California 10, or, Doggie Panniers

Like the title says. Dogs in panniers. I guess they also make panniers for dogs, but who cares, that's not as cool. And we didn't see any in San Francisco.

California 9, or, Three Image from the Way Back of the Mystery Machine

Presented in order of being able to discern the surroundings.


We had a great evening in Oakland eating fine meats on Piedmont Ave and seeing a New Orleans-style brass band play at Disco Volante downtown. The prospect of a long painful trip on public transportation ahead of us, this friend of a friend offered to give us a ride back to The City. Turns out that ride was in the most awesome 1970's van of all time. All these pictures taken from my seat way back by the rear doors, some 50 yards away from the driver and passenger seats up front.

California 8

It wasn't all campgrounds and sunsets in California. We also spent a fair bit of time in The City, split between a couple nights in a swanky hotel in Union Square and an apartment rental deep in the Mission. We wandered around and occasionally took pictures of nothing in particular.

California 7

Two more pictures we like from camping in Northern California. Above: Something big; Below: Something small.

California 6

More surprisingly to your correspondent than the very cool tide pools -- which were awesome, but as promised -- were the really nice fields of feet-high wild grasses. Not something that springs to mind when you (or at least, when I) imagine the coast of Northern California.

California 5

While we're at the seaside, in addition to crazy little marine animals that I don't know the name of, there were seals. But also in addition to seals, there were plants I don't know the name of. For example, those pictured above, which seemed to be making a little tropical forest of miniature trees on the rocks that were at times underwater but at this time, not. Also, crashing surf, producing a rain-like effect in this picture which was captured at the slowest shutter speed at which I could keep the camera relatively still.

California 4

Some really nice tide pools at the Salt Point State Park. Crazy critters; anemone things, hermit crabs, starfish, and more. We took a lot of pictures but didn't get them all and even the stuff we got, I don't know what they're called other than "crazy little tidepool creatures." If you want to see a more traditional closeup of this purty starfish, we did that, too.

California 3

When in Northern California, we recommend Salt Point State Park. On the Pacific Coast of Sonoma County, it features a dramatic shoreline perfect for exploring tide pools, some very pretty grassy meadows and stands of trees, and... a pygmy forest. Pictures of tide pools and pretty grassy meadows coming over the next few days. Somehow -- whether due to incompetence or laziness, we don't know -- the staff photographer didn't wind up taking any pictures of the pygmy forest. Our apologies. To aid in your imagining the pygmy forest, it was like a regular forest - but shorter.

We did take the above picture of star trails on a bright moon-lit night in the campground of Salt Point State Park, which does feature some odd trees. Some of them are short, but I think they're just young, not full-fledged pygmies.

California 2

This picture of a rusty fire ring is just a placeholder because it's late and we don't have it together to write any thrilling anecdotes about our time in California. We remain, as ever, suckers for close-up pictures of rusty things.

California 1

So, to catch you up on the story, in case you're just joining us, which we can't imagine why you would be:

In 2010, we started working in Afghanistan and due to the needs of the Foreign Service to have us in Afghanistan right now, we were kindly granted a waiver to take less than the Congressionally mandated amount of home leave in America between foreign tours. So then, when we left Afghanistan for a job in Washington with much less urgency that we report right now, we had some extra home leave days in the bank. So we got a nice long break that allowed us to see Alaska (about which see the previous 30 or so posts) and our old stomping grounds in California's picturesque San Francisco Bay Area. And some other stuff, but that's coming soon.

Coming over the next [however long it takes]: pictures and occasional anecdotes from Northern California. If you hadn't figured it out yet, we're currently on assignment in Washington and the exotic travel photography opportunities are a little slim, so we're not exactly moving at lightning pace to get through the home leave pictures. I know that's not what faithful fans of the Foreign Service Blog are looking for, but one does spend some portion of a FS career in Washington, so there you have it.

Alaska 30

This is a picture of a cute dog lazing about the stage area at the Fairview Inn bar, a historic (for Alaska) locale and a traditional hang-out for those returning from a grueling trip up Denali - or a grueling drive back from the parking lot at the Matanuska Glacier, as it was in our case.

