Silver Falls State Park

Today we decided to visit one of finest state parks in the U.S., Silver Falls.  It was created during the depression by the CCC.  Here’s the lodge that was built:

    We had lunch at the small café in the lodge, enjoying the craftsmanship and style.

After lunch we went on hike to the South Falls.  There are 9 different falls in the park.  South Falls is the highest and most visited.  Here’s a view from the overlook:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the unique features of the falls is that you can walk behind the falls.

We then hiked down to the bridge across the stream, and cross over to the other side.  The trail then climbs back up the canyon.  Linda took a picture of me on the bridge, and I took one of her back up behind the falls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hike back up the canyon was a lot tougher than coming down.  I had to stop a few times to gather my strength.  Linda beat me up the trail.  I need to exercise more! If you want to see more photos, visit our Picasa albums at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/home?hl=en&tab=wq

After freshening up at the MoHo, we headed to our old hometown of Albany to have dinner with our good friends, Paul & Kathy Ross.  We had dinner at McGrath’s Fish House.  We made sure they had chicken and ribs for Paul & Linda who don’t enjoy fish.  I had the fresh Alaskan razor clams and they were delicious! We all showed pictures, Paul & Kathy showed wedding pictures of their son Andy and his new bride Cassie, and we showed them (guess what??) Jaxson’s latest photos.  We took a tour of Corvallis to see all of the changes, and we couldn’t stop talking.  It was great.

First Post of the New Year

And January is almost over.  We’ve been busy, but for the most part really boring stuff.  I’ll try to give you some of the highlights to bring you up to date with the Huber’s and Pearl.

Yes Pearl is still with us.  Some days are better than other, but we don’t think she’s in a lot of pain.  So we’re continuing to baby her here in Laguna Woods, where she has no steps and nice green grass.

We spent New Years Eve day with Matt, Suzanne, and William Jaxson.  He’s growing so fast.  Here’s a picture from the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeni was still visiting from AZ, so she got into the action.  That evening we went to Temecula to celebrate our niece Katie’s 30th birthday.  I can’t remember when I was thirty it was so long ago.

Jeni headed back to AZ, and we settled into a new routine in the Village.  I’m still working at the computer workshop and the Photography lab, but I’ve also added teaching a basic Windows 7 class for 5 weeks.  Linda is still beading twice a week, but she has also volunteered to do income taxes under the AARP umbrella for senior citizens here in the village.

We both celebrated our birthdays during January, and on the weekend Jeni came over to be with us.  Matt, William Jaxson, and Jeni surprised us on Friday, 1/15, here at our place.  The birthday present they shared with us was a special professional photo of Pearl, alone and with us.  She came to our condo with lights, backgrounds and cameras and took a lot of pictures.  We’re anxious to see how they came out.

On Saturday we all headed to San Diego to go to the Zoo.  Linda and I are very fond of zoos, and we hadn’t been to the San Diego Zoo in 30 years.  Here we are getting ready to tour around.

 

This is the first big outing for us with William Jaxson and we had a ball.  And he was the best behave 3 month old in the entire zoo.

They have a lot of new exhibits which was very exciting.  Here’s the Panda’s:

The new Polar Bear exhibit:

Here are some good shots of the lions:

And the Koalas.  This was just before the zoo closed, so the lighting isn’t that good, but they’re so cute:

Here’s the last picture of the day:

If you want to look at all of the pictures, they’re on our Picasa Web albums.  Click on the links:

http://picasaweb.google.com/winequest/NewYearSEveWithJaxson#

http://picasaweb.google.com/winequest/SanDiegoZoo#

And all of our pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/home?hl=en&tab=wq

So now you know what’s been going on.  I promise to post at least once a week to keep you up to date.

Laguna Sunsets

Linda went off to AZ to help Jeni out, (and to get away from me), leaving Pearl and me to fend for ourselves.  I had a few commitments including working in the PC Workshop, the Camera Lab, assisting in a Windows 7 class, and attending a volunteer dinner and taking pictures.  I also got the car serviced and bought new tires.  Linda now thinks she should go away more often!

The weather was cool and unsettled all week, and on Saturday afternoon we had a break in the weather, but an interesting cloud layer.  I thought that it could create a pretty sunset, so I fed  Pearl and headed for Laguna Beach, and Heilser Park in particular.  The park is just north of downtown Laguna Beach and includes a promenade on the bluff above the beach, and stairways down to the beach.  There are many rocky areas and tide pools to explore and picnic areas for groups and families.

Here’s the view when I got there.

It seems that many photographers had the same idea.

And the kids were playing in the surf.

And of course there was a beautiful sunset.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  I know I enjoyed taking them.

Partially Finished & The Start of the Week

We have been trying to finish the remodeling here at the village.  The kitchen was just about done, but we needed pendent lights over the bar and hardware for the drawers and doors. We looked and looked at a lot of different lighting stores, and finally decided on some fixtures from Kitcher.  The first shipment was damaged, but we finally got our order.  We also decided on the hardware from The Great Indoors.

Monday, Ted our contractor came over to install everything.  We’re very pleased with the results. We were having a problem with our dishwasher.  The dishes weren’t getting clean.  We contacted our local repair people and they discovered that the dishwasher was hooked up to the cold water line.  Ted fixed that and now we have clean dishes again.  It’s amazing how the small things can affect how appliances work.

While Ted & I were working on the kitchen, Linda had her biweekly beading club meeting.  This month they’re making a necklace, and I’m anxious to see how it comes out.  She’s feeling much better and is starting to get her energy back

Tuesday I spend in the PC lab as a supervisor.  It’s fun helping people solve problems, and teaching them some new programs.  I’ve forgotten how satisfying volunteering can be since we left Olympic National Park.  I’ll give you a more complete description of the computer facilities here at the village in the future.

Wednesday I got a call from the head of the Photo Lab asking me to sub for the afternoon supervisor.  I was glad to fill in at the lab.  I helped a couple of the more experienced photographers in the club work in the studio with the lighting.  It was fun to learn new techniques.  Here’s a picture they took of me during the session. That’s about it for this entry.  Next time I’ll talk about the outdoor concert scheduled for tomorrow. 

Linda’s Getting Better & I Go On a Field Trip

Linda is slowly getting better, but she’s still not well enough for any activities.  It’s better to take it slow and easy until she gets her energy back.

I decided to assign myself a photo project.  I had visited the Laguna Beach visitor center while I was at the library, and picked up some brochures & maps.  As anyone who has known me for a while realizes that this is pretty normal for me.  I can’t seem to drive past a visitor center.  I knew there was a lot of beautiful beaches here, but because of all of the development they’re hard to find.  One beach that was rated high was Crescent beach, north of the town.  So with some clouds in the sky promising an interesting sunset, I took off for some sunset beach photos.

I drove past the beach by mistake and ended up at Crystal Cove.  The $15 entrance fee caused me to turn around and head south again.  I know California is hurting financially, but that seemed like a lot for an hour on the beach.  As I got back into town after all of the gated communities I started to take side streets towards the beach.  I found a pathway down to Crescent Beach, and it was beautiful as promised.  At one end was a point going out with palm trees. And at the other end was another point. I saw people standing on the point towards the north and I thought that would be a good place for a sunset picture.  I had to hurry because the sun was setting fast.  I finally found this little park in a residential area.  There was a nice area of grass and some beautiful plantings.  I was surprised there was still an iris blooming. At the end of the point there were nice views south towards Laguna Beach. And north towards the sunset. Next to those palm trees was a beautiful house with all windows.  It had a 180 degree view of the ocean and the rocks down below.  It was fun to watch the sun make it’s progress towards Hawaii.

I wonder if those people in that house really appreciate what they have in their living room every night.  It’s really beautiful, but I still like waterfalls and the mountains better than the beach.  And it’s more affordable.

Under the Weather

Linda’s been not feeling well since Wed. with a chest cold and a lot of coughing.  This has really disrupted her sleep.  I bought some MucinexDM, but I think they spend all of their money on advertising instead of good medicine because it didn’t seem to help much.  And it cost $44 at Costco for 44 tablets.

So I’ve been spending time taking care of her.  I did go over to the Photo Lab to be supervisor on Thursday afternoon.  They have a DigiLab consisting of 5 Windows desktops and 1 Macintosh desktop with the latest photo software including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Adobe Lightroom, Picasa, Photomatrix, and other lesser known software.  And they have Epson photo printers, including one that prints from a paper roll for panoramas.  By working as a supervisor I get to try everything out and learn new software, and print some great photos.  They also have a classroom, a mounting room, and a small studio.  Next week I’ll try to take some pictures.

Linda’s green thumb is still in evidence.  Here’s some updated photos of the area around our condo.This is our herb pot.  Linda put a sign above it offering herbs to our neighbors.  We’re overwhelmed by the basil, like some people get overwhelmed by zucchini.  By Oct. it will all be mint, as it’s starting to take over the pot.  We have only one strawberry thought.

We bought 3 tree roses to go against the wall. We have Brandy, Cherish, and Sunsprite. I’m going to build a trellis for the area on the left of the wall.  We don’t know what we’ll plant there thought.  I think Linda wants to wait until the trellis is built-she knows me well.

That’s it for right now.  I told you it was going to get boring.  Hopefully Linda will begin to feel better.  Keep her in your prayers.

It’s Been Five Weeks Today

It’s been five weeks today since my surgery, and I’m feeling really good.  In fact, I’ve retired the cane! Today I rode the stationary bike for 20 minutes, going about 6 miles.  And I walked an additional 2 miles back to the condo.  I wonder how I’ll feel tomorrow.

This last week we’ve done a few things.  I’ll start with the important things, Linda got her hair cut and styled and I got a haircut.  Linda looks better than me, but then again she always does.  We also had to take Pearl in the Vet, as she’s not doing real well.  It turned out she had a urinary infection.  So we go some antibiotics and some additional pain pills for her hips.  It seems we’re all going to the Doctor for some reason.  On Wednesday evening we went to the Spring Fling dinner for the RV club in the village.  They’re a great group, but we wish we could go on a rally with them.  The timing is always wrong.  Now they’re not going anywhere until the fall. 

On Thursday Linda went out to Hemet to help Suzanne close down her room at the end of the school year.  There’s always a lot of cleaning up and putting stuff away for the Summer, and Linda was happy to help.  And she didn’t have to put up with me all day, a real dividend.

I’m volunteering in the camera digital lab as a supervisor a couple of times a month.  It’s fun to play with all of the neat computers and printers, and I might be able to help some of the other members.  And I might start printing some of my photos for our walls.

Linda is getting active in the beading club, and we’re starting to attend some of the committee meetings to find out how the village operates.  I went to a broadband meeting today that manages the cable TV network and the Internet access.  The big issue today was that they turned off two of the Spanish stations because of a change in the fee structures.  They not only wanted fees, but also wanted it retroactive 18 months, which would be over $200,000.  A lot of the residents were unhappy, but when they heard about the fees they calmed down a lot.  The cable system is included in the HOA fees, so the channel lineup is always a difficult decision and no matter what is decided, someone is going to be unhappy.

So that’s all the news lately from the Hubers.  I have been to inactive lately with the surgery, so I’m planning to step it up a bit with more hiking, and maybe some swimming.  They have 5 pools here that are real nice.  I’m only afraid that someone will make a mistake and think a whale has invaded the pool.

Phoenix Art Museum

I know what you’re thinking.  John & Linda at an Art Museum??? Well, we went and enjoyed ourselves. I read that there was a special exhibit of Ansel Adams photographs at the museum.  That probably explains a lot.  He’s one of our favorite artists, and seeing original photographs that he created and printed himself was very special.  They also had some videos of Ansel working in his darkroom printing some of his pictures.

They had over 200 unique pictures in a very large area that was well lit and spacious.  And there wasn’t a very big crowd when we got there around 4:00pm.  Wednesday, between 3 and 9, admission to the museum is available for a donation.  So we were able to get close to the pictures without crowds and take our time in viewing pictures from different places, taken at different times. 

One of his most famous pictures is Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1948).  It sold at auction for $609,600 in 2006.  We got to see 3 different versions of the print, created at different times, along with an video of Ansel explaining how he took the picture.

They also had my personal favorite photo, naturally taken in Yosemite.

This copy doesn’t do the picture justice.  It’s called Tanaya Creek, Dogwood, Rain.  If you’re visiting Yosemite, make sure you stop in the Ansel Adams Gallery to see this picture in person.