Part 1 - Novato, California - Mar/Apr 2016 - Louie & Mira

Bel Marin Key

We were greeted by homeowners Bibi and Mark with a welcome cup of coffee early on the morning we arrived.  We very quickly got to know and love our charges Louie and Mira.

Louie (12), Mira (4)

These two mischiefs were to become the deserving focus of the next month for us.
Louie is the king of the castle, 12 years old and with the family since young. The household naturally runs to his clock - food, walk, rest, food walk bed. Repeat.  He is super chilled, nothing and no-one fazes him but he still loves his cuddles ...... especially in the morning.

Could you resist this face!?

Mira is a rescue dog and Bibi and Mark have only had her for two years.  She came to them complete with "fear aggression" from not being socialised as a pup, and/or from being a street dog and fighting to survive.  She is frighted of other dogs to the extent that she believes her only defense is to behave aggressively toward them from the get-go and as such was not to be trusted off-lead.  Her foibles make for an interesting (and at time intense) walk.  She is also wonderful company, chilled in a different way to Louie and also loves her cuddles.

We introduced them to fishing (of course!) and we all four spent many a day lounging on the banks of Bel Marin Key, waiting for "the strike".  

 Louie immediately recognised the fish as a potential food source and watched the water intently for any sign of movement.  He could barely contain his excitement each time a fish was landed.

 Mira was more interested in whether anyone was passing by .... with a dog!  

This also turned out to be the place we finally tested Mira to walk off lead.  We could see for miles.  If someone was approaching with a dog, one of us would sit with her to help her feel secure (as we were instructed to do) and hope for a chance to introduce her appropriately to the right dog.  She got calmer in leaps and bounds and she thoroughly enjoyed running around with her new found freedom with the grass tickling her belly and enjoying a cool off in the water - See video below .... Music composed (and possibly played) by Mark Summer, Louie and Mira's very talented and well renowned Daddy.  The piece is called Julie O.....

Any day were weren't all to be found hanging out at Bel Marin, we would take the doggies around the Indian Valley open space.  A wonderful dog park a short walk from the house which had a forest walk and a pond.  This was our best opportunity to meet lots of dogs and further cement Mira's socialisation.

At the pond

Mira practicing her "doggie skills"

We had so many opportunities to socialise Mira that we were confident to let her off lead at the dog park in the end also.  Always keeping a watchful eye on approaching dogs and getting down with her to facilitate any interaction opportunity, she had some wonderful play opportunities with dogs (and owners) willing to humour her (us).

Fia's owner, Flavia, was the first of these people to take us under her wing and encourage Mira to play with her gorgeous pup.  She soon invited us to her home where her husband, Joe, made Pizza.  Near the end of our stay, they also took us to the San Francisco and the Presidio

 https://www.google.co.nz/maps/place/Presidio,+San+Francisco,+CA,+USA/@37.7990072,-122.4836964,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x808586df085a159b:0xb4afb256fcbe7f60

Here we were shouted to a lovely lunch at The Greens, located at the Fort Mason Centre - an old navy barracks, resurrected as a series of pop up restaurants and markets. We also had a mooch around Fort Point, right under the Golden Gate Bridge, and the beach at Chrissy Field.  Thank you Joe and Flavia for introducing us to this part of your lovely city!

The view from The Greens

Chrissy Field

We also had the pleasure of meeting Barbara and her fuzzy furry, Jackson, in the open space.  She immediately invited us to her house for a dinner party on Easter Sunday.  There were a few friends and neighbours and we all bought a dish, Bring a Plate style.  We feasted on roast ham, an array of gorgeous vegetables and we made and took New York Times Lemon Pudding Cake - delissimo!
 http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12363-lemon-pudding-cake

We caught up with Barbara and Jackson again at the end of our stay and enjoyed a walk together at Bel Marin Key.  They feature in the video - Jackson is the cute blonde ;-)

Fia, Jackson, Mira and Louie - treat time

We were all having so much fun!

To be continued ........

Pacific Coast, California - March 2016

We wanted to take the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to LA and what better way to do this, than to hire a great US tradition, an RV ..... well, sort of!  We only had a week, so were keen to make it count.

We may have been laughed at from passing vehicles and had one guy tell us we should get one like his which ours would fit inside of and he can even carry his car.  Hmmmm, I think he somewhat missed the point.  It was so easy to get around with this baby, it had a full kitchen in the back, you can sleep in the pop top or the van and it even has a fridge (for the fishing bait of course!).  And what's even cooler, is that Jucy was founded in NZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JUCY  Quite a few people throughout our journey took and interest and asked for a "guided tour".

