Catching Up to Fall

The last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy as we settle back into life in Alaska, especially since Judy left over Labor Day weekend for a quick trip to see Jessica in southern California!  Brian did a long hike with Lance the same weekend up Wolverine.

Jet Blue flies to Long Beach from Anchorage direct between Memorial Day and Labor Day and very reasonably, so it was a good trip, even though it was 1 - 7:20 am, so very little sleep!  We made the most of the weekend with a trip to Ojai to see my sister and her family, shopping at a wonderful Farmer's Market in Santa Monica (oh, the tomatoes and the basil!), a night at the Hollywood Bowl for a concert, and a day at the beach.

In Ojai, we got to see my niece, Piper, playing with Emy Reynold's in The Emy Reynold's band at a coffeehouse in town.

I wish that I had taken more pictures in Ojai, but -- short trip, and I even made a huge batch of pesto while I was there to freeze and take back to Alaska with me.  We were just there overnight and then, back on the road to Santa Monica.  That night, there was a concert at The Hollywood Bowl, a huge, open amphitheater, celebrating 100 years of Paramount.  They had the symphony playing movie themes and huge screens playing the film clips at the same time - very fun.

And as if that wasn't enough, you can bring in a picnic, bottle of wine, etc. and have it while you're watching and listening.  A beautiful night, as you can see!  Each day we had taken a walk along the beach, but Monday, before I left to come back to Anchorage in the evening, we spent several hours at the beach, me reading of course! It's a beautiful beach and has a bike trail right up the middle that goes for maybe 50 miles?  These were taken from up above, as there are stairs down to the beach level.

A great vacation spot - thanks Jess!  Back to work and into a Wisdom on the Web Weekend this weekend, but we managed to fit in a great bike ride out the Chester Creek trail, where we could see all of the damage from the storm last week - trees down and uprooted, etc.  Leaves all over the multi-use trails . . . and two moose munching it up right on the side of the trail, big as life -- or bigger!  The storm was said to be more powerful coming off the Bering Sea because it was so much earlier than usual - more usual in winter.

Shrimp season is over, so whatever we have in the freezer will have to do til spring - hope we get one more trip out on Kakwik at least - though she won't come out of the water since it's salt water here.
Time to get Brian up and get both of us to work!