Trail Riding in the Sunol Regional Wilderness, November 26, 2004
Despite the Sunol Regional Wilderness being just up the road from where the horses live, it
took us a long time to get there. Bad idea to wait so long, Sunol proved to be one of my favorite
places that we have been trail riding. We ran into some friends as we were pulling into the
parking lot, that was good luck because we didn't know any of the trails. We rode through
an area called "Little Yosemite" to a tree descriptively named the "W" tree, shown at the bottom of this map.
Here are some nicely symmetrical trees:
Noam and Sonny next to a little bit of fall color:
Trail Riding in Henry Coe State Park, November 14, 2004
We drove down to Henry Coe State Park in Morgan Hill, CA with a few friends. The road into the Hunting Hollow entrance,
which has a giant area for staging, was a little windy and narrow, but we managed to keep the truck and trailer on the
pavement. We rode to the end of hunting hollow and back, a trail marked by eleventy gazillion water crossings. Me and Noam, Juliet
and Sonny on the trail:
After the ride we sat around the parking lot, said snarky things about the other riders on the trail, and ate cherry pie. What could be better?
Me and Sonny, apparently having some kind of disagreement:
Yosemite with Mom and the Rowleys, October 9-10, 2004
We drove to Yosemite on Saturday and met the Rowleys. The boys hiked from Glacier Point down to the valley
on the four mile[s+ of pain and suffering] trail. Us more intelligent girls took an easier hike with better views, to
the top of Sentinel Dome:
The car had a coolant-barfing incident at the Sentinel Dome parking lot, but he was the only one
bothered by the altitude. Sunday we headed toward Tuolomne Meadows. We stopped to take a walk up to May Lake to check
out the high sierra camp up there, which was already closed for the season. Here are the troops on the trail to May Lake:
Noam took this picture because we thought this tree looked like a horse:
Tuolomne Meadows, so pretty:
Just as we were packing up our picnic to leave the meadows and head back home, several emergency vehicles
raced by, sirens blaring. Randy predicted a slow drive home. Sure enough, there was a five car pile-up with injuries, which
caused a several hour backup. Two people were helicoptered out on a special high-altitude helicopter used by the Yosemite
fire people. The helicopter landed on a turn out just up the road from where we were stuck:
Play Day with my Horse Cult, September 19, 2004
Have I told you that I've joined a cult? Okay, not really a cult, just a very active horse group.
We get together and make our horses do strange things. The September play day at Calero stables in San
Jose featured some freakish September rain but despite the dampness a good time was had by all. Here I
am with some birds and some of my horse friends:
Non horse people will not understand this, but I spend FOREVER getting miss Juliet to sidepass over that
stupid barrel, so I am very proud of this picture:
Kim's Wedding in Orange County, September 2-6, 2004
Yay, Kimmy married Steve, the biggest, coolest British guy ever! I spent several days in southern California with my Oregon family. On Thursday, I saved the marriage by translating Steve's sister Becky's drink order at Bucca di Beppo. She ordered a shandy, and when the waitress looked at her in confusion, she said "half beer, half lemonade." The waitress said tentatively, "well, our lemonade is pink . . . " and Becky was a little taken aback, but asked her to bring it anyway. I intervened and pointed out that what Becky considers "lemonade" is not lemonade in this country, and instructed the waitress that she meant sprite or 7up. Can you imagine, pink chemi-lade mixed half and half with beer? Ick . . .
Saturday, there was a rehearsal dinner, where Kim, in beloved Kim-fashion, went over an exhaustive schedule. Here are Melissa and Brooke, taking the schedule very seriously:
Me and Steph at the rehearsal dinner:
Kim and the ring bearer Owen, the son of our friend Karen from law school:
Sunday, Noam and I took a brief interlude from all things wedding and went to the mission in San Juan Capistrano, a few blocks from the wedding site. Here are the remains of a chapel, which collapsed in an earthquake in 1812 and is now known as the American Acropolis:
Later, back at the wedding, me and Kim, getting our hair done:
Melissa's boyfriend Steve and Stephanie's husband Ray engaged in the very manly activity of creating rose petals to float in the fountain:
Kim looked lovely in her dress. Steve was so emotional during the ceremony that he had to pause several times during his vows. The food was good and everyone danced. It was the best wedding I have been to in a long time. Congratulations!
