Kinetic Sculpture Grand Championship - Day 2

Day 2 of the Kinetic Sculpture Grand Championships is a water start in Humboldt Bay.

Bigfoot

Happy 75th Birthday GGB

Fireworks for the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th birthday.  Viewed from the Legion of Honor.  Photos a mix of Canon Powershot and iPhone.

Fireworks from the deck of the bridge

Kinetic Sculpture Grand Championship

Day One of the Kinetic Sculpture Grand Championship - Across the beach and into the dunes

Coming down the beach into the dunes

Beers of the north coast III

Eel river tasting room & grill.

Beers of the north coast II

Mad River Brewing co. Tasting Room

Aurora borealis

Taken with a Canon powershot (point and shoot) on a gorillapod attached to the rental car roof rack. On Murphy's Dome outside Fairbanks.

Even more ice art

Ice sculptures at dusk

Museum of the North

Museum of the north in Fairbanks, Alaska, March 2012.

Beers of the north coast

Tasting room of Redwood Curtain Brewing Company. Favorites are the Saison du Humboldt, Belgian Porter and the Dubbel.

More eclipse

The holes of the slotted spoon with the eclipsed sun shadow

Eclipse starting

Sunspotter

Little black spot on the sun today

Annular solar eclipse in northern California Sunday May 20, 2012.
We're near Mount Shasta with the SF Amateur Astronomers. In typical northern California fashion our group of astronomers is joined by a bunch of folks with crystals and kooky ideas.

Mt. Shasta

More Ice Art

Ice Art championships

March 2012 Fairbanks, Alaska
Taken with my iPhone

Home Sweet Home

For those who haven't already heard. We arrived in San Francisco, early Saturday afternoon. All safe and mostly sound. This blog will be pretty quiet until we take a trip somewhere, but the Bay Area is surrounded with scenic sites, so stay tuned!

The Grand Canyon

We're in California! Bakersfield at the Econo Lodge to be exact. Thursday afternoon we arrived at the Grand Canyon. Besides stopping for choice eats and visiting Lisa, we only wanted to stop for Graceland and the Grand Canyon. The Canyon does not disappoint.

Across the Great Divide

After being well supplied with Tastykakes and other provisions we left Lubbock and headed into New Mexico, passing Albuquerque and ending up in Gallup. Along the way we passed the Continental Divide, which is the separation between the watershed of the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

Where to broker your cattle deal

As we headed out of Maryland on Sunday The Splendid Table was on NPR. The Road Food segment described a steakhouse in Oklahoma City where breakfast is served starting at 6 am so that cattlemen at the stockyards can broker their deals over steak and eggs. Of course we had to stop by! The steakhouse is, predictably, named Cattleman's, and is decorated with large 1950s photo murals of suit-clad cattlemen overseeing cows. We sampled the steak soup, chicken fried steak and filet mignon - all worth trying, although the filet mignon was definitely the best. From Cattleman's we headed into Texas and down to Lubbock to visit Lisa Patrick who is currently stranded there in grad school. After getting lost in Lubbock, Lisa made us exceedingly welcome, even to the extent of stocking up on some Dogfish Head brews.

King of Rock and Interior Design

We kicked off Monday with a stop at Monell's in Nashville, Tennessee for an early lunch. We got there at half past ten, and were the first guests in the door. Seating at Monell's is communal but we ended up at a large communal table alone while it filled up with food. Particularly noteworthy were the peach preserves, biscuits, and meatloaf. Highly recommended!!! Stuffed to the gills we continued on to Memphis and Graceland!

Graceland was surprisingly modest on the outside, however, this was more than made up for by the king's fabulous 70s interior decor. Our favorites were the yellow and navy blue TV room with mirrored ceiling, the fabric covered pool room, and of course the famous Jungle Room. In addition to the mansion we checked out other Elvis memorabilia including stage costumes, cars and airplanes. Now we finally know what to do with a bedazzler.

For some reason there was a Weinermobile parked in the Graceland parking lot.

Of Foamhenge and inedible snacks

Welcome to Central Standard Time, it's a crisp Monday morning west of Knoxville (off exit 238 of I40, in Lebanon, Tennessee). Sahrye made good distance and time yesterday, we even had time to stop and visit the most sacred of sacred sites in this wonderful country, no not Graceland that's today. I'm talking about Foamhenge, built by Neolithic Tennessean Man out of neolithic packing foam (one can only guess) as a astronomical calendar to predict the arrival of tourists in the far distant future. Well done neolithic Tennessean man, well done.

Twizzlers, the all American snack, right? Well I've never been a fan but in hunger jam I wouldn't turn one down. Not so with Twizzlers Rainbow pack, yuk, completely disgusting, the texture is all wrong and the flavors weird. Buried under a snow storm in the Blue Mountains of Tennessee I'd rather eat cardboard. Luckily we brought Pringles!

Today, we're making the pilgrimage to Graceland. Nuff said.