I have been to the aquarium at Monterey a few times and those trips have made their way on to this blog before. The whale watching trip with Monterey Bay Whale Watch headed back to the marina in the early evening and provided a view of the aquarium that I haven’t seen before. The evening light looked very nice on the old structure.
Prior to visiting Truckee, I knew virtually nothing about it. I knew some people who had visited and liked it but I knew not much at all other than that it was a station on the railroad over the Sierras. It turns out to be a great little town. The main street provides a lot to see and do on a day out. The variety of buildings is interesting and there is a nice map you can pick up at the visitors’ center that explains the history of various places and the background to the town itself. It has gone through a number of phases as the economy of the area has developed.
The Truckee Hotel looks very cool. A colleague of mine stayed there a couple of years ago and had a great time. A gas station has been restored and used as office space but it looks just like an operational gas station still. The train depot includes the visitors’ center along with the Amtrak station. There are plenty of places to eat and a good selection of shops with arts, crafts and other items. We walked the length of the town and checked out the various buildings. The street runs alongside the river and there is some more on the other side although not as much to attract your attention. The town is not all though. There is more in the vicinity for another post. This would not be our only visit to the town on this trip either.
We took a short trip to San Luis Obispo while staying in Paso Robles. I didn’t know what to expect of the town other than that it is rated the happiest town in America (or some similar “statistic”). We got a map of the town from the visitor center and the first stop off was the mission. California is not short of mission buildings and I was expecting something similar to most. I was pretty surprised to discover that it was a pretty large area. The grounds were nicely landscaped and the buildings were extensive. It was far bigger than I had expected. I guess this was an important mission in its day.
A short distance away was the town museum. Originally a library funded under the program Andrew Carnegie created for providing libraries across the country, the library moved many years ago to a larger facility. After some debate, the building was re-purposed as a museum. It was a pretty interesting little place. My mum works with a local heritage organization in her town and I couldn’t help but imagine this place experiencing the same things she goes through on a regular basis. We took a look around, made our donation and headed out.
The town center itself is pretty vibrant. We started out in an area that was mainly populated by individual businesses. The whole thing felt very interesting and different. I was impressed. As we walked on, we came to the area that had all of the familiar chains. You knew that they couldn’t be far away. It did seem that the town had managed to avoid the homogeneity of many other towns though. It also had a river running through the heart of the area. Much effort had gone into designing nice pathways along the river and encouraging people to use it. This is a big improvement on so many small rivers in towns which seem like glorified drainage ditches.
It seems like a nice place to visit and something that would have enough to encourage me to return.
How much do you know about Olive Oil? If you are like me, probably not a lot. I know I like it and it is a regular part of my diet. After that, not so much. While staying in Paso Robles, we paid a visit to an olive oil farm. Kiler Ridge Farm has a large number of olive trees and a pressing facility. They press their own olives and olives for other growers, some of the oil from which they will also buy if they like it. The farm is still developing their crops but they have a significant business underway.
The tour is in two parts. One is a 90 minute discussion about the way in which they grow the olives, harvest them and turn them into oil. The owners are a very engaging couple who are passionate about this business and very analytical about the way in which things get done. At points, I think a portion of the visitors were zoning out when the math of yields was being discussed in great detail. For an engineer, it was perfect!
When the tour is done, you get to taste the oil. I was a little skeptical about this aspect. Taking a sip of olive oil seemed a little odd to me. We got to try and number of different types of oil and were shown how to taste it and what to look for. Despite having the remnants of a cold, I could still see the differences that were being discussed. Amusingly, they also provided a sample of a well-known “premium” brand of oil and the blandness was striking after tasting the others. There were some quite shocking details about just what can be sold as Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the US!
Aside from the interest of the tour and the tasting of the oil, the location was not bad either. Sitting atop a hill surrounded by olive groves and the rolling hills around Paso Robles on a sunny day was a delightful way to spend some time. Once we were finished, we just wandered around the grounds for a while taking in the view. Very relaxing. Stop by if you are ever in the area.
During the fall, we decided to take a trip up to Placer County. The aim was to visit some of the apple farms up that way and to buy some fruit. This we did quite successfully! When we had finished, we dropped in to Placerville to have a look around. I actually have some friends who live in Placerville but I hadn’t warned them that we might be in the neighborhood and they were out when I called to see if they were around so we missed out on catching up. However, we did have a nice look around the downtown area.
As an old mining town, it has a selection of older buildings and the feel of the place is more eclectic than the experience you have in a newer town that hasn’t had a chance to evolve much. The geography of the area means that the roads are not dead straight so everything has a more individual feel.
I can’t remember how the conversation developed the way it did but I was talking with a friend and got on to the subject of Malham Cove. Located in Yorkshire in the UK, this is a stunning location. It is a horseshoe shaped rock formation that once was an impressive waterfall. The water is still there but now the majority of the rock face is dry and it provides a great place for a hike. To illustrate this post, I am digging back in to the archives in a big way. This involves a trip I took there with an old friend of mine. I will not give his name but I will be interested to see if he reads this and what he thinks of photos of himself from twenty years ago!
You can park your car in Malham and walk straight up to the cove. However, we took an alternative route to make for a more interesting walk. We walked up a narrow valley named Gordale Scar. The valley gets narrower and narrower until you come to a waterfall. Provided the water is not flowing too hard, it is possible to climb up the side of the waterfall. Once at the top, you continue on a steady climb alongside a river – Gordale Beck. Even as young and energetic fellows like we were in those days, I recall this being a pretty hard slog and, while neither of us was going to show weakness to the other, I seem to recall a few stops to enjoy the scenery – nothing to do with catching our breath.
Things gradually flatten out and you cross some fields to come to Malham Tarn, a moderately sized lake. This is the turning point for the walk. Now you head back towards Malham itself. You end up coming across a limestone pavement to the tome of Malham Cove. Here you will meet a bunch of people that have walked up the steps from the valley below. Having made a far longer trek, you are tempted to be a little dismissive of these people taking the easy route but there are still a lot of steps so they have had to make some effort.
The view from the top is stunning. The drop down is a long one – about 80m (240’) – and there are often climbers testing themselves against the rock faces. The cracks in the limestone can be quite large as you step across and it is fun to imagine the whole thing being under rushing water. The formation is about 300m wide so, while it might be busy, you probably won’t feel crowded. When you have finally enjoyed the scenery enough, you can descend the steps at the side to head back into the village. This still gives you a chance to appreciate the view back up at the cove as you head away.
This place is stunning, particularly on a lovely day. If you live in the UK and have never been, try and get there. If you don’t live in the UK, add this to your itinerary when you go.
Our friends, Rich and Julie, have a great house in Lancashire which is in a small village that has a lot of farm land around it. The fields surrounding their house provide grazing land for some cows. I needed to go out to the edge of the fields to get some shots of the sunset and the cows in the field found my presence a curiosity that they could not resist. They came across and started leaning as far as they could across the fencing to try and lick me. I don’t know why licking me seemed to be so appealing! I was trying to get my shots so wanted to avoid them if possible but they were pretty tenacious so each time I moved, so did they.
They were pretty sweet animals. They weren’t at all threatening – just curious about what was going on. I obviously wasn’t cooperating with their curiosity and eventually they got bored with me and moved on with their mission to eat all of the grass in sight.
Sunset photos are pretty ubiquitous. Since everyone has some form of camera with them at all times, if there is a pretty sunset, someone is probably going to get a picture of it. We were sitting in Rich and Julie’s house after a day out when a glance out of the window showed a really lovely sky. I couldn’t resist and headed out to grab a few shots. As my friend, Hayman, would point out, the range of information in a modern raw file makes for a lot of latitude with processing a shot like this. I had a go with HDR too to compare the results but the basic shots seemed to do pretty well and preserve the tones and contrast better.
Fall color is usually associated with trees. However, grape vines are also prone to some nice color changes through autumn and we took a ride up to Napa Valley to see how things were looking. We probably we there a little after the peak of the colors but there were still some nice colors to be seen. A good number of vines were already devoid of leaves but others had developed a strong red hue. Heading up to Calistoga, we could get up on the hillside and see the valley floor below us. The variation in the different fields helped to emphasize the colors more in my opinion.
While Donald Trump might be well known now for putting his name all over his buildings, he certainly isn’t the first to do so. Head back to the Elizabethan period and you can find another example of someone who wanted you to know who they were. Bess of Hardwick had an interesting life that led her to be one of the more powerful people in England. Indeed her daughter could conceivably have been queen. That wasn’t to be but Bess acquired a substantial estate and built an impressive house on it.
Hardwick Hall is just outside Chesterfield (home to a church with a twisted spire that is worthy of a post of its own if I had only got close enough to get a shot of it). There is a new Hall and an old Hall. The new hall is only new in relative terms but it is a grand affair. For fans of the Harry Potter movies, it is Malfoy Manor although a certain amount of CGI added elements to the actual structure. You approach along a road that loops around the back of the house and gives you plenty of time to appreciate its grandeur. Once you are closer, you walk through a small enclosure of estate buildings and past the ruins of the old hall. They were both used at the same time but the old hall fell out of use and has deteriorated accordingly.
We only briefly looked inside but there was a great introductory talk about the history of Bess and the hall which was well worthwhile. We also got to look around the grounds and also appreciate the view over the valley below. Until the M1 was built, I imagine the view was pretty unspoiled! The building itself has an inordinate amount of window space for its time. This was a statement of how important Bess thought herself to be and if you look to the roofline, her initials are all along the tops of the walls. I guess she wasn’t a shy person.