Yosemite with Hannah and John, August 29-30, 2004
Sunday, we arrived in Yosemite without overheating the car, no small feat on such a hot day with so many people and so much crap in it. Sunday afternoon we checked out a fire lookout, then hiked down to the Merced grove near Crane Flat, where we had a campsite, right next to a lovely couple who ran their generator constantly so they could watch TV in their RV. It reminded me of my geography professor in college, who, when discussing John Muir's belief that the National Park Service should have a dual mission of protection of wilderness and accessibility, said "John Muir never imagined the six pack, the recreational vehicle, the satellite dish tuned in to reruns of 'Dallas' deep in the heart of the Yosemite valley." Monday morning we took the bus to Glacier point, to hike down the Panorama trail to the valley. Here is the view from the first section of the trail:
Not far from Glacier Point, we ran into a deer on the trail, who didn't seem too concerned by us. She got so close that I could see her udder and tell she had had, uh, baby deer (fawns?) this year. Hannah, dedicated to keeping wildlife wild, pointed out that we should attempt to startle the deer from the trail so she would retain her fear of humans. When Hannah did so, the deer was so startled that she bolted up the hill above the trail for about five feet, at which point she got lodged in some brush and stayed there, deer fanny twitching periodically, probably with embarassment.
Noam and me at Illilouette falls:
John, our fearless leader:
Wine Country with Hannah and John, August 28, 2004
Hannah, John, Noam, and I drove to the Russian River appellation in Sonoma county, not because we are
sophisticated enough that particular appellations are meaningful, but because we knew you could taste
for free in most places. We picnicked at Davis Bynum with a bottle of one of their dry rosaaaaays (so spelled because I can't figure out how to make the accent in html) and pasta
salad a la Noam.
Here are Hannah and John at Rabbit Ridge, where the people were grumpy but we met this cool white cat who had lost his ears to cancer.
Just to prove we were actually there, some grapes:
Trail Riding at Mount Madonna, August 8, 2004
Noam and I parked at Sprig Lake at Mount Madonna and took a ride up the Merry Go Round loop and back down
the Tie Camp and Ridge trails. Click here for a map of Mount Madonna
trails. Here are Noam and Sonny in the woods on the Merry Go Round trail:
A pond you can see from the Old Mine trail:
Me and Juliet on the Merry Go Round trail. That red stuff that makes the picture so pretty is probably all poison oak,
but its still nice to look at, occasionally, from a distance:
The Tie Camp trail went through some big trees that were really beautiful. At a sandy spot on the trail, Juliet paused for
a second, then I felt her knees buckle as she went to roll with my saddle and, more importantly, me still on her back. Noam
said she looked like she forgot I was up there. As soon as both my feet were touching the ground with the horse still beneath me,
I decided it would be a good idea to step off her. I got her up and we rode down the trail with a huge pile of sand on one side of her face, but without
further incident. What a weirdo.
Sara's Baby Shower, August 7, 2004
Sara is due on September 13. By popular demand, here is a picture of the famous cake, before we brutalized it. Unfortunately it was about eleventy-gazillion degrees out that day, causing the cake, a lovely cheese cake on the
bottom, to melt just enough that we couldn't really cut it, and instead had to sort of rip it into pieces. Anyway, we had fun and Sara got a lot of great loot, including an absolutely
fabulous baby-sized red pleather old navy jacket that I found at Goodwill. What kid doesn't need that?
The Russian River, July 31, 2004
A friend Noam worked with at iBlast has a great house in Guerneville, California, right on the Russian River. He and his wife have
a party there most summers. We borrowed their canoe for a paddle on the river. There were
several kids and a dog swimming at the canoe launch point. The dog exited the water just as
we were getting into the canoe, prompting one of the kids to yell, "she's gonna blow!" as the dog
prepared to shake off the water.
Don't let this next picture fool you: though he looks cute and capable, Noam actually has no idea how to pilot a canoe. (Says Noam: "your definition of 'can't
steer' is 'won't read your mind and go where you think—but won't say—we
should go.'" True enough.) I hate looking like a dork in a canoe and I am skeptical of the widely held belief that testicles carry with them the ability to handle any watercraft without additional training, so before we left I asked Noam about fifty times if
he knew how to steer a canoe.
