Dudes, I am so TIRED.

For real people... I don't know what is up this week but everything is killing me softly. I am so freaking tired. Maybe it is the fog. The fog outside not the fog in my brain. I am used to that particular fog.

Anyway.... I am gonna sling a bunch of pictures at you because I am too brain farty to do much more that that. Upon arrival here in Olema, CA we took off for the Bolinas Ridge Trail which is only about a mile from where we are camping. It is a wicked long trail and it's dog friendly. We did not make it too far because we got a late start so we plan to spend a whole day on the trail before the week is out. Here are a few choice shots from the walk... a few of them photoshopped up for effect.




The next day we drove down to San Rafael to see what that was all about. It turned out to be all about one very car sick dog. The road down to the city was like a tapeworm doing the electric boogaloo so Rudy was primed for some real serious puking. Which he did. We had to pull off to the side of the road and armed with random old napkins scavenged from the glove box I tried to clean hm up. It was not pretty. We figured he could use some fresh air so even though it was raining a steady light drizzle we found a park to walk in. It turned out to be an excellent walk. Forgive me for not even knowing the name of this place.... you can walk for several miles through gorgeous woods in this place. Maybe it was called Barbian Park? I dunno...






After the walk we stumbled in to a Thai place in Novato, CA and pigged out while Rudy slept it off out in the truck. We had one of the strangest appetizers I have ever had. I wish I had the camera with so I could have shot a pic. It was tempura battered and fried GIGANTIC pieces of taro root, sweet potato and tofu. That was it. Then there was a huge (real) red rose on the plate and some curly cut orange wedges. It looked like fried dinosaur eggs with a bizarre floral side salad. It was dry and it was fried. Somehow we ate it. Why no sauce? Why? Sauce would have made all the difference. Any sauce. Also... this Thai place was playing really cheesy Christmas music. On January 5th. Away in the manger and stuff like this. So it was an odd dining experience at best.

Yesterday we drove down to San Francisco for the day. We left Rudy at home. We had planned to take hm to a doggie day camp in the city but I was afraid he would never make it down there without getting sick again. I am glad we left him because Hwy 1 from Olema down to the Golden Gate is no joke. Billy and I were both still dizzy for like an hour after we crossed the bridge in to the city. We kept our day short so the boober would not be left at home alone for too long. We went to the de Young museum of fine art first. I was SO excited to go there because they are hosting an Yves Saint Laurent exhibit there that will not be showing anywhere else in the United States. IT. WAS. AWESOME. The bloody bastards would not allow any photos to be taken in the exhibit or I would now be filling this page with images from the show. The reason they do not allow photos (I am guessing) is because they sell a book in the museum shop with images of the entire show for $50. If you want pics you have to buy their stinkin' book. I passed on it but I did get myself an YSL coloring book. It has 20 different drawings of his designs that you get to color in yourself. Big fun. A few of the highlights of the show was seeing this piece in person...



Because you don't see that everyday now do you? And they had my safari jacket on display.... the one I sold on eBay back in the spring for a tidy sum. Seen here on the model to the left....




I kinda sorta wish I had kept the damned thing. Not that I would have worn it.... but just to have it. It is museum worthy people. And I sold it. Sigh. Anyway.... they had just an amazing array of his designs from every era and collection. Here is an image I stole off the web of a few of the pieces in the show....


If you are in or around San Fran and have an interest in iconic fashion, vintage or just plain beautiful design it is well worth the price of admission to see this show. Go, go go.

We wandered through most of the rest of the museum rather quickly and then headed on over to Russian Hill to find a late lunch. We parked on Polk St. and I was immediately sucked into a shop called Favor. Ohhhhhh.... Favor. Dangerous stuff it is. It is the home of Hotcakes Design and I love their stuff. I splurged and bought myself one of their carved, hand cast resin rings. It features an image of a porcupine which suits me quite well I think.



We ate at the Bay Bread Boulangerie on Polk and it was fast, cheap and really good food. They have great coffee and a fabulous bakery. They had a good assortment of authentic macarons so I got some pistachio, vanilla and plum to bring home. And then we hit the road to come come.





We pulled off to grab the requisite shots of the Golden Gate looking back at the city.




