Let sleeping dogs lie

<-----Before we left the girls behind last week at our respective parents' houses (thanks mom 'n' dad of Peter and thanks to my mom 'n' dad!) we went out for a bite to eat at a local bagel place and as you can see, Mattie and Heidi were pretty nonplussed at the situation. Dogs never lie but they do lay pretty well, no?

Wonder what they're dreamin' of...



It was a great trip we took, a much-needed vacation for both of us, leaving the southern sunny climes of San Diego near the Mexico border for six days for the friendly confines of a damp but dreamy Humboldt County, way up north, almost near Oregon.

The time away from home wasn't without incident (i.e. our rental car trunk wouldn't close, i got stung repeatedly in the back of my left knee by a gang of yellowjackets while hiking one morning) but it was a totally fantastic holiday overall. No complaints, really!

I am posting just a few photos today to give an idea of some of the things we did and people, places and other natural wonders we were fortunate to see. (Not in any order whatsoever; hey, i'm a Pisces, and we're not always the most organized sorts, y'know.) I'll try to post more as the week goes on.
















Talk about impromptu! This photo was taken next to a "bench" at the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary. http://www.redwoodvisitor.org/printrecord.asp?id=1729
Peter had taken a nap atop a downed part of a tree (perfect for resting on), and i was sitting next to it near him snacking on something or other. I just happened to look behind me and saw these faces carved into the side. It said "Daniel '99" underneath. I thought it was really cool. Finding artwork unexpectedly... isn't that nice?
















This captures the first of four times we ate at the Wildflower Cafe, a vegetarian and vegan-friendly restaurant right around Humboldt State University, from where Peter was graduated a few (!!!) years back. Ohmydog, this place ROCKS!

In that photo above, i was snacking on an ammmmmmmmazing chocolate raspberry brownie with some water, Peter munched on a chocolate chip walnut cookie with a cup o'coffee. We went back later that night for dinner (a huge plate of vegan mushroom stroganoff for me, spanokopita for him) and a few mornings later, we would return for breakfast. He had a broccoli and mushroom scramble, i ate incredible vegan french toast with fruit compote.





















We landed (well the pilot of our Southwest Airlines plane landed us nicel) in Oakland and we (sans the pilot) drove through Napa, which is renowned for beautiful, sweeping views and lush landscape, miles and miles of vines holding juicy, plump wine grapes, myriad B&Bs and other such pleasures.

We stopped a couple of times on our way up (about 6 hours' drive) to Humboldt County and i was able to snap a photo of some grapes (which we snapped up and ate!) that were just hangin' there temptingly on one of thousands of vines. Totally sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet in every way.
















This is one small part of Patrick's Point, which is just an incredible, breathtaking, wondrous and a few other hundred adjectives i could throw in place to be... and really you can just "be" there! This photo hardly does it proper justice. Peter and i stayed the first and last night at one of our friends' house in the city of Eureka, but the other three nights we camped out not far from where this photo was taken, in Patrick's Point State Park.

Camping was, as it always is, an experience combining spontanaity, sacrifice, surprises and... well, this time it also included slimy (but beautiful) banana slugs, cackling crows, rummaging raccoons, cheery chipmunks, magical web-spinning artist spiders and evidently some big ol' state of Calfornia bears, too ... more on that in a later post!