California adventures in pictures

While we were back in California, we got to visit a few of our favorite places. We went tide pooling in Point Lobos...

Tide pooling in Muir Beach...

To the top of Mount Tam...

And castle-building and seal-spotting on the beach with cousins...

It was wonderful to be back in the land of family, fog, and temperate weather. California, we miss you!

The Highlands

Take the train from Glasgow to Fort William. It has the reputation of being the most beautiful train ride in Europe. And though I have been on very few train rides in Europe, I cannot imagine my jaw dropping any lower than the moment when I looked up from my computer to see the sun setting over the beginnings of the Scottish highlands.

Pictures are insufficient. You must go. It will be a wonderful day, and as my thesis director insists every time train travel gets a mention, "It's wonderful. You can have lunch on board."

I went to the Highlands to hang out and write, and to climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK. It is short enough that I ran up most of it....past the tree line...

Up through pastures and heather....

...until I reached the North Face of Nevis....

...where I joined forces with a very gentlemanly Polish medical student. We spent the day attempting to climb the North Face, instead of going up the easy-peasy tourist route. 

This was about as high as we got. Then the fog rolled in. We spent some time clinging to some grassy cliffs, before I suggested that we make our way down to sanity. So we never made it all the way up, though we were only twenty feet from the ridge. Both our mothers heaved an unwitting sigh of relief, as we slid our way slowly down. Out of the fog, it was fun to ramble and trade stories.

Down in Fort William (the hub town for Nevis), the weather was downright sunny, and I had a gorgeous run back to Ban Navie (a tiny little enclave where I stayed). A little trail meanders through pastures to join the two towns.

As if the scenery weren't enough, there is also a ruined castle along the route (Inverlochy). 

And a canal to explore....

....with a fancy Victorian loch system (Neptune's staircase) to gawk at.

And my lovely mountain to salute. Next time, Ben Nevis, I will climb you. 

I have to admit that the next day, I was too tired for much running or walking. So I took the Jacobite Express, a restored steam train, from Fort William to Mallaig.

The train is now famous as the Hogwarts Express....



...but there was lots to see besides the aqueducts. For example:

(Yes, that's Scotland.)

In Mallaig, I escaped the bevies of tourists in search of fish and chips, and found a lovely little loop in the hills above town.

Scotland, I'm in love.

Grinda

"In the summer twilight islands seem to rise 

on the horizon. Old villages are on 

their way, retreating further into woods

on the seasons' wheels with magpie creaking.

When the year kicks off its boots, and the sun

climbs higher, the trees break out in leaves 

and take wind and sail out in freedom."

-Tomas Tranströmer, 17 Poems

On our last full day in Sweden, we took a ferry to Grinda, one of the islands in the Stockholm archipelago, where Tranströmer's lines seemed to come true. The whole world seemed ready to sail out in freedom -- leaves, birds, sky, sun....and us along with it.  

Inhabited since the middle ages, Grinda was largely farmland until it was bought by Henrik Santesson, the first director of the Nobel Foundation. Santesson built a lovely villa there, but sold the island to the city of Stockholm in 1944. It has since become a park and nature preserve. 

About half the island is a working farm, with cows, goats and chickens. Fresh eggs sit for sale inside the barn -- just take the eggs, and leave your money in a jar.

Trails fan through the pastures to the woods behind. We wandered through birch groves and cliffy outlooks, winding up again in the fields, surrounded by goats. Midway through our hike, our host realized that he'd spent his bachelor party creeping through those very woods -- army style, in the middle of the night. Our trip was a little less wild, but we enjoyed imagining his epic day a few months ago.

We have an ongoing debate over which is the greenest place in the world -- Evergreen State College in Olympia, Burke's Gardens in Virginia, or a little gravelly patch called Sowers Mill Dam Road....but Grinda, with its impossibly lush meadows backed by dense forest, gave us pause. You can see why...

Circling an island, however small it may be, makes us hungry. We stopped at the house Santesson built -- now a restaurant -- for lunch. (Lunch in Sweden is no sandwich affair. Sandwiches, we learned in Rattvik, are actually a breakfast food. Instead, we sat down for dinner, round one. And what a dinner it was!)

