This morning’s row had some excitement. We could see snow on Mount Tamalpais in the distance, but much closer a seal was sitting on a rock, similar to the picture I took last year on Christmas Eve from my kayak. Unfortunately, I only got one shot of the seal before we had to get back to practice, but we saw it move and we didn’t want to disturb it by going too close.
If you look carefully at the mountain peaks, there is snow yonder!
Snow and seals may be in the distance in the rest of the photos from today.
I attended as president of Glen Cove Community Association a second annual End of Summer event at Glen Cove Waterfront Park here in Vallejo. Our board worked very hard to put this together. The turnout was decent even though the weather was unusually hot for October. That may have affected turnout, but we had more to offer this year with the jumpy house for kids, lots of games, free wine for adults, a food truck, and live music courtesy of Mike and Tonya from Tara Hills. Under the shade of the eucalyptus trees, it was pleasant with a breeze, but still a hot one.
Videos include the Faceboook Live Streams and personal video we took at the event:
These pictures are courtesy of Bill Yuen and Neal Zimmerman:
Attended a Clean Air talk with various organizations and concerned citizens about the air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area. This one occurred at the JFK Library in Vallejo, where I was a few days ago for a mayoral candidate forum. While not specifically about tobacco, I introduced myself as someone who volunteers in the area of commercial tobacco control and indoor air quality, although outdoor public, tobacco use is a huge problem as well.
Not sure what the squirrel wants from the Spanish Moss but nesting material, but this one seems determined, yet there’s a whole area full of Spanish Moss that he’s completely ignoring.
Snoopy followed by foster Moe checks out the taunting squirrel yet along, but the squirrel doesn’t give a fuck.
Turtle spotting, duck invading, country-music-playing float with a bunch of queers down the Russian River only to finish off with someone on a paddleboard moving forward with a dog onboard!
We went to visit Shani Simmons today in her lovely home and yard. She’s a board member of the Bay Area Butterfly Festival and had a garden tour. There were many monarchs and finches in the yard, so she takes her volunteerism seriously! I’m glad Shea got a chance to meet her and I got to meet Shani’s husband Steve. I just realized I neglected to take a picture of the huge portion of her garden which was comprised of milkweed!
Shea’s aunt, cousin, cousin’s wife and cousin’s son, from Pittsburg, California (his hometown) were camping in Half Moon Bay. That happens to also be my dad’s old stomping ground from after his retirement from the Coast Guard since he had a commercial fishing boat there. We went out to see them (my first time meeting Shea’s family), which also served to escape the heat wave that was in the Bay Area. For those who aren’t familiar with the various microclimates in the area, the coast is almost always more pleasant during times like this. Surprisingly there was very little traffic for a Saturday, and we even got back in time for some pool time with friends in Vallejo, which was still well above 90 degrees when we returned around 6pm.
While in Half Moon Bay we did a lot of outdoor activities, including taking a long walk along the beach, rode the bikes with the cart for dogs hitched to one of them, which completely inspired me to get one for my electric bike. We also had some food al fresco, and played Rummy Tile, a board game inspired by Mahjong. I didn’t win either game, but at least I didn’t come in last the second time I played!
You’ll see in the videos that I come to a sudden stop at least once to make sure the dogs were okay behind me. They were carefully strapped in, but were probably unsure of what to make of the situation. Shea is filming when I did this so he almost ran into me. You can see it from two perspectives which we laughed about in the end. Fortunately no one was hurt during the making of these videos, least of all the dogs.
On top of the hill near where I live there are great sunsets, especially above the Carquinez Bridge. A lovely passerby offered to help us take portraits of all four of us.
After a Father’s Day Zoom with my daughter, hiked to the top of Mare Island with Shea. We ran into my friend Stephen Hallet who happened to be hiking there at the same time. What a small world! Great minds think alike!
For the first time I hiked ALL the way up the hill to the point in the Glen Cove neighborhood of Vallejo where pme cam look down on the Carquinez Bridge and back at the toll plaza with Napa, Sonoma and Marin counties in one direction and Contra Costa in the other. Snoopy and Bonnie kept up incredibly well while tethered to each other on the tandem leash.
