Back in San Francisco

We made it back to San Francisco around noon on Wednesday. It was a very foggy day as you can see in this picture. Diane shot it as we were driving over the Golden Gate Bridge.


After checking in at our hotel, we walked down to Fishermans Wharf.


Then we headed over to spend some time at Pier 39, which is basically a huge mall built on the pier. We ate lunch there Wednesday and Thursday. Also at Pier 39 are the famous Sea Lions.


We walked further down to Pier 33 to purchase tickets for the Alcatraz tour. As we passed the piers, we spotted this little "family boat" that was tied up. Not sure what gazillionare this one belongs to.


Passing by the famous Fishermans Wharf sign again... had to get a self-portrait.


On Thursday, we headed over to Alcatraz. It was another grey day that made for lousy outdoor shooting. I took this one from the boat as we approached the rock.


Inside the cell house, here is a shot of the area of Alcatraz that was called "Broadway".


Outside in the rec area. This is the view of Alcatraz that the inmates had when they were outdoors.

Diane bought a book while we were in the souvenir shop (surprise, surprise). The cool thing about this book was that it was written by Darwin Coon - one of the last surviving inmates of Alcatraz. Mr. Coon autographed the book for her.


Later on Thursday while we were back in San Francisco dodging raindrops, we headed down to see the ruins of the "Sutro Baths". The Sutro baths were the largest indoor swim area back in the late 1800's. Long after the structure burned down, the United States Park Service bought the property and the ruins are now a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.



We then headed over to the Presidio and drove around for a little while as the rain was starting to let up. We went down to the Presidio's Crissy Field and took another self-portrait.


At 6:00 PM we headed up for a walk on the Golden Gate Bridge. After our walk, I shot this picture with Diane's point-and-shoot at 6:30 PM. I set the camera on a flat surface and took a shot with a 1 second exposure. Pretty good for a dinky little point and shoot camera.

Oct. 28 - A Baker's Dozen

Today, Diane and I are in the Redwood Forest area of Northern California. We drove nearly 300 miles today exploring the beauty of this part of California.

We are also celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary today.


As we drove up North today, in the city of Orick we spotted this herd of elk having an early morning swim.


Those were not the only elk we saw... I spotted these elk in somebody's yard while we were driving and Diane got a shot of them from out the car window.



We stopped at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove in the Redwood National Park. This area was dedicated to Lady Bird Johnson in 1969 by President Nixon. The redwoods are huge. They are also difficult to photograph - most things 200 to 300 feet tall are.


Here is Diane taking a breather sitting on one of the redwoods.


Along the coast we came across these two "farm houses". They are actually cinder block buildings that were built to look like farm houses during World War II. The contained radar equipment to serve as an early warning system. From the road, the sky, or the sea they looked like farm houses though.




Driving south down the coast, we came across the city of Trinidad. This is the Trinidad lighthouse.


Back in another forest area, Diane is standing next to the base of the tree the "Dyerville Giant." This is what the massive redwoods look like down below when they fall.


Yesterday was fun also. We started the day in Fairfield and stopped by the Jelly Belly Factory to do a factory tour before we headed north.



You must wear a paper hat on the tour. Diane caught me looking pretty sexy in mine.



After our tour, we drove to Eureka, California. The only thing I know about Eureka is Ronald Reagan went to college here. I got a nice picture of the harbor from the Eureka boardwalk.


We also found out Eureka is known for its Victorian architecture. Here is the former home of William Carson - a lumber mill owner. The home is now a private club and not open to the public, so this is all I have of it.


That is the story of our last two days. We are heading out to an anniversary dinner tonight, and then heading down to the city by the bay in the morning.

October Anniversary Trip

Diane and I started our anniversary trip Saturday. We spent most of the day traveling... We had a nearly three hour flight from Cleveland to Houston, then another four hour flight to San Francisco. When we got into San Francisco, we picked up our rental car and started to drive North through San Francisco, Oakland, and then on to Fairfield where we are staying for two nights. We made it to Fairfield by 3:00 PM PST and that was time enough to stop at the Budweiser plant and make the last brewery tour of the day.


