Time With Kaefer

 

It's more than a week ago that Kaefer flew back to Germany, but the memories still linger. We had a really good almost two weeks together and of course it was wonderful to see her again. She was exhausted though - the two weeks right before her trip to the US she was on a work trip in Malawi followed by a very exciting and extremely packed weekend in Nairobi (she is now the proud "parent" of an orphaned elephant) and she had just landed in Frankfurt when she was back on a plane not even 48 hours later, this time to Chicago. She spent two days there, met up with a high school friend and both drove down to the South of Indiana to attend the wedding of yet another high school friend. Finally she flew from Indianapolis to Oakland from where we picked her up. I get tired just thinking about all of this.

The two weeks we spent together were relatively quiet. She really just wanted to hang out - and go out to the coast. 

One day we drove to Gerstle Cove of Salt Point State Park (her idea, and I was thrilled since I love this place so much) where we just walked and climbed (Kaefer) along the tafoni. There is a bench on the path where we always stop and take a photo.

Since she wanted "real" fish and chips we went further up to Gualala - there's a seafood shack that serves delicious fish and chips and other seafood. This driver, though, waiting in front of the shack, was a bit strange and I doubt his or her driving abilities...

Kaefer had wanted to do a "photo shoot" since she doesn't have any good pictures of herself that she can use on professional websites like LinkedIn or on her university's department's site. Selfies just don't cut it. So one day we went to the lake and took pictures - it reminded me a lot of the time when I took the senior pictures of her and some of her friends. Just like back then, we had a lot of fun together. The pictures turned out pretty nice as well.

The following picture made me pause and my heart skipped a beat. I hadn't realized it when I took the photo, but when I looked at it on the computer I thought seeing a young version of my mom - everything, the nose, the expression, the way she holds her hand is like my mom. I have often seen certain similarities between Kaefer and my mom (even though she also looks a lot like her dad), but never as clearly as in this image.

It has become a favorite photo.

A family photo had to be taken as well. Of course.

A new ice cream shop had opened in town and of course we had to try it out. It was sinfully good and easily replaced lunch on that day.

On another day we went to our favorite beach. "Going to the beach" in our corner of the world usually does not involve packing bathing suits, but taking winter jackets, hats, sometimes even gloves and scarves with you. But this day was reasonable, not even too windy. As you can see in the third photo from the top, that is our usual attire when we "go to the beach".

Kaefer also checked an item on her "things I want to do in my life" list - but that will be "fodder" for another post.

The day of her departure came way too soon. We had left quite early since we're never sure about traffic, but eveything went fine. So we decided to go up the Marine Headlands before crossing Golden Gate Bridge and going to the airport. A couple years ago the road from where you have a great view of the bridge and San Francisco was turned into a one-way road. In order to get there you have to drive through a one-lane tunnel that almost always involves a five minute wait at a red light. The tunnel is VERY narrow.

But when you're up at Conzelman Road, you are rewarded with great views - if there is no fog. The marine layer was already rolling in and the very fast moving fog hid and revealed the Golden Gate Bridge in rapid sequences. We actually like the bridge with fog a lot. It was also VERY windy - just look at my hair, and even the Geek's!

With so many faces - even though they're always the same ones - I'm linking up to Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Christmas Memories

Christmas Eve, my brother and me, 1960s

Over the past few days I was looking at some old photos that my dad took when we were children. All of them were slides that my father-in-law scanned for me several years ago. The quality of the images is very poor, but they did bring back memories of Christmasses (is that a word?) long time ago.

Both my parents had lost their homes in World War II. My mother had to flee from the border to Poland at the end of January 1945; my dad was never able to return to his hometown Marienburg (Malbork in today's Poland) after a year as a POW in a British camp in Belgium (his parents and younger sister had been able to catch the last refugee ship out of Danzig/Gdansk). My parents met in a small village in Lower Saxony where they eventually started a family. 

They didn't have much money - my dad had just earned his PhD and was one of two veterinarians in a country veterinary practice (nothing like "All Creatures Great and Small"), but with the little means they had they still made it possible to give us children a magical Christmas.

There was a tree in front of our rented house, and they put real candles on it. It was so beautiful. My mom also put some Wunderkerzen (sparkler) in it - nowadays they are mostly used on New Year's Eve. 

My mom with my brother, late 1950s

Here she is lighting the Wunderkerzen; my sister to the right

Later she would light the tree in the living room. There are not many ornaments on the tree because they didn't have many (there were more important things to spend money on) and the family ornaments were left behind in the war. But there was a lot of lametta (tinsel) because it was affordable.

A Christmas tradition in Germany is to have a Weihnachtsteller (Christmas plate) filled with chocolates, marzipan, homebaked cookies and nuts. We loved our Weihnachtsteller and I sure was delighted about the chocolate Santa.

My brother and I loved to bake Christmas cookies - well, I mainly loved to eat the dough!

1961

Later we moved to the Sauerland, Northrhine-Westphalia, where we lived in a nice flat. My dad had found a position as a vet with the county which is way more sustainable for family life - no more calls in the middle of the night, but still calls on the weekends. My parents lived in that flat for 42 years.