Two heaping baskets of bread, some seafood stew and asparagus-gnocchi later, we wandered back to the dock, full of sun and cider, ready to laze on the beach before setting sail (or, rather more prosaically, catching the ferry) home.

Rättvik

Welcome to Rättvik, our overnight excursion from Stockholm! Rättvik is a small town (population five thousand) in Dalarna, a region famous in Sweden for its forests, ski slopes, classic vacation cottages, and lovely lakes. (In Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, Superintendent Morell retires to Dalarna, stumped.)

It was a short stroll from the train station along the lake to our hotel....but first we stopped at the local grocery store, where we obtained these gems....and ate them outside. 

And then it was on to our retreat house right next to Lake Siljan. The retreat house had a sauna, a boat house, a church, a ping pong table, a breakfast spread, a gym, and special wooden stables for church-goers (not currently in use). 

Though we enjoyed exploring the church, playing ping pong, and our massive breakfast (consisting primarily of sandwiches, which made us feel very Swedish), we were most grateful for the view. 

The town wasn't touristy at all (and there was scarcely anybody about), so we wandered the lake shores, the 600 meter-long dock (with trees growing at the end)...

...saw children's projects at the local library....

...and grown-up projects, too. 

The town wasn't quite empty....along the edge of the lake, we saw a lovely little fitness group, dancing to songs from Grease. When we retire here, we will definitely join in.



Before catching our train home, we meandered up the hillside. Having already spent a few days in Stockholm, we were accustomed to smelling lilacs wherever we went, but the view, the copious wildflowers, and the lovely little houses made us a little sad to wander back down.

Cayucos and Hearst Castle

Nick's birthday present was a trip to Hearst Castle. The trip was sensational in every way - good friends, good food, an eccentric mansion to explore, and a lovely beach town to crash in every night, with a little cottage a block from the beach, a block from sensational smoked fish tacos, and (best of all) right next to a cookie store.

We drove down Highway 1 to get there, and stayed at Andrew Molera State Park, which has wonderful walk-in campsites an easy hike away, and a lovely hike from the camp sites out to a an incredibly clear lagoon....

from which you can see the ocean.

And after our stroll, we had one of the best camping dinners we've mustered so far. The secret? Frozen spaghetti that was already pretty good....

...some fresh veggies, wheat pasta, and cheese. Lots of cheese. 

And (Nick was there, after all) red pepper in abundance. 

The next day, we got back onto Highway 1 to drive to Caycucos. I don't need to say how wonderful Highway 1 is in the Big Sur area. It is wonderful, and that is all. 

Just a few miles north of San Simeon lies a beach covered in elephant seals. It's hard to imagine a more Dali-esque creature. They were singularly unattractive, but fun to watch in action (which is rare). 

Even driving manages to make us hungry, so we stopped in the tiny town of San Simeon across the street from the entrance to Hearst Castle, where Sebastian's Store serves beef sandwiches to die for made from Hearst Castle beef. This photo represents about half of Nick's sammy.

Cayucos is about 20 minutes south of San Simeon. Our inn, "The Saltbox", was gorgeous - an old, old house built in the 19th century for one of Admiral Cass's crew. The town was sleepy, but lovely, with a reasonably priced grocery store, good produce, loads of (actually) fun antique stores, and a cookie store. Did I mention the cookie store? 

This cookie store was not just any cookie store. The best way to describe it would be to say that there were free samples aplenty that tasted like this.

And the beach was unbelievable. The Cayucos Pier has pelicans in swarms, diving for fish and gulping them down. Morro Rock, a King Kong outcropping about 7 miles south in Morro Bay, lurks gorgeously at the horizon.

Each morning, beach combing was rewarded with star fish, crabs scuttling, anenomes waving eagerly after our fingers, and more sand dollars than I've ever seen intact in one place at one time. 

We saw purple starfish, lavender starfish, and orange starfish.

Nathan and Eisha liked to look at them, too. 

And finally, we trekked back up Highway 1 for Hearst Castle. I expected tackiness, not grandeur. But we got grandeur in full force. By the end of the day, I wanted a large swimming pool and a Renaissance ceiling to call my own...or at least to swim in for a little while.  

But we had to be satisfied with pictures.

The next day, we kayaked in Morro Bay, saw some sea lions, found a Robinson Crusoe Beach, and trundled home cold and a little wet.

But what a lovely place to be cold and wet in!