Thursday

The previous post was written over a month ago and a lot has happened since then! We sold our house, I quit my job, and we left the beautiful Bay Area.

Since leaving, we hiked in Yosemite, toured an underground garden in Fresno, went whale watching in Monterey, spent time on the beach in Ventura, and stopped to hunt for the Gorn at Vasquez Rocks, went to the J. Paul Getty Museum, the LA County Arboretum, hiked at Crystal Cove, and hit at the batting cages (& arcade) at Boomers, and more.


These are photos from today. Pumpkin Pancakes, Yellow flowers at Peter's Canyon, Sunset Beach, and Harbor House Cafe. It was refreshing to see Harbor House Cafe has remained the same since nearly all  of Huntington Beach has been 'remodeled'. There has been (and is) so much development in the OC.
 

Time to start wrapping things up here, and look forward to hitting the road soon to Arizona and the Southwest.  Overall, it feels a lot like the song by Missing Persons, "Destination Unknown".

Year of the Horse

Aged redwood trees, and aging me enjoying the afternoon sun. A  weekday hike with my husband to breathe the air, exercise, and clear our minds. Celebrating a new year around the sun. This one will be different. Being born in year-of-the-horse, it arrives with new opportunity. Opportunity to live in an entirely different way. This is a year of exploration via travel. Travel to experience new places, challenge myself, and watch carefully for passion and direction. It also comes with getting rid of nearly all material possessions. Trying to ruthlessly prioritize what stays with a minimum of storage boxes. I've never done anything like this before. I'm sure it will be liberating at some point but right now I'm full of anxiety. Meditation (breathing) and yoga will be necessary and important practices to include.

China Camp St. Park

We went for a hike at the China Camp State Park where there used to be thriving Chinese shrimp-fishing village in the 1800's. The shoreline trail had nice breezes along the San Pablo Bay, and salt marshes. We saw wild turkey's a few times and some lizards. There were a lot of people on bikes.The history of places is always fascinating to me. I like to imagine the people who were here decades or centuries before and how they lived, what they did.

Triangle pose at the old shrimp-fishing village

Rosie the Riveter

We took a trip to Richmond to visit the Rosie the Riveter National Park. Back in the 1940's there was a lot of WWII industrial work happening in Richmond building ships, etc. In this free visitor center, they also exhibit the concept of Victory Gardens, housing challenges due to the new influx of workers, and the necessity for childcare while women went to work. It's well done, educational, and worth a visit.

July list poem

July

sky

sorting through stuff

purge, keep, purge

heirloom tomatoes growing wild

cherry plums falling

purple, pink, yellow, white pansies

melancholy

inspiration

anxiety

drought

driveway

fruit flies

change

don't change

Shine

Shine the path ahead
See, Hear, Smell, Taste, Feel, Breathe Deep 
To live more ALIVE
 ~ AA 7/7/14

Even though Don't Change is my all time favorite INXS song (I know it's ALWAYS INXS with me), change is percolating.This morning another old INXS song came to mind. "Shine Like It Does" happened to start playing the day George and I walked into a saloon in Virginia City back in May, 2010, and the rest is history! It seems an appropriate song for the big decisions we make. The specific lines that came to mind are,

if you're looking....

you will find it..

Without going into detail, this Anais Nin quote continues to speak to me:
'And then the day came when the pain to remain closed tight in a bud
became more than the pain it took to blossom."

Class of 2014

So proud of my nephew Justin who just graduated with high honors.