Sea Glass

I know that I keep talking about finding sea glass, and we thought we'd show you some of the glass that we have found. Sea glass started life as some glass object, that somehow ended up in the sea, broke up into lots of pieces, and has been tumbled around in the waves and sand until it gets smooth and polished.

The most common colors of sea glass are brown and green, which clearly started life as a beer bottle! White, which you can't see clearly in the picture are the next more common. We've been finding some light blue glass down at the reserve. Really, really rare is blue glass. Lee has found most of the few blue pieces we have - I think I've found only one or two.

The pieces below were all found at Grey Whale cove in Pacifica. That beach seems to be really good for glass. We were there a few weeks ago and as I watched, the sea delivered a large green piece of glass onto the sand, which I snatched! The glass found there tends to be larger, too. Usually the pieces of glass we find are quite small.

It's great fun to search for and find sea glass, and yes, I'm easily amused! The white glass are "diamonds", the green, "emeralds", the brown are "topaz", and so on!

We find and are able to take sea glass at the Reserve, as glass is considered refuse there! : )

There is some beautiful jewelery made from sea glass, which is something that I may try in the future. In the meantime, it's all about the hunt!

I someday hope to find a piece of red or pink, and a marble! Tumbled, ancient marbles are sometimes found - I think that would be a hoot! So, the next time you're walking on the beach, keep your eyes open for sea glass! : )

Tuesday/Wednesday Activities

After our hike, we had a few things to do - we decided to clear out the living room! We carried both the sofa and love seat out, and put them in the garage. That was quite a feat! Following that was a good cleaning of floors, windows, etc.!

And then the living room was all empty and hollow!! Looks much bigger, doesn't it?

And why did we go to all this immense effort? Well, to make way for our new living room furniture, which was delivered this morning at 9:00 am! Two weeks ago, we visited the Sofa Outlet in San Mateo, as our old sofa was getting pretty soft and squishy. We sat on lots and lots of sofas, until we found a style we liked. Then we looked at 1000's of fabric swatches and chose one for the sofa. We found chairs that we liked as well, and chose coordinating fabric for those. They then build the furniture, and deliver it within two weeks!

Instead of the love seat, we now have two bucket swivel chairs! They look kinda gray in this picture, but they are actually a lovely brown color.

And here is the sofa, that is also a queen-size sleeper, with a deluxe mattress! We now have beds for 6, so come on over!

Very comfy sofa! And the room seems bigger and lighter as well, as the old furniture was pretty dark, and had a more over-stuffed profile. We love them, and love the new look of our living room! Anyone want a sofa and love seat?

And in addition to our new furniture, Lee is now the proud owner of a Mac Book Pro!! He's been wanting one for years, and finally decided to close out his Roth IRA, which had lost 75% of it's principal, and turn the remainder into a Mac! Good choice, don't you think? He's a happy camper!

Purisima Creek Trail

Tuesday morning we had appointments to get our hair cut, and then afterwards, planned to go hiking on a trail that we had recently read about. It's located just south of Half Moon Bay, in the Purisima Creek Redwoods. The redwoods there are about 100 years old, and are the oldest stand of redwoods on the peninsula. They are considered a second-growth forest, as the original redwoods were harvested in the 1800's. These trails are WAY off the beaten path - you have to know they are there - the odds of stumbling upon them are very slim.

When we finally found the trail head, there were other cars in the parking lot, which was a good sign. We hiked about 4 miles, round trip, with a fair amount of up and down. The redwoods were beautiful - lots of towering trees, moss, ferns, etc. It felt very Jurassic park! Lee got some great shots, too.

This was the "welcome" sign.... hmmm... mountain lions, ticks, poison oak - what could go wrong!?

Light shining on the trail through the redwoods. It was very peaceful and quiet. Also damp and chilly!
More sights along the trail

The ferns were growing everywhere! There were lots of stumps and fallen trees, and there was growth of some sort on all of them.

Mountainside filled with ferns.

The particular trail that we were on followed the creek. The sound of water followed us everywhere. Strangely enough, there were NO bird sounds and we didn't see any birds.

Some of the local fauna! As you might imagine, the banana slugs were plentiful! Banana slugs are also the official mascot of UC Santa Cruz. Valarie also had an "up close and personal" experience with a banana slug when she was in high school. Disgusting, slimy creatures, really!

There was also lots of redwood sorrel - member of the oxalis or clover family. We looked for a 4 leaf clover, but didn't find any.