And we took Hwy 101 home because there was no way either of us would have been able to stand 1 with a full stomach and a tired brain. It's a longer drive but Lord it was worth it.

Today we laid low for most of the day and then drove out to the beach on Point Reyes for a late afternoon walk and to watch sunset. I will post pics in a day or two.

Billy is contemplating having me chop off his long hair tonight. So you have that to look forward to. A possible hairstyle fashioned by me.... on Billy's head. Stay tuned.

Checking In

Hiya! Listen... I am too tired to write a full on post right now... but I just wanted to pop in a let y'all know that we are at Point Reyes National Seashore for the week. We have been going non stop for three days having been on a few mega hikes and today we drove down into the city (San Francisco.) I am one tuckered out kid.

I will post tomorrow with photos and stories of what we have seen and done. To whom it may concern we are totally out of cell phone range for the week. The campground has wifi so we can be reached via email and that is it until Monday. Don't worry about us being trapped in the wilderness without proper supplies... we have giant boxes of French pastry to get us through the week.

A Look Back

As Billy and I sit here tonight drinking a bottle of Marinus out of coffee cups (true high class trailer livin') we are reflecting on this past year and looking forward to this next one. We ran over to The Nugget grocery (I love The Nugget) and bought some weird indulgent goodies to ring in the new year. We have already been feasting on Point Reyes Blue Cheese with sundried tomato crostini and local pistachios, next will be asiago and pine nut ravioli with Sonoma Gourmet garlic sauce and we are capping it all off with vanilla rice pudding. I fully expect that I may puke before 2009 actually hits. Especially since this wine is so freaking good and I am sure to drink more of it than I should. If you are a wino I highly suggest indulging in this one. It is produced right in Carmel Valley. Good stuff. I should be more than moderately drunk by the time I finish this post. Or maybe I already am more than moderately drunk? You decide. Hic!

Anyway, I thought I would pull together a little photo essay of this past year of our lives for my last post of 2008. We had a good year that was peppered with a few weird patches but over all it was fun and interesting. This time last year we were in Texas. It seems like a million years ago! I think we stayed in last year and cooked black eyed peas. I forgot about black eyed peas this year somehow. Don't tell my Gram. She will be convinced that all will be in ruins by next Tuesday because we did not eat the peas. And she may well be right about that.

OK. I am going to post three pics for each month of the year. How does that sound? Here we go... January in Texas!

This was our campsite for the last few weeks we spent in Hill country. Nothing special... but the weather was nice.


On January 6th of last year we visited Texas Stonehenge. And I wore this outfit to Texas Stonehenge. That is a real live Stetson hat by the way. As I recall Rudy got really car sick that day. Or maybe my sense of style was making him puke. Who knows.

We ended the month of January by traveling the 8,890 miles across West Texas and up through New Mexico on our way to Santa Fe. We stopped off for a few days in Roswell. It was fun in the stupid way that you would expect it to be.


On to February... we arrived in Santa Fe where we put the Airstream in storage and rented a casita downtown. Rudy's birthday is on Valentine's Day. It was his first birthday and my Mom sent him a cake. As you can see he was really embarrassed.


Michelle and Casey bought Rudy his very own tiger for his birthday gift. I will let the picture do the rest of the talking on that one...


Michelle would come over at night and entertain us for hours by playing a tiny blue accordion.


And I have to sneak one more pic in here. Because one of the most important things about Santa Fe is the cherry pie at the Plaza Diner. I think we ate it at least twice a week for the 6 or so months that we were there.


March is when the weather starts to ease up in Santa Fe. You can get out and start to enjoy the sunshine and go hiking and stuff again. You can also practice amateur rock climbing if you are brave enough...

Our favorite mariachi band starting performing on the plaza in March...

And we took a trip up to Ojo Caliente to go hiking for the day and jump in the natural hot springs...


On to April... Billy gave a painting workshop in our living room.

We went hiking in the Pecos Wilderness and almost lost Rudy. For real. We almost had to leave his dumb ass behind because he ran off into the woods and we could not find him and it was getting dark, etc. etc. Anyway... he came back.

My cousin Chelsea came to visit us. She is my fave cousin and we had a great time hanging out.


