Maui

We spent all of last week in beautiful Maui, courtesy of Dan who graciously offered us a week in his condo (with ocean views.....). The weather was great, although I always struggle with the heat. In fact, it drains a lot of my energy, and makes me understand why Hawai'ians behave the way they do. It also makes sense that surfing and "hanging out" are favorite "activities", and I vowed to NEVER do a triathlon or run on the islands. But you have to take it for what it is, a beautiful spot in the middle of the ocean, with perfect beaches, great warm nights, and happy people. We still did some activities, like a hike to a blowhole, where water vents out of a hole in the lava. Quite a sight, especially with the lava looking like it was just exposed to severe chemical weapon testing:




We drove around the west coast and stopped at a few more nice sites, everything is so lush and green, it is amazing. The lava rock coast is also very fascinating, this picture is of the "dragon teeth" that were shaped by rapid cooling.


The next day we hiked to a remote beach, for which we had to cross the most recent lava flow, from about 1790. It was fairly hot and very interesting to walk on this "fresh" rock; the beach was nice, but the snorkeling was not great.



We also spent some time on the beach (I know, I couldn't believe it either :-), here are some typical pictures:




We then drove the famous "Road to Hana", on the northeast side of the island with some of the wettest spots on the planet. Of course, lots of rainforest, waterfalls, etc. A very time consuming drive, with lots of other people, but it was definitely worth it to see a whole other side of the island. Here are some impressions:





A beach with black sand and some great waterfalls with swimming ponds concluded the drive. On our way back, we saw this beautiful sunset right before we stopped in Paia to see Obama being elected. It is hard to describe the relief that caused, people were celebrating, it was amazing.





We went and looked for a geocache the next day and came across this little lava beach, where about 20 sea turtles were grazing the algae off the cliffs, it was unbelievable!



During most of the days we went snorkeling, which was really great on Maui.. The amount of fish is amazing, and we saw sea turtles every time we snorkeled. We bought a one-way underwater camera, and the pictures of the turtle and the ray are my favotires:

On our last day, we drove up to Haleakala, the volcano at 10,000 feet on the east side of the island. It was amazing how cold it was, and being over the clouds and being able to see the Big Island about 100 miles was unbelievable. All in all, it was a great experience, we will definitely go back.

Pacific Grove

We spent a weekend in beautiful Pacific Grove last week; the weather was gorgeous, and we did some nice hikes. The first one took us to an all-time favorite, Point Lobos State Park. We hiked around the coastal trail and saw pelicans, seals, sea lions, and lots of water fowl. It was fairly windy, so the waves were very impressive, and combined with the sunshine and blue sky, it made for a perfect day. Here are some pictures from the park:


Seals on the rocks...




We had a great Italian dinner in an old victorian house converted into a restaurant. Pacific Grove is really pretty, and it is not as touristy as Monterey or as snobby as Carmel. The next morning I biked on the famous 17mile drive in the morning, it was pretty cold but very pretty, especially without all the traffic (it was 8 am....). After breakfast we went to Garrapata Park and hiked around some more. We started on a canyon trail and found some cactii....





We got to a little Redwood forest, which was very pretty, and on our way back followed a trail to the coast, with gorgeous scenery.

It felt like a mini-vacation, even though it is only a 2-hour drive from San Francisco.

379 Noe Part 2

I realized that I never posted pictures of the rest of our apartment, so I walked around yesterday and took some shots. This is the building from the outside, we live on the top floor. There are beautiful details on the outside, they did a great paint job:





The pictures of the front rooms are in the previous blog, this is the living room and one of the guest rooms, I finally got my posters printed and put them on the wall. The picture of Half Dome at Sunset over the TV is printed on canvas.






Sabine has been showing off her green thumb (we didn't know she had one.....) and planted herbs and flowers on the patio; the bell peppers are growing very nicely:






And we have started to collect old family pictures, here are some of Sabine's family:

4th of July in Mammoth Lakes

The 4th of July is a holiday in the US that fell on a Friday this year. Therefore we had a three-day-weekend which gave us the chance to go a little bit further away from home. We decided to go to Mammoth Lakes on the east side of the Sierra, on the 'other' side from Yosemite. Mammoth is better known as a ski resort, but the East Sierra is also beautiful for hiking.
We rented a vacation condo that we were able to use as our base for great day hiking trips. Our friends Jenny and John joined us or a day and a half and together we embarked on a fantastic 11-mile hiking trip in the John Muir Wilderness.



The hike started at already 9,000 feet elevation and brought us close to 11,000 feet. As you can imagine, the views are unbelievable and the elevation gets the heart rate going :-)
We hiked through some forest first with a nice waterfall (see picture) and then followed the trail along huge rock formations and different lakes to our destination Duck Lake. The color of the water was amazing and the lake was so huge; just a perfect location with the mountains surrounding the water.


The next day, we took another hike on the Little Lakes Valley trail that we had been snowshoeing on a couple years earlier during winter time. It is very interesting to hike the same trail in different seasonal conditions. We passed by about 6 lakes, one more beautiful than the other.

Move

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After 7 months of searching, we finally found the perfect place to buy, and were lucky enough to be "chosen" by the owner (no housing crisis here.....). It is the top unit in a 2-unit building, a Victorian built in 1900, with really old hardwood floors throughout the flat. So we moved a few weeks ago, and we are really happy in our new flat. It is located only a few blocks away from our old apartment, on the border of the Mission and Castro district, with nice sunny weather, and lots of restaurants and coffee shops. The move went really well thanks to all our friends, and we have enough rooms to store the boxes while we were (and still are) painting. We didn't agree with the previous colors, so decided to give the apartment a little more warmth. So baby blue turned into yellow, red, and even green. This is me taping and painting the bedroom, and sone clumsy paint remains after "kneeing" the wall.....:




It took a few weeks to get the majority done, but we're getting close to the end. Our bedroom, the front (or whiskey.....) room and the first guest room are done. We bought an old radio cabinet to store our alcoholic beverages and put a CD player inside so it looks like it is still working. The fireplace works on natural gas and gets nice and cosy. The paintings over the bed are my mom's...Here are some pictures:





There is a 2nd guest room, 2 bathrooms, a living / dining room and a gigantic kitchen with great appliances, including a wine cooler (!). And a nice patio off the kitchen that leads down to the basement. The ceilings are really high, about 12-13 feet, and the flat has about 1600 square feet (140 m2), which is really nice. The local hardware store already smiles when I walk in again to get some more home improvement necessities..... Ikea has also become our good friend again. I will post some more pictures of the remaining rooms once they are done.

Yosemite Snow II

Because it is so amazingly beautiful, we had to go back and enjoy Yosemite in the snow before summer takes over. Our friends Shannon and Brian came along for their first snowshoe experience, and they got to see it all: snow, dark clouds, and sunshine. We did a 6 mile trip through the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, and this is us entering the Grove after 2 miles:



It really started snowing during our trek to the Grizzly Tree, the largest tree in the Park with 200 feet (63 m) in height and 29 feet (8 m) in diameter:


We passed by some beautiful scenery, made a snow angel, and the sun came out on our way back. Shannon and Brian loved it, and on we went to our hotel for the night, the magnificent Wawona in the Park.




The dinner was awesome, and with the pianist playing some old campfire songs in the lobby, we ended the night with some nice cocktails. The next day we drove into the valley; it was gorgeous as always, and we took some nice strolls to waterfalls and along meadows before heading home.