Birthday in the Desert

We took a 3-day weekend trip to the desert for my birthday. It was clear, sunny, and a very comfortable temperature for hiking. On Friday we visited "The Living Desert" in Palm Desert, where they displayed plants and animals from all of the deserts in the world.

 

 

  


On Saturday we hiked over 7 miles in the southern region of Joshua Tree National Park.

 

 

 We were hiking to the Lost Palms Oasis - a bunch of palm trees in a canyon in the middle of the desert.

On Sunday we took the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up to Mt. San Jacinto. It took us up to 8500 feet, where it was kind of chilly - 50 degrees. But once we started hiking, the sweaters came off and it was gorgeous. We hiked up to about 9000 feet and then back down to the tram station where we enjoyed lunch in a restaurant with a spectacular view.

It was a great trip. Henry really indulged me for my birthday - he even agreed to stop at an outlet mall on the way home! Thanks, Henry!

Welcome, Christmas!

This weekend we welcomed in the Christmas season. We decorated the house...

And had friends over.  On Christmas Day I'm planning a gingerbread house decorating activity, so we did a dry run of the event to make sure I had the right materials. At first the guys pretended to not be interested...

 

 

but they got into it and helped. Look at these masterpieces!

 

 

 

I was cooking, so Henry pretty much did ours by himself. And he won the "best engineered" award! Take a close look at the roof - rather than waste a bunch of time decorating the roof to look "cute," he spent his time putting ridge caps on the roof to keep out the rain!

 

 

And no simple fencing for Henry. Note his classic midwestern fence. When asked why he built this more difficult fence, he responded, "To keep out the cows, of course!" Hahaha!

 

 

 

It was a fun evening, as usual. And a great start to the season.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to our family and friends! None of the kids could make it to California this year, but we made the best of it. Henry and I spent the day together and cooked up a great meal.

Well ok, I did most of the cooking, but Henry carved the turkey! And he helped eat it all.

 

 

 

I like to tease Henry, but the truth is that I'm so thankful to have him. And my girls. And my friends. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Echo Mountain Hike

This weekend we took advantage of a cool, crisp day to take a local hike up Echo Mountain. The views of downtown LA and the surrounding areas were great as we hiked up the mountain.

At the top are the ruins from what was once a resort - an 80-room hotel, 40-room chalet,  casino, dance hall, small zoo, and an observatory. These facilities sat atop Echo Mountain at 3250 ft, and had spectactular views acros the entire LA basin all the way to the ocean. The buildings were all painted white, and it was known as the "White City."

This was the large hotel. It was four stories high and the entire inside was finished in natural wood.

 Visitors took an incline cable car that climbed a grade as steep as 62%. This was the only way to get to the resort, which opened in 1893.

 

 

Unfortunately, the whole enterprise was plagued with problems, including fires in 1900 and 1905 that destroyed most of the buidings, and gale force winds that toppled the observatory in 1928.  Then in 1938 heavy rains washed much of the rail line off the side of the mountain, and the railway was officially abandoned. All that's left today are building foundations and a few remnants of the railway.

 

 

 

This hike was good exercise (all uphill!) and really interesting.

 

 

Pool House Update

OK, this isn't about a trip or an outing, but when I mentioned that we were updating the pool house, Alicia asked to see a picture. So here's the "before" shot:

What you can't see very well is that the roof was falling apart, in addition to the sad condition of the wood and bricks. So Henry re-roofed and added two new doors, and I repainted. Here's the "after" shot:

Not the most exciting post, but we had fun fixing up the pool house!