May is a great month in Santa Fe. The weather is really warm, hot even. We celebrated Billy's birthday and spent a lot of time on the plaza and just hanging around town, going to the dog park and enjoying life.




Somehow the only pics I have from June are of Rudy from the park by the post office where we would take him to chase tennis balls. He loved it and so did we because it involved lots of laying around on the grass and laughing at dumb dog antics.




Sometime around July is when we got our new Nikon. I still love it.

This shot is from the 4th of July before the fireworks.

And July is when I cut my hair. This is the before shot... I don't know if I will ever let my hair grow that long again.


August... what the heck? August was huge. We left New Mexico in August and traveled across Utah and Nevada in to California. We spent my birthday in on of my favorite places on Earth, Monument Valley.




Then we headed up to Zion where we nearly died on the hike pictured below... we ran out of water and it was like 105 degrees that day. I don't recommend doing that. I recommend the hike... just not the shortage of water. Or nearly perishing... try to avoid that experience if you can.
Somewhere near Zion we found this cool little sand dunes state park. We had a blast wandering through there and letting Rudy run like the wind.

Then we hit Cali. Billy's Dad and little sisters had recently relocated here from the East coast and we hooked up for a visit outside Sacramento.


In September we hit the beach and Santa Cruz. It had been forever since we had been to the ocean and it was soooo nice. I love the redwood forests on the coast as well and we spent a few weeks hanging out in the area.




I am going to cap off with October because guess what... if you can't just page back a few posts to see November then you are lazy. Or I am lazy... maybe we are both lazy. October was when we were officially booted out of Big Sur when we lost our camp host positions and our plans for the winter crumbled before our very eyes. We headed back up to Carmel and settled in to the valley. The beach in Carmel became our daily addiction and Rudy's favorite place in the whole wide world.

We had a great month and spent a lot of time exploring...


The sea lions in Monterey are all yoga masters...



So there you have it.... A quick year in pictures. Who knows what 2009 will bring? As I write this we have NO idea what we are going to do or where we are headed. I have applied for national forest service jobs everywhere from Minnesota to Alaska. We are still considering heading back out to New England as well. We just have to see what cards we are dealt in the next few weeks. Not knowing is somewhat stressful but it is also exciting. We have nowhere that we HAVE to be right now. The choices laid out before us are almost too many.

All the best to you in the coming year. I think it is going to be a tough year for all of us no matter where we are or what we are doing. The world is in a shambles (worse than usual) But what goes down must eventually come back up right? To quote Mark Twain... "Only he who has seen better days and lives to see better days again knows their full value." Cheers!

Winter in Paradise Valley

Billy rode out early this morning to shoot pictures of the ranch in heavy fog. We woke up to an absolute blanket of it. While he was out it started to break up and the sun was bursting through. He got some really gorgeous shots. Things are starting to really green up here because of the recent rains. It is a beautiful spot to be right now considering the hideous winter weather a lot of folks have been dealing with elsewhere in the country. As always you can click on each individual pic to see a full screen version...







Not too shabby eh? I am sure Billy will do at least a few paintings from the images he grabbed this morning.

Oh... and I have to add here that Billy announced finding "The Prettiest Poop" he has ever seen this morning as well. Behold...the ethereal morning dew and the pretty poop!

Coconut, Christmas, Cows

Hiya folks. I hope everyone is doing fine and returning to normalcy after Christmas craziness and the fact that 16 tons of snow were just dumped on every acre of land from sea to shining sea. We had a mellow holiday here in Cali. We opened gifts live over speaker phone with my family in Illinois and then cooked a glutinous dinner and pigged out. It was an easy relaxed day.

I whipped out a batch of ambrosia macaroons the other night. It was my first try at making macaroons and it was so much easier than I had guessed it would be. I am a hard core macaroon junkie and always assumed that they would be a tough cookie to crack in a home kitchen. I was ever so wrong. You can kick out a batch without even knowing what the heck you are doin'. The hardest part is the waiting.... waiting for them to cool and set up in the fridge. Here are my pics from the baking seesion and the recipe follows taken from epicurious.com.

Before baking...


and after...

