the National Parks in the country.  We'll for sure make it to Yosemite, Redwood, and hopefully Grand Canyon and some of the parks in Utah, so it will definitely pay for itself pretty quickly.  :)  And now we have more impetus to get out and explore on the weekends.  :)

So, Muir Woods was a 300-acre donation to the State of California by a wealthy family back in like 1906.  The family wanted to preserve some of the massive redwoods before they were all cut down.  So, there are some HUGE trees.  Not quite as big as some of the Sequoia trees (like the one with a road through the middle of it), but really big nonetheless.  We hiked for about 6-7 miles and had a nice picnic lunch up on top of a ridge.  Unlike last weekend when it was hot and we hiked in shorts and t-shirts, we wore pants and long sleeves.  The cool breeze off the ocean kept the temp pretty low.  Which was refreshing in a way too.  But it was a really cool hike.  Here are some pictrues.

Bridget next to a slice from the trunk of a 1,000 year old redwood.  Yep, someone counted the rings and marked world evens that occurred during the tree's lifetime (that's the white rings and markers).

Me by a big tree

Bridget's turn by a big tree

The view toward the tops of the trees

After hanging out in Muir woods for awhile, we took the shuttle back to Sausalito and drove around a pic and took some pictures of the city and bay area.  It was a really pretty area, with the fog coming from the West, but never making it far enough to obscure the sun for most of the city.  And there were a ton of sailboats on the water (most were in marinas, but it was still impressive).

The hills makes for alot of "ocean-view" houses :)

A rather large sailboat on the water (it's a bad angle, so just trust me on the size part...)

The fog threatening to take over, but never quite making it...

We then drove to Golden Gate Bridge Recreational Area, or something like that.  We drove up this winding road that had some neat spots to take pictures of the bridge and surrounding area.  Unfortunately, the fog was pretty thick, so none of the pictures were super clear.  But we still managed to get some decent ones.  Also, the road led to an unfinished military gunnery base.  During WWII, the top of this hill was going to house some huge artillery to defend against attack from the Pacific.  The guns could shoot 2,100 lb shells around 27 miles (yeah, that's miles) out to sea.  The guns themselves weighed nearly 1,000,000 lb!  Unfortunately, the guns weren't there for us to see, but there were a few walking trails and cement structures.  When we walked over to the west side of the ridge, the wind was blowing like crazy and the fog was flying up and over the ridge.  We took a video since pictures can't really communicate the effect quite as well...

And here are some pictures we took too...

Lots of moss everywhere due to the moist air

Tunnel through the ridge.  Goes from pavement and sand on one side to trees and green on the other...

A view of the bridge from one of the lookout points...

Since that wasn't enough excitement yet, we drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge (still having trouble not adding a "t" to ever time I type "Bridge"...) and went to Baker Beach.  It's a pretty famous beach with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was foggy (noticing a trend yet...?), but you could definitely still make it out.  The waves were coming in pretty well too, but were crashing too close to the shore.  Anyway, we didn't bring a blanket or anything to hang out on the beach for awhile, so we didn't hang out for too long.  But we did manage to get a picture (of course!). :)

Us at Baker Beach

After that, Bridget wanted to do the "Lands End" hike, which is a trail that goes around the far northwestern part of San Francisco.  There is a nice park there with a trail around it.  It's actually a couple miles from one end to the other, so not a little park.  We stopped a few times along the route to enjoy the scenery and snap some pictures.  Bridget got a really nice panorama shot (see below).

Really cool shot of the beach and bridge

Panorama from the trail (definitely click on this one to make it larger)

One last shot of us.  It was pretty chilly so Bridget really cinched down her hood... :)

So, by this point, it was getting pretty late.  So, we thought about eating in San Francisco, but decided to head home and eat some of the leftovers we've been saving up.  We have quite the stockpile, despite my diligence in eating lots of everything... :)  So, it was a busy, but incredibly fun day. :)

This morning (Sunday), we met some friends from church at a cafe for breakfast and then went to church.  After that, we came back and chilled before Bridget had to go nanny.  She normally has to nanny Saturday nights, but they moved it to Sunday afternoon this weekend, which worked out well for our "adventure day" yesterday.  :)

So, that's about all for now.  We'll keep doing our best to lead entertaining lives to blog about!  :)

~ Jeremy

California Adventures (part 2)

So, I didn't get a chance to post last week, and for that I am truly sorry.  So, here's what should have been posted last week...

So, after another long week, my "boot camp" is over.  We had our last presentation on Thursday morning and officially had our last video lecture on Friday.  All of the fellows celebrated by getting pizza for lunch.  And since I like eating pizza and, well, pretty much everything else, I was pretty excited about the idea.  So, someone decided what kinds of pizzas to order, and we got three larges for us and some of the admins to share.  When the bill came with the pizzas and we split it up, I nearly passed out!  Each pizza ended up being $30!  Now, I'm used to getting the frozen pizzas from the grocery store when they're on sale for like 3 for $10.  And maybe getting some order-out pizza for $7-$10 each if it's a special occasion.  So, I had trouble coughing (literally) up my share of the bill.  But I contributed my portion and was pretty excited to try some $30 pizza.  Have you had $30 pizza before?  Neither had I.  And, guess what?  It tastes alot like $10 pizza.  Quite unfortunately, I would add.  So, despite the bummer of a really expensive lunch, we still finished boot camp and my teammates and I had a meeting on Friday afternoon with a doctor, which was great.  So, a good day overall and a good week for sure. :)

Moving right along with the weekend, Bridget and I didn't really have any plans for Labor Day weekend as of Friday afternoon.  That didn't last long...  By the time Monday night rolled around, we were pretty exhausted from a great long weekend of activity.  Which I shall proceed to expound upon below...

So, after my meeting on Friday afternoon, Bridget picked me up from campus and we had dinner with another couple that just moved to the area.  We were introduced by a mutual friend, so we technically weren't "friends" yet, but now we definitely are. :)  There is a nice pasta place in downtown Palo Alto, so the four of us met there and had a great time getting to know one another.  After dinner we kept chatting on the sidewalk and ended up hanging out for another hour or two at a coffee and gelato shop down the street.  Great times. :)  We ended up making plans to go hiking together on Monday morning, so Bridget and I had to figure out where to take them on their first hike in the area. :)

Saturday morning started with a rousing game of tennis with one of my Biodesign colleagues and her husband.  Bridget and I have definitely improved and, by the time we finished up, I could pretty much return most of the balls hit my way.  I realize that is a pretty vital skill to have, but it's amazing how hard it is to hit that dumb little yellow ball into what seems like a really small square on the other side of the court.  Oh, yeah, and there's a net in the way.  Just to make it more difficult!?!  Who comes up with these games anyway?  Well, regardless, I would bump my skill level from "None" to "I wouldn't lend you my racket".  So, I still have a long way to go, but Bridget and I have had fun practicing together. :)

After tennis, Bridget and I went to the Stanford football game.  We got tickets from another Biodesign fellow who wasn't going to be able to use his tickets.  So, we go to watch the game and hang out with my friend's parents, who have the adjacent seats.  It wasn't much of a game (Stanford won like 57-3), but it was fun to be in a stadium and hang out. 

Sunny and hot at the football game

Since the football was pretty one-sided, Bridget and I left in the 3rd quarter and went to the Stanford women's volleyball game.  They were playing Duke as a part of the Stanford Invitational tournament.  Since I'm a student, I get into all sporting events for free!  Bridget also got a "Spouse Card", so she can get in free too!  So, we skipped all of the lines at the ticket window and just walked right in.  Fantastic.  The match was fun.  Division 1 volleyball is intense!  I had been to quite a few matches back at Purdue and always like the intensity that gets crammed into each "bump-set-spike".  Which is more like "bump-set-KABOOM" for most of the players.  I certainly give the defense credit for intentionally moving INTO harm's way to try to block the cannonball coming over the net.  Anyway, Stanford was 2nd in the nation last year and has players that have gone on to play on the US national (and I think olympic) team.  So, definitely high caliber athletes to say the very least.