We drove over the San Mateo Bridge south of Oakland.  It is the longest bridge in California and the 25th longest bridge in the world, 7 miles long.   We stayed at Moss Landing https://goo.gl/maps/B6koEo4jTm92 that first night and it was our first real touch of the Pacific Ocean.  Bloomin' cold but look what we found floating in the shoreline!  We drank the milk and it was still fresh.  Was it from the supermarket or had it floated over from a Pacific Island somewhere??  We know what we wish to believe :-)

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We arrived at Monterey, chiefly to visit Monterey Bay Aquarium, James' favourite in the world.  Monterey itself is a pretty wee town.  It's Cannery Row, the one time center of the sardine-packing industry, was immortalised by John Steinbeck in his 1945 novel.   There are no sardines to be had these days as they were all fished out in the 70s and Monterey is now just a tourist destination.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Montage

At Carmel-by-the-sea we parked by the sea, next to the first (and only) Jucy rental we came across.  Clint Eastwood was mayor of this cutesy and very exclusive place around 20 years ago.  Leaving here we rather fancied taking 17 Mile Drive, which famously runs through Pebble Beach and some of the most exclusive golf courses in the US, but there is a gate charge of $10.  Yeah right.

Big Sur coastal road is something quite spectacular.  The cliffs rise straight up out of the sea and make for some gorgeous scenery along the way.

One of the highlights of this road is the colonies of Elephant Seals.  The males are frighteningly huge, and most ungainly.  The pups can't swim for quite a few months many die in the high tides before they learn to do so.

We arrived at Morro Bay for a spot of fishing ....

 and ended up sharing the harbour with these little cuties ....

The sea otter sleep in these little "rafts", seemingly holding on to each other, and I kid you not! as they wake in the morning they start with their crunchies - sitting up and touching their feet a few times in a row.  Very health conscious and very very cute!

Continuing on down the coast we came upon Malibu - the beach, not the cocktail.  ALOT of money round here.  The houses are not only at the beach, but over the ocean, on stilts.  They could fish right off their balcony!  No photos, but you can imagine .....

Los Angeles a blast, as expected.

We visited The (John Paul) Getty museum, a great place to get away from the maddening crowd.  And it's free! There was a 16th Century French Tapestry display.  The tapestries were approx 5m x 5m and the detail just stunning.  How did they do that way back when?!?!   Apparently by painting the scene first then transposing it onto the tapestry cloth before weaving. 

Tapestry

New (very old) dresser anyone?

The grounds are just as interesting and imposing as the museum itself.

 We visited the  Original Farmers Market http://www.farmersmarketla.com/ and ate very expensive ice cream.  Had the best ever coffee at Venice Beach, and wondered at the mixing of the homeless with the VERY trendy locals, joggers and holiday makers.  Hmmmmm

When it was time to return our trusty Jucy, we hightailed it up the Interstate 5 back to San Francisco.  A long and boring (in comparison) road, but handy when you just gotta get somewhere.

A few things to note: We now understand the US obsession with bagels; the scenery just in the small part of California we saw is varied, vast and very beautiful; everything is BIG - vehicles, houses, food portions;  there is a lot of open space, people are really friendly and service is way better than anywhere we've been; these guys really need to think about the way they farm cows .... we found this very distressing (and horribly smelly) along the I5 :-(

Orangevale, California - Feb/Mar 2016

Sacramento Airport baggage claim

All in good time we arrived at John and Noelle's to hang out with Roscoe and Stinky (!) for a few weeks.

The kitties were easy care and had the house set up for their entertainment :-)

We thoroughly enjoyed the area of Sacramento, Orangevale and Fulsom.  We did notice that everything in the US is so much bigger than anywhere else in the world.  Supermarkets, washing machines, fridges.  And we mean EVERYTHING.  Fuel is also ridiculously cheap.

Per Gallon

We hired a car to go fishing and got upgraded to this rather inappropriate beast .... it was secretly quite fun!

The first American fish ... hmmmm

Chillin' on the Sac River by Freeport

We visited Lake Tahoe on the boarder of California and Nevada.  A beautiful drive up there on a typical Californian spring day.  Just over the boarder into Nevada you notice the huge great casinos as California used to have much stricter gambling laws.

We cycled the American River trail a couple of times, which was just around the corner from "our" house.  We were both surprised how easy it was to do the hills on decent bikes.

James made some fishing contacts via a fishing website and got invited out on a boat by two different locals, which was very generous of them.  He even managed to catch a fish on his bucket list ... the mighty Sturgeon ..... which was released. 

John's boat

Sturgeon

The striped Bass weren't so lucky.  They became dinner.

Striped Bass

We enjoyed some gorgeous sunsets ......

 Thank you Sacramento.  It was a real pleasure.