My brother with very short hair, because that was the only way to "tame" his abundance of locks

Sometime - I can't remember exactly when - we started a new tradition for the time "zwischen den Jahren" (between the years - the week from Christmas to New Year). My mom received a huge jigsaw puzzle of the Alexanderschlacht (the Battle of Alexander at Issus), a 1529 oil painting by the German artist Albrecht Altdorfer (you can see the painting here). I think it had arund 1500 pieces and if you look at the painting you can see how detailed it is, and assembling the sky was a real pain. It always took us several days to put it together, but every year we did. It was a family "venture", even my dad, who didn't enjoy puzzles very much, joined in every now and then. I once saw the original painting in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich - it's a truly impressive painting.

Here is my mother doing a puzzle - she always loved doing one in the colder season (this, of course, is not Alexanderschlacht and this picture was taken some other time during the winter).

This year I kept up the tradition, not with Alexander, though, but with a fun image of Yosemite, and on a much smaller scale (around 300 pieces only) and it was done within a couple hours on a chilly afternoon right before Christmas Eve.

My Christmas tree in my tiny flat while the Geek and I were dating.

Later, we established our own Christmas traditions when we had our own family. First Christmas with Kaefer.

Our German traditions mingled with American Christmas customs when we moved to California. Kaefer's letter to Santa:

Nowadays, the Geek and I don't really "do" Christmas. But this year, some neighbors and us started a new tradition - caroling in the neighborhood. We did that last Friday, and we had so much fun together. We caroled for more than an hour, going along the streets, singing in front of homes - it was joyful and so rewarding spreading some cheer. I can't share the pictures and videos because I don't know whether everyone would be okay to be out in the blogosphere.

Therefore just an image of our Christmas Eve drink - a delicious rosé champagne. Cheers to Bleubeard and Elizabeth at T Tuesday and to everyone who reads this.

 

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.

Into the Redwoods

 

California's Coast redwoods, Sequoia sempevirens, are among the largest and oldest living organisms on earth. Fossil records show that redwoods grew during the Jurassic period, at least 200 million years ago. They are exceptionally long lived. The oldest known coast redwood dates to 480 BCE.

Up North in Eureka in Humboldt County on the coast is Sequoia Park, a grove of redwoods with a Sky Walk. This Sky Walk is 100 feet above the ground and offers a different view up into the canopy of these majestic giants. I had long wanted to go up there - it's an four hours drive to Eureka - and when Kaefer was here in February we finally made the trip up there.

But first - breakfast. We started very early in the day and arrived in Ukiah just in time for a breakfast treat and some really good coffee at Black Oak Coffee Roasters. This beautiful cup of delicious coffee hopefully qualifies as a drink for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday.

Very soon we were back on the highway, winding our way up into the mountains. The heavy marine layer got lighter and finally broke off completely. A beautiful sight!

This is an area deep in the forested mountaineous area with absolutely no reception - here, you can still find these things in the reast areas on the side of the highway. Remember those?

It was late morning that we arrived at Sequoia Park. We got our tickets and walked over to the Sky Walk. Oh, what a sight!

Redwoods can reach an age as much as 2,500 years. The trunk diameter is as wide as 29 feet (8.8 m) and its height as high as 380 feet (115.8 m). For such tall trees, redwoods have surprisingly shallow roots, seldom more than six feet (1.8 m) deep. But what they lack in depth, they make up for in width. The root system of a mature old growth redwood can be more than 300 feet (91 m) in diameter. This root system and its shallowness can be a real challenge in an urban setting, where people unfortunately have planted these trees without taking its height and root system into consideration. Eventually, they will buckle up sidewalks and streets and can even damage the foundation of buildings. Simply taking out a redwood is not that easy - they are protected and require a special permit for removal which is quite expensive. Best solution: don't plant one in your backyard or in front of your home - it doesn't belong there in the first place. (When we were looking for a home to buy, a redwood in the garden or next to the house was a no-no for us; now, we have a small redwood grove across the street.)

This was the comfortable, sturdy part that is also wheelchair accessible. It slowly makes its way up into the trees.

Then there were the not so sturdy parts - the real fun part, high up among the trees.

We were able to get a close look at the bark of the trees. There were signs requesting not to touch the trees, just use our eyes. I just hope everybody respects that.

Before logging began, these massive and majestic trees covered more than 1,500,000 acres from Big Sur to just past the Oregon border along a coastal corridor less than 40 miles wide. Today only a tiny fraction of that ancient forest remains, much of it in Humboldt County. 

Redwood has been woven into the fabric of life on the North Coast for hundreds of years. First Nations peoples revere the trees and traditionally relied on them for shelter and canoes. Euro-Americans harvested redwoods in almost unimaginable quantities to build towns and cities across the West (our home is built of redwood), all but eliminating original old growth forests.

Looking down and looking up...

Redwoods are fire resilient. Large trees are able to survive moderate intensity fires, but if their crowns are scorched, leaves can be damaged or killed. Fire damaged redwoods have the astonishing ability to regrow their crowns and sprout new trunks from their base. You can imagine how important this is in our landscape that experiences wildfires every year.

Even though it was a sunny and moderately warm day (after all this was in February), it was quite chilly in the redwood grove. We felt the dampness hanging around and lowering the temperature quite a bit. However, the redwood canopy teems with life. Plant species normally found on the ground take root in soil formed from decomposed redwood needles, twigs and bark flakes. Lichen and mosses grow on the thick bark. Insects and birds flit among the branches and animals scurry about, some communting to the forest floor, others permanent residents.

Simply put, it is fascinating.