Ingredients and Preperation

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel
• 3 large eggs
• 24 ounces sweetened flaked coconut (about 6 cups firmly packed)
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted

Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 325°F. Line 3 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar and salt; beat until blended. Beat in orange peel, then eggs, 1 at a time. Mix in coconut. Drop batter onto sheets by tablespoonfuls, spacing 1 1/2 inches apart.

Bake macaroons, 1 sheet at a time, until golden on bottom and browned in spots, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely on sheets.

Using fork, drizzle chocolate over macaroons. Chill on sheets until chocolate is firm, about 30 minutes.

I took advantage of my friend Brook's kitchen to bake in since they were away for Christmas. The space we have in the trailer is obviously not ideal for projects like this. I thrill at the opportunity to spread out over real actual counter space and the ability to use three cookie sheets at once!




I am pretty sure the cattle did not know or care that it was Christmas. It was business as usual for them. Eat grass. Poop. Eat grass. MOOOOOOOOO! Chew your cud. Stand around. Whatever. They did not get any new Wii games or an iTunes gift card or rainbow striped toe socks. They don't care. They save their money. Smart cows.



We still have no idea what our next move is or what our plan of action for 2009 will shape up to be. We are kicking around several possibilities. Each idea is completely different from the next. It is possible we may head back to New England... or maybe we will become light house keepers on an island in Lake Superior. Or perhaps we will finally allow Rudy to join the circus (his big dream) and Billy and I will escape to South America (my big dream.) Over the next week or so we should shake out the details and figure out what we are gonna do.

Happy New Year to you all. Be safe and don't shoot an eye out with a party popper.

Solid Foods!

Today marked the first day since I got this cold that I have felt like eating anything other than weak brothy soups. Does that not sound appealing? Weak brothy soup equals delicious. Bleh.

So anyway I started the day off with a bowl of kashi which I think shocked my system enormously. Nothing like going from broth for 5 days to consuming 42 grams of fiber in one sitting. We are sticking with the breakfast theme for the day and having biscuits and gravy for dinner. We found a recipe in Vegetarian Times magazine and have been wanting to try it because it uses lentils as a meat substitute. We love making sloppy joes out of lentils so this idea appealed to our tastes as well. Here is the recipe.

Biscuits & Gravy
Serves 8 | 30 minutes or fewer

1 cup brown lentils, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup diced carrot (1carrot) 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp rubbed (crumbled) sage
2 1/2 cups low-fat milk
1/2 cup Annie’s Naturals Cowgirl Ranch Dressing
8 whole-grain biscuits or 4 English muffins

1. Bring lentils and 3 cups water to a boil in 2-qt. saucepan. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 30 minutes or until just tender. Drain, and set aside.

2. Heat oil over medium-high heat in large skillet. Add onion and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add bell pepper, carrot, and garlic, and cook 5 to 8 minutes more, or until vegetables are tender but not mushy. Stir in flour, black pepper, paprika, mustard, red pepper flakes, and sage; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add milk, stirring after each addition. Cook 3 to 5 minutes, whisking constantly, until gravy comes to a gentle boil. Remove from heat, and stir in ranch dressing and drained lentils.

3. Split biscuits or English muffins. Lightly toast English muffins, if using. Place biscuits on plates, and top with gravy.



The only thing we tweaked was that we added some salt, a few good sized pinches of it and I think the next time I would up the amount of lentils to two cups. Other than that it was really quite good. The gravy is really smoky and has a nice subtle heat to it from the peppers and paprika. Oh and we threw some parsley on top at the end for freshness and color. We used whole wheat english muffins this time but on a more industrious day I would definitely just whip out some fresh biscuits. Of course that adds tremendously to the calories in the dish but what the Hell.

In closing I would like to ask for some help from the internet at large. If you are reading this before the close of business on Christmas Eve do me the favor of throwing a little focused positive energy toward the fact that my family's Christmas gifts are missing in action. I shipped them out via USPS priority mail on the 16th and the box has not arrived on my Mom's doorstep yet. To say that I am pissed off about it does not really come close to covering it. I thought shipping the stuff out with 8 days to arrive at it's destination was sufficient. I would like to pee on the face of the post office. Or at the very least I would like to openly slander them here... Post Office... YOU SUCK. I will only take it back if the box shows up on Mom's front porch tomorrow morning.