This is kind of cool since we wrapped up last year's anniversary trip by visiting a Budweiser plant in New Hampshire.

Not only did I get to sample some free Anheuser-Busch products, but I also did some testing of a beer to prove to our class I could tell a fresh beer from a skunky beer. I was awarded with an "Honorary Brewmaster" certificate.



On Sunday, we drove to Napa Valley


Of course, we had to get a self-portrait.


Then we visited something completely awesome that our good friend Laura Jacin recommended to us: Castello di Amorosa


This castle just opened last year and is still being completed. There is way too much to tell you about this place to put into this blog post, so just make sure this is the first place you visit the next time you are in Napa.


All of the brick of the castle has been imported from European areas from other castles and buildings that were being demolished.


This is the "church" room in the castle where our tour began.


This shot of the dining hall turned out pretty good. The room was dark but had some nice window light coming in. For my photographer buddies: I set my camera on a table in the back of the room (did not have a tripod), then set the ISO to 1600, f-stop to f11, and did an exposure length of 1.3 seconds.

Outside on the grounds, the castle has some roosters.

"Hey Rooster.... How's it going? I like your feathers. Say hello to your mother for me."


Most of the grapes have been harvested, but they still had some hanging on the vines in some areas.


A shot of the castle from one of the vineyards.


We checked out a few other places as well, like Cakebread Cellars, but we did not tour them.


We also saw St. Clement Vineyards. For those of you not aware of St. Clement, during the Wedding of Cana when Mary told Jesus that the wedding reception was out of wine, Jesus performed his first miracle and turned water into wine. What you don't know is Clement suggested to Jesus to make really, really good wine since the stuff that they ran out of was mediocre at best. Clement was eventually canonized and made the patron saint of quality wine.

Actually, I made that part up about St. Clement. I checked online to find that there were 10 different Clements that were Canonized and I don't think any of them had anything to do with wine.

Even More of Tobeyanne

The beautiful Tobeyanne was back again recently to do some more pin-up style pictures. No commentary needed for this post.

Hang on Sloopy!

OK, just in case you are not familiar with Ohio State, one of the songs the marching band plays on a regular basis is "Hang on Sloopy." Hang on Sloopy has parts in it where you spell Ohio with your hands (kind of like the YMCA song). Anyway, Heather stopped by wearing her Ohio State shirt and we decided to get some pictures of Heather doing the gestures to spell Ohio.

Since Heather is extremely flexible, we decided to kick it up a notch! Bam!

Gypsy Queen Nicole

Nicole was by recently to do a photo shoot. Like some of the other recent tattooed ladies I have featured on this blog, Nicole is a member of the Ohio Gypsy Queens.



We headed down to the park to shoot some outdoor shots first.





Nicole is into photography as well, and broke out her new camera to snap a few shots.


Back in the studio, she broke out the black dress.


Cool shoes and a cool tattoo.


The neck star.


Nicole has quite a back piece that is in progress.



A little more filling in for this piece is coming soon.



One last shot of this cool young lady

Taylor and Heather

This is Heather.



Heather is a high school senior that enjoys dancing:


Heather stopped by a few weeks ago with her little cousin Taylor:


Taylor is also a dancer and very flexible:


These girls have some great dancing outfits:




And they look pretty cool together:


Really cool together:


Here are a few of Taylor by herself:




And a few of Heather:

(Did I mention how flexible these girls are?)


Very flexible girls:


And a bunch more of Heather - What a killer dance outfit:





One more awesome outfit with Heather:



Heather will be back for Senior Pictures this month. Looking forward to creating some excellent images again with her.


Thanks to their really cool Moms (Sherrie and Lisa). What a fun photo shoot.