We flew up to Mendocino for the weekend - lovely quiet little town by the sea. Not much to do but eat lovely food and mess about on the beach. Perfect.
Last weekend we flew to Colombia with our friends Tom and Rob. Tom is also a pilot - in fact it was him who got use excited about flying in the US last year. Colombia is a very cute goldrush town, all original wooden saloon bars and shops offering you the chance to pan for gold and so forth. They also had a special even on called "Tent Town" where a bunch of fascinating individuals had set up a super-authentic goldrush town from the 1850s and were pretending to pan for gold. The guys doing it had really got into character. Anyway, all very photogenic, so why no photos? Yes, I forgot to put the battery back into the camera.
Luckily, Rob had his iPhone to the ready for some photos of Alex, Ruth and I landing.
Also some great shots of formation flying.
We could see them from our plane too! (Ruth asleep in the foreground)
... and Alex took some video of the formation flying on his phone, which gives you a good feel for the countryside on a rather overcast day.
In April, we had a week's holiday in Marathon, Florida, which is about half-way down the Keys chain. We hired a huge house with our friends Marc & Zoe (flying in from England) and Andy & Kate (from Toronto), with their little ones Ava (Ruth's age) and baby Molly.
Ruth and Ava looking for dolphins
We spent most of our time splashing about in the lovely pool, or hanging out on the balcony admiring the view and enjoying a beer over a board game or two.
Al fresco Dominion
Sundownders
We ate outside every night
We managed a few excursions, one morning Pippa went on a snorkelling trip with Marc and Zoe who were diving. The water was warm and filled with huge bright fish who were very bold. I was sad that I did not see the turtle that another couple spotted, but also happy that I missed the 10' hammerhead shark that swam below one of the other guys.
Another day, Pippa went fishing with Marc and Andy. We caught 18 grunts and torros, all on the small side but collectively enough for dinner!
Back in February we made our first trip to Hawaii. Hopefully not the last. It was lovely.
We went as part of a Google jolly, so we were staying at the Sheraton Waikiki. Any qualms I had about being a travelling sell-out soon faded in the beautiful warm patio, with nice people bringing drinks, watching Ruth happily playing in the pool complex.
Ready for the pool!
Waikiki was very touristy and busy, but the natural beauty of Hawaii still shone through.
We visited Pearl Harbour, which was really interesting.
Oil still escaping from the hull of the Arizona
Inside the Arizona memorial
The highlight of the trip was hiring a plane for the day and going on a tour of four of the islands - Molokai, Maui, Linae and Oahu. The weather was a little overcast, but the islands were still spectacular. We saw more than two dozen whales, frolicking in the water. So cool.
Today we went walking up in the hills outside Palo Alto in search of the San Andreas fault. Fortunately there is a self guided tour of part of the fault in Los Trancos Open Space Preserve so we were not disappointed.
You can see a map of our self short hike (much of which Ruth did all by herself) below. The fault runs South-East to North-West on this map (from the most Eastern part of our track up through the middle of the big loop. Sadly, you can't see a giant chasm in the Earth, but you can see lots of geological features that are indicative of a fault:
Benches - flat road-like structures created when the crack in the fault fill with earth
Sag ponds - depressions where the land is not getting the support it needs
Strange ridges - ridges and valleys that run parallel to the contours rather than (more naturally) perpendicular to them
I'll post some pictures later. But for now, enjoy the map.
Last weekend, we flew up to Mendocino for the day. This was our first real taste of what flying can help you to achieve - it would be a 4-5 hour drive, but is just over an hour in a plane. It was a really nice sunny day and the flight up there was just beautiful - up the valley, over San Francisco then along the Marin coastline north. Unfortunately Alex was a bit busy feeding Ruth snacks and handing her toys to take any photos, but he made up for it when we got to Little River airport, using a retro camera app on his phone.
Little River airport building. It's not exactly SFO :)
Mendocino is a lovely little sea-side town with cutesy shops for rich tourists and nice cafes. We didn't have very long there after having a few transport issues getting to and from the airport - we learnt lots for our next day trip. And we are already planning our return journey for a long weekend...
Ruth enjoying an ice-cream in the sun
On the way back, the clouds had rolled in over the coast and it all looked very pretty.
Ruth was really tired by this time and screamed alot. She eventually fell asleep.