The twisted branches, draped in moss, caught our eye.

The sun coming through the canopy of the redwood trees.

A friendly hiker.

Note the tree on the left - not a tree fern, but a fern tree! There were ferns growing up the length of the moss-covered tree.

The maple leaves were falling, too.

The pine trees are loaded with pine cones this year.

Sunlight on maple leaves.

It was a great walk, and we'll definitely go back to explore all of the trails. BTW, apparently either Carole or I got out dates mixed up, so we didn't get haircuts after all, but got them today, instead.

Johnston House & Marine Reserve

Sunday dawned beautiful and sunny, once the frost melted, so we went into Half Moon Bay to visit the Johnston House - the first home built in HMB in 1853, in the classic England "salt box" style. The house had been abandoned, but was rescued in 1962, and a massive renovation project took place. The house was built of local native redwood, and was still in plumb when restoration began. They give tours of the house every Saturday, but neither Lee or I had ever been there. They were having their annual Holiday House Botique, so we not only got to tour the house, but see lots of lovely handmade items for sale

Donna and I outside of the Johnston House

The Johnson House is also known as the White House of Half Moon Bay

Salt Box style construction

After the tour, we wandered around Half Moon Bay for awhile, then headed back to Moss Beach. There was a minus tide, so we decided to go down to the beach, where we found that tons of people had the same idea! The beach looks so different with all of the rock formations exposed, and it's a great time for searching for sea glass!

Searching for sea glass! Donna is on the right, I'm bending over searching through the rocks.

Donna, hard at work! We actually found quite a bit of sea glass!

This shot shows how far out the tide is! The kids would have loved it!

Another shot

We thought this was a hoot! Faithful friend, guarding boots and hat!

Sunset at Montara Lighthouse

Donna came for a visit this weekend! She arrived about 4:00 pm on Saturday, after driving down from Tahoe where she had been visiting Robbie. We took a walk up to the lighthouse for the sunset.

Sunset in the pacific.

Donna with sunset in the background.

Walking in Moss Beach

Last week on one of our walkabouts, Lee got some great shots of the bluffs above the reserve and a pretty unique Halloween decoration.

Sun and shadows along the trail at the top of the bluff.

The recent rain is creating lots of meadow areas. Winter is when we are green.

We thought this was pretty unique - the pumpkin boy holding on to a bunch of pumpkin balloons! There had been more pumpkins, but they had let go!

A big crashy, angry ocean...

Last week on Saturday there were high seas advisories posted for the coast, so we took a walk to the beach to see what was happening. We could hear the ocean roaring from the house and as we got closer, it got louder! Lee took some pictures down at the reserve, and then we walked up to the Montara light house and got a lot of shots of crashing waves up there.

The waves generated a TON of sea foam, which made some pretty interesting patterns as the waves crashed in. We spent about an hour, just observing the awesome power of the sea! Following are some of the (many, many) pictures that Lee took:

Sea foam on the rocks

I love this shot! You can see the flag through the glass on the lighthouse, and the light, too.

The Saturday before last, as we were wandering around in Half Moon Bay, we spotted a poster for Lacy J. Dalton! Ok, who remembers her? She was a pretty popular country artist from Santa Cruz in the 80's, and toured with Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. I hadn't heard anything about her in ages, but the poster said that she was going to be performing at Costanoa on Saturday, the 7th.

We've driven by Costanoa thousands of times, on our way to/from Santa Cruz and points south.

We both really like Lacy, so when we got home, I went online and got information on the concert, then called to make reservations. I discovered that there was also a chuck wagon bar-b-que available! Lacy J. Dalton AND a chuck wagon bar-b-que! An unbeatable combination! To get us in the mood, I pulled out my old CD's and we listened to those on Saturday. The dinner was great, and the concert was FABULOUS!! She was performing in the restaurant, a small venue, so we were about 15 ft. from her, and she sang for almost two hours. We got her latest CD, and found that she has some other CD's coming out. She's gone independent, which is why we haven't heard much about her lately - there's no big record company behind her.

We had a "guest" join us for dinner! One of the house cats found her way into the dining room, and of course, Lee and I fed her ribs and chicken! They tried to catch her and put her out, but she was pretty good at evading capture! Eventually they did catch her and took her out the back door. Sure enough, in a few minutes she was back again - she came in the front door! We thought it was a hoot!

Looks a bit like Tuck, huh?

The inimitable Lacy J. Dalton!!

A fabulous Saturday night!