Visitors from Germany

 

The weekend before last the Geek received a WhatsApp message from his cousin Matthias, telling him that he and his wife will be in our area sometime the following week and whether they could stop by for a day. Of course we said yes - we always enjoy having relatives and good friends come visit. The visit, however, did last longer than just one day because we enjoyed each other so much. They arrived on Wednesday afternoon and left on Sunday morning.

Matthias and Birgit are on an extended journey through Canada and the US. In May they had shipped their Mercedes Unimog Camper to Halifax in Novia Scotia and had toured Canada for three months before they entered the US about four weeks ago. The Unimog just fitted into our driveway - and we became the talk of the town. 

It is a big vehicle! Of course we had to take pictures of all of us and the Unimog.

Both Matthias and Birgit are super nice and really easy guests. I often had to smile about the similarities between Matthias and the Geek and the Geek's brothers. You definitely couldn't deny that they're family.

One day we took them to our favorite winery in the Anderson Valley, Navarro Vineyards.

We had made sandwiches, meatballs and pumpkin bread for a little picknick at the beautiful winery. Two bottles of wine rounded it out. This is my ticket for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday.

This winery is off the beaten path which means you don't need a reservation and they also don't ask for a tasting fee. Sadly, this is unheard of by now both in Sonoma and Napa County. We bought several more bottles of wine that we took home with us. 

Of course we had to take pictures.

Usually we are at this winery in late spring or early summer when there still aren't any grapes on the vine. This time, however, the grapes were hanging ripe and full on the vine, ready to be harvested very soon.

On another day we took Matthias and Birgit out to the coast. It was sunny and very warm in Santa Rosa, but when we came to the coast, it looked like this.

A very typical weather pattern in my corner of the world.

But - the fog burnt off and we enjoyed a pleasant sunny day on the beach.

I had never seen that many Brown Pelicans at the beach.

It was truly amazing. We stood for a long time and watched the birds as well as a couple harbor seals playing in the water. It was mesmerizing and we didn't realize how quickly time passed.

I always love to see the Brown Pelicans gliding just above the surface of the water. They are so elegant.

Driftwood could be found all over the beach. This particular one served as the backdrop for Kaefer's photoshoot at the same beach a few months ago.

Matthias the rascal has to climb on a different big piece of driftwood.

And reflections in sunglasses are always interesting.

We packed a lot in those four short days. For us it is always wonderful to spend time with people we like AND who speak our native language. The conversations are just different, there is more humor involved and it's just so much easier for us to express exactly what we mean. We shared so many laughs together which we desperately needed. We didn't watch any news, didn't read the paper - it was pure bliss, like a mini vacation. 

Too soon it was time to say goodbye.

And there they go down our neighborhood street, toward their next adventure. They still have five more months of traveling.

The Call of the Coast

 

Goat Rock Beach

It was the Geek's birthday at the begnning of October and we opted to spend the day at the coast. We don't give presents to each other; we rather spend a beautiful day together. It's only a short drive to the coast, but by the sea feels like being on vacation in a different world. You just need that every now and then.

We started at Doran Beach in Bodega Bay and slowly made our way north up the coast, walking at favorite beaches. The weather was a very mixed bag - a swift change from thick fog to clear skies and sun and the other way round as well.

This is what it looked like from the cliffs on our way down to the beach...

... and this is what it looked like at the beach. There are only a couple minutes between these two photos. (The picture below is Portuguese Beach, "our" clean-up beach where we used to participate in the state-wide coastal clean up day in September; unfortunately we can't join that anymore since it is always on a Saturday and I have to be at work.)

This is a typical Northern California day at the coast.

While walking along the beach, I enjoyed seeing all the "stuff" that the ocean swept onto shore, without knowing what you call most of these (well, I know kelp and crab of course).

Feathers could be found everywhere and they make a beautiful subject. I assume it's from a gull - more on gulls in a later post.

This "creature" was my favorite:

Of course I couldn't resist sticking my feet into the surf. The water wasn't as cold as I had expected, maybe because the beach here (Doran Beach) is rather shallow and in a protected bay. Usually the ocean along our coast is freezing, being supplied with nice cold water coming down from Alaska.

Someone had played with sand - Stonehenge on the beach.

I always look for shells and I found a couple beautiful pieces.

At Goat Rock Beach - my all-time favorite beach - we hung out on a large piece of driftwood, looking out onto the foggy ocean.

The gulls kept us entertained. We also saw Brown Pelicans swooping over the ocean, barely touching the water. They are such graceful birds and always look a bit primeval.

We ended the day with a visit to our favorite seafood place, Betty's Fish & Chips. It's hard to beat their seafood and we always compare seafood that we eat anywhere to them. So far only the Seafood Shack in Gualala comes close. We find that many places make the batter too thick (probably to save on the fish), but at Betty's the batter is just right and the cod can't get any fresher.

I'm sharing this delightful, tasty fish with Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date.

An Evening at the Ocean - 10 Years Ago

 

On several blogs I have seen posts with pictures from 10 years ago. I find it inspiring looking back and have decided to do a "10 years ago" post every now and then.

Tonight we're going back to a rather chilly evening we spent at the beach. 

I think the reason was that Kaefer had to do some science project that had to do with the curve of the earth and that you see the setting sun longer from a higher point and she had to figure out the time difference - something like that. I honestly don't remember exactly. Anyway, we wanted to check out spots at the coast that would work for this project.

Fat chance to find an evening at our coast without clouds and/or the marine layer while the sun is setting - in March. This certainly wasn't one of those days.

So what did we do? Taking pictures of course. 

My two sweethearts...

Kaefer was 14 at that time and a freshman at high school. In her face I can still see the goofy child, but also the emerging young woman.

Thank you to Nicole who lets us show those faces for Friday Face Off.