He assured me that during a high school trip to the boundary waters, he had become highly
skilled. Well, I quickly discovered that the chaperones of this trip apparently intentionally deprived the poor kids
of any useful knowledge, probably in an attempt to wear them out by having them paddle endlessly around each lake until they accidentally
hit the portage or campsite. That is kinda what we did on the Russian river - paddle
in huge serpentines across the river with Noam paddling so hard that it felt like he was tipping the canoe. In Noam's defense, it was a bit windy, and in any case,
we had fun.
Wisconsin, July 23-25, 2004
In honor of Grandma's 93rd birthday, Dad's not-so-new-anymore-but-we-hadn't-seen-it-yet boat, and
Aunt Roberta's 35th high school reunion, Noam and I went to Wisconsin. We met Hannah at Midway and
drove up to Madison at zero dark thirty on Friday night. Saturday morning we visited Grandma at
her place in Mount Horeb. Here she is, looks pretty good for 93, wouldn't you say?
We drove to Sheboygan after visiting grandma and had a gut-busting lunch at the famed Sheboygan
institution, the Charcoal Inn. It was probably not such a good idea to get butter on the bun of my brat, because after lunch, we took a little sail, which was lovely other than
the brief projectile vomiting incident. There was a light wind that put just enough of a roll on
the lake to make it a puke-o-rama. Just for me, of course. Smarty pants Noam took Dramamine, Dad never
gets seasick, and Hannah is I guess just less of a pansy than I. Dad was singing the praises of
these ginger pills he has as an antidote to seasickness, even if you are already sick. The ginger had
exactly the opposite of the intended effect, however, because about 2.5 seconds after I took
the ginger pill, I ralfed. So much for the ginger. Here's a pre-barf sailing picture:
Here we are back in the slip drinking beer, post-barf:
Saturday night we stayed with mom and passed the time as we normally do: messing with pets. Here is cookie
at a particularly glamorous moment:
Sunday morning we all had brunch in Milwaukee. Here are Roberta, mom, me, and Hannah in front of the flowers in mom's yard:
Jack Brook with my Parelli Group, June 25-29, 2004
Just a week after Noam and I camped at Jack Brook for the weekend, my Parelli group had our yearly
camp there. I just can't get enough of that place. We had a great time, and I learned some
good stuff about myself and my horse during the daily lessons with Sandi Parker. I cantered bareback through a big open field, which made me
proud since I am normally such a huge chicken. Remember how last year I was really excited
about the water hole where you could swim with your horse? Now I am completely sick of the water hole, I went
there with various people on three of the four trail rides I took from camp. By the second ride, I was
ready for some different scenery, but people really wanted to go to that water hole, so away we went. Here's Juliet and me at the water hole on the first ride:
Juliet and me swimming at the water hole on the second ride. Swimming with Juliet was really cool, in a terrifying thrashing legs kind of way. When I got in the water,
my first thought was "this water is pretty cold." Water temperature concerns were quickly outweighed by terror at the thought of my teva-clad
feet being stomped by Juliet as she swam by me to get back to her lilypad. The pink you see around her mouth is actually her teeth, she got some water in her
nose and was attempting to snort it out. So cute! Next year I'm going to swim on her back, that
should take me to a new level of terror.
Juliet and me at the water hole on the third ride.
Camping at Jack Brook, June 18-20, 2004
We drove to Jack Brook on Friday evening. The ride in was a real nail-biter. I thought we
had a nice big truck to pull the trailer, but on a couple of huge hills on the dirt/gravel
road on the way in, the truck tires started losing just a little traction, causing the joints
in my fingers great strain as I gripped the wheel in terror. When we pulled in to the camp ground,
there was a HUGE six horse trailer in there, which made me feel like a bit of a wuss. On Saturday
morning we set out for a brutally long but beautiful trail ride, down the Brook Trail Loop and
over to Butano Ridge trail. The trails leaving from Jack Brook are so beautiful. We rode for about
seven hours and saw not more than a dozen people. Here are Noam and Sonny with a view of Butano ridge:
The bridge on the Bridge trail had signs declaring it unsafe, so we got to take a detour through
the water, which is more fun anyway:
Here is a Juliet-cam in the woods:
Back at camp after the long ride:
We managed to rub a little hole in Sonny's fur on the long ride Saturday and we were seriously sore, so
on Sunday we rode just the Brook Trail Loop. Here is one of Noam's artistic pictures of some berries:
Barcelona, Memorial Day 2004
Yehudit had to deliver a couple of works of art to a museum in Barcelona over memorial day weekend,
so she invited Ronni, Till, Noam and me to come for a mini vacation.