Volleyball time!

After the volleyball match, we went home and decided to head to early service for church and then go to Santa Cruz beach.  So, that is exactly what we did.  We made it to church at 8am for the traditional service (with an organ and choir and all).  It was a little different than the other services we've been to, but I liked it.

After church, we headed straight for Santa Cruz.  It's about 1.5 hours southwest of Palo Alto, so we made it just in time for lunch (which was about 11am, but I was hungry...).  And the waves were massive!  A good 6ft tall at least!  It sounded like thunder everytime the next set of waves crashed onto the sandy beach.  And every so often, a wave would hit the beach straight-on and the entire coast would erupt at the same time.  It was amazing.  There weren't any surfers out, unfortunately, but I was still mesmerized... :)  For awhile at least.  After eating lunch and enjoying the breeze and wave concert for awhile, I decided to take a nap.   Now, it had been cloudy all morning, which isn't unusual for Santa Cruz (or most of the coast, from what we're told).  Also, Bridget was reading at the time, so I laid down behind her so what little sun made it through the fog was blocked by her back.  It was actually quite nice.  However, when I awoke 3 hours later, the fog was gone and Bridget had moved; exposing half of my face to the blazing sun.  Since I was asleep, I had no clue how long the sun had been out, but Bridget did say "Yeah, I thought of covering your face with your hat, but I didn't."  So, I wasn't in pain (yet), so we hung out for a little bit longer (with my face shielded with my hat, mind you).

Us, pre-sunburn

The beach from up on the road

Pretty self-explanatory... :)

Looking down the beach (south)

Then we decided to drive up Highway 1 and check out Half Moon Bay, which is another pretty famous beach town.  It was pretty chilly and cloudy there, so we grabbed a coffee and sat by the beach and watched some lame surfers try to surf.  Well, they probably weren't lame, but they seemed lame to me because there were a ton of huge waves they just let pass by.  So, once I learn how to surf, I may need to change that statement... :)

But after coffee, we sat in traffic for awhile trying to get home.  There is one highway that goes over the ridge from the ocean to the south bay area (Palo Alto area).  So, it took about twice as long as it normally does, but oh well.  We made it safe and sound.  When we got back, I could feel my face starting to burn.  When I took a detailed look in a mirror, I could see a definite line down the center of my face.  It was like two-face from Batman.  I joked with Bridget that she did it on purpose, and she said that if she had wanted to be mean, she would have made a smiley face with sunscreen.  Good point, I thought... :)  So, I started the usual aloe lotion treatment, but wasn't very optimistic.

The next morning, we met up with our friends and went on a nice 3-4 hour hike up on the ridge between Palo Alto and ocean.  We hiked above the cloud line and could see the clouds over the bay.  It was really cool.  And when we started, the valley below us was filled with clouds too.  Looked like marshmallow fluff. :)

Panorama of the bay (you'll definitely want to click on this one to make it bigger)

The marshmallow valley :)

It was quite a nice hike.  Since the clouds were beneath us, we had more direct sunlight (I put on lots of sunscreen and I wore my hat) and it was hot.  Like really hot.  But we survived. :)  We drank all of our water but didn't end dehydrated or anything.  And we all had a blast!

Post-hike pic

After hiking, our friends invited us to join them at a pool party with a church group they are connected with.   So, of course we went. :)  We whipped up some salad at their place then went over to their friend's apartment complex and hung out.  It was fun meeting a bunch of new, cool people, as it always is. :)  We spent pretty much all afternoon there and grilled out.  Definitely some really good food. :)  After that, we were pretty much partied-out, as you can surely imagine.  So, we came home and crashed to have a hope of keeping up with life come Tuesday... :)

So, I'll try my best to post again tomorrow to get caught up.  But this blogging stuff takes awhile, so no promises! :)

~ Jeremy