One other note on the Alaska Mountaineering School - we were disappointed with the trip but the weather obviously wasn't their fault. We didn't really get what we paid for, but it wasn't for lack of effort by the instructors, one of which instructors set out shortly after our trip to compete in a crazy Alaskan race where teams of two get dropped off in the wilderness somewhere, and have to make their way to another point in the wilderness, 150 miles away, with only what they can carry on their backs. Their plan involved basically running up some mountains, then coming down the glaciers on the other side, then inflating a raft they were carrying on their backs the whole way, and floating downto the vague area of the finish line. Turns out, they won. 60 hours of wilderness travel with about one hour of sleep. Bad ass crazy dudes.

Alaska 29

Some cool stuff we got to do while on the glacier. Above, The Lovely Katherine demonstrates flawless ice climbing technique. Below, she ties gorgeously dressed Munter Mule Overhand knots in setting up an anchor and pulley system to pull a fallen climber out of a crevasse. (Or rather in this case, Rocky, a boulder playing the part of a crevasse victim.)

Alaska 28

We did make it to the Matanuska Glacier. It was a bit of a disappointment because you can just drive up to it, park, and stroll onto the glacier. But it's still a glacier, and we did camp on it, which was pretty cool, I guess.

Alaska 27

Three views from Talkeetna, where we wound up spending more time than we had planned: airstrip; sidewalk; ice cream truck.

Alaska 26

The intent of our stop in Talkeetna was to learn some mountaineering skills. The class we signed up for was supposed to fly us up to a glacier on the shoulders of Mt. McKinley, where we would learn techniques for safe travel on the glacier, camping in the snow, and rescuing someone who has fallen in a crevasse.

The weather was not our ally. Due to cloud cover, we were unable to fly to the glacier for several consecutive days. So we did a lot of training exercises, which we would have done on the glacier, in and around the Alaska Mountaineering School's facility in Talkeetna - one detail of which is above.

It kind of sucked. We still learned a lot, but not as much as we would have up on the glacier, and with a severely lower fun/cool factor. The teachers were still good, but in the end we drove to a glacier between Talkeetna and Anchorage that was covered in scree and didn't really offer the high-altitude environment we were hoping to train for. We'd had great success in our endeavors on each of a ridiculous number of vacations over the last year, so I guess we were due for something to not work out just right.

Alaska 25

Despite some time spent in Denali National Park, and plans to spend more time there, this was the best view we got of the mountain on the whole trip. It's on the far left. In the foreground, the budding Occupy Talkeetna movement takes shape.

Alaska 24

Ok, that's enough of Denali. We have made an editorial decision that you don't need to see a not-exactly-spectacular picture of a bear or a moose taken from the park bus window. So we're moving on.

But speaking of photos taken from the bus window, this was on the bus ride from Denali down to Talkeetna. Apparently someone thought a big igloo-shaped hotel would draw all sorts of tourists or convention business to the middle of nowhere in Alaska. They're probably right - I wish we could have stayed there!

Alaska 23

We did not only see dead caribou antlers - we also saw quite a few living caribou, sometimes at unexpectedly close range. To go out in the wilderness in Denali you have to watch a video that tells you a lot about what to do if you run into a grizzly. They tell you a bit about what to do with an aggressive moose. They don't tell you what to do about caribou acting weird and territorial near your tent.

Don't worry; it turned out fine. We have much closer up pictures of caribou, but they're not as nice as this further away one.

Alaska 22

Found near our first campsite in the Toklat valley. Or perhaps placed there by previous campers. But certainly killed in the first place by something awesome like a bear. Or wolves. We saw lots of tracks of both. We saw actual grizzlies from the safe confines of the bus. On our way out of the park, when we flagged down a park bus with our big packs and our smelly clothes, one of the other passengers said we must have been very disappointed not to see any grizzlies while out camping. I guess it's for the best that that person just stayed on the bus.

Alaska 21

Sunshine and marmots! The Toklat River valley was perfect.