Noam and I left for Barcelona on Thursday morning, and arrived Friday morning. Friday we
walked around the port and the beach, ate paella by the beach (yum!), then walked through
an ugly, modern neighborhood back to the hotel. Here's a nice street (not from the ugly
neighborhood):
Saturday we explored some moderisme architecture built by the architech Gaudi. At each building,
my first thought was "its so . . . gaudy." Lots of curvey, Dr. Seuss-esque lines and lots
of ceramic. In this picture, the house on the right is Casa Batllo, designed by Gaudi:
Some nice ceramic action on the roof:
Here are Ronni and Till, right before a grim employee shooed us away from this spot on the roof,
claiming we were hogging it. Till was hysterical, he didn't even flinch when this guy elaborately
reached around his head to take a picture.
In true Shendar-vacation form, we were rarely allowed to stop for food, beverage, or rest.
We did manage one stop at a chocolate shop, when this little guy beckoned from the window.
Unfortunately, the cakes at the shop were not very good.
This is the Sagrada Familia, a church Gaudi worked on a bit. Like the other Gaudi buildings we
saw, it is part beautiful, part ugly, and entirely . . . different.
Sunday we went to Montjuic, a park on a hill with nice views of the city and the port. On
the way down the hill, we stopped at a Joan Miro museum. This installation was in the courtyard.
There was an equestrian statue, in pieces with a bunch of junk around it, complete with bunnies!
Who can resist a nice piece of bunny art!
Sunday afternoon we walked up to the Park Guell, a Gaudi-built park. We laughed when we
got there, because Noam's guidebook
described the hike up to the park as an excruciatingly steep hill, but the hill turned out to be nothing. The reason
for the description was soon revealed: the guidebook was published by some wussy brits.
First Trail Ride with our New Trailer, May 22, 2004
Yay, we finally bought a truck and trailer! A friend of a friend bought a new trailer requiring
a bigger truck, so we bought her old truck, a 1999 Ford F250. As it was owned by a fellow
horsewoman, it came totally equipped for all horsey activities, complete with a hitch in the
bed, a CB radio with a big magnetic antenna (useful for hours of entertainment in the form of "Smokey
and the Bandit" jokes), and the stink of dogs who have been hanging around the horse barn. Several
weeks later, I called around and found the perfect trailer in Santa Rosa. My god, that thing is a
whale. It weighs 4500 pounds empty. But its beautiful, my redneck u-haul!
For our first outing, the most important consideration was a large parking lot that didn't
require any backing. We went to Calero county park just a few minutes away in San Jose. The trails
were nice, for the most part fire roads with good footing, several good galloping spots. Juliet
peed her proverbial pants when a deer went crashing through the brush above us, but other than that
the ride was uneventful, in a good way. Me and Juliet by the lake:
Noam and Sonny's giant head:
The Amalfi coast and Naples, Italy, April 2004
The original purpose of the Italy trip was for me to meet Heather's new baby, since they were
soon to return to the US, and meeting a baby in Italy is much more interesting than meeting a
baby in Madison, WI. Mom expressed an interest in going, and invited my Aunt Roberta. Heather had to return earlier than she originally thought, so midway through our planning,
Heather was already back in the US. We decided to go anyway, when we realized you don't really
need a reason to go to Italy. We started in Positano. It was 96 ^$#%ing steps up to our hotel room in Positano, but the view was worth it:
After arriving on the first day, we walked down to the beach in Positano. This is looking up
at the town from the beach:
Here we are getting liquored up at our favorite restaurant in Positano, Saraceno D'Oro:
The following day, we took the bus to Nocelle, in the hills above Positano, had lunch, then walked down
some 2,000 steps from the church in Nocelle to the road between Positano and Praiano, the next town over. The take-home
lesson from this day was that 2,000 steps is too many. Nice views from the path, though. Here is a picture of Positano in
the distance:
When we finally got to the road, it started raining. A nice man took pity on us and drove us the three kilometers or
so into Praiano to the bus stop. Thanks guy!
The next day we took a ferry to the island of Capri. We spent a huge part of the day taking the bus to see a famous blue
grotto, only to discover it was closed. Stupid blue grotto! Just down the street from the blue grotto bus stop there was a chair lift that took
you to the top of the island, where you could see the following view of the jagged coast of the island and the town of Capri:
We hired a car and driver to take us to Pompeii the following day. The driver assured us that
Mount Vesuvius would not erupt that particular day. Pompeii is unique in that other Roman ruins that I have seen, for example in
Rome and in Israel, are grand things like palaces built by emperors, while Pompeii was inhabited by regular shlubs like me. I found it way more
fascinating to view the ruins of run-of-the-mill Roman life, rather than imperial Roman life. Here is the forum in Pompeii:
We were so creeped out by stories of people getting robbed at the Naples train station that when it came time to leave
Positano for Naples, we opted for the ferry instead of the train. Naples is a pretty city, though it has been in decline for
decades and the decline is pretty obvious. Nearly every church we went to had graffiti on the outside. At the Archeological museum, considered one of the most
important in Europe, there was writing on the walls, the floors were filthy, and I saw a giant second century Roman
statue with a piece of paper stuffed up its nose. On the other hand, the mosaics from Pompeii at the Archeological museum are amazing, the people watching on
the streets of Naples was absolutely fabulous, and the pizza was so good, I compared it to the Sistine Chapel. We didn't get robbed, and I'm
glad we went. Here is a Mount Vesuvius, from Naples:
This is my favorite picture from the trip, Roberta, looking like a rock star, sipping a smiley-faced
cappuccino at our favorite breakfast spot in Positano:
On two of my three trips to Italy, the country has given me a send off that makes me glad to
be going home. On the first trip, it was a train strike that stranded me in Milan. On this trip, Alitalia
went on strike the day I went home, so I had to buy a last minute, full fare ticket on Lufthansa in order to get home in
time for Noam's 30th birthday. I sat in the Munich airport sipping the most expensive beer
in the history of man (considering the cost for Lufty to get me there to enjoy it) thinking
it might be nice to be stuck in Munich. We have already decided that next spring we will go to Provence,
but maybe the following spring in Germany? Anyone else want to go?
Trail Ride at Ed Levin, March 14, 2004
Noam and Sonny at Ed Levin, our home park, in March when the flowers were out and everything was green:
Zamboni Ride at the San Jose Sharks Game, January 28, 2004
My fascination with Zambonis took a turn for the expensive in April 2003, when Noam and I went to a charity auction and bought four
seats at a San Jose Sharks hockey game and a ride on the Zamboni. The Zamboni ride was so cool.
A Sharks representative picked me up at my seat just before the end of the second period and
walked me by a strangely out-of-place cubicle farm in the basement of the arena to the
Zamboni garage. There was this huge snow bank there, dumped by the Zamboni after every run. That was kind of a strange thing to see, inside, in downtown San Jose. The person riding the other Zamboni was a kid who was MVP of his peewee hockey team, or something like that.
This is notable only because as we were walking, his mother looked me up and down with an odd look on her face
and asked, "do you play hockey?" What, like I couldn't be a hockey MVP? We watched the last few moments of the period from right behind the goal judge,
which was a little freaky because I never realized before that professional hockey goalies
are actually about eight and a half feet tall. At the end of the period, the referees left the ice first. One of them said, to no one in particular, that he
didn't like it when his parents came to watch the game. The referees were whisked away on a strange little
bus to . . . actually I can't imagine where they could have gone. Up pulled the Zamboni, I scrambled on, and we drove on to the ice. I was buckled in,
thank goodness, because that baby actually moved pretty fast. At one point, it
started snowing on me, that was pretty weird. Noam, Mark, and Yu-Chen dutifully waved at me
every time I went by. MVP kid sat there all sullen, he wasn't into waving to his adoring public like I was. To answer some common questions I have been asked since: no, there were no teeth or blood on the ice; no, I didn't ask what is the Zamboni's top speed; no, I didn't tell the driver he missed a spot, which would have been a very funny
and original joke; and no, I didn't ask the driver how much money a Zamboni driver pulls in. Here is some photographic proof of my Zamboni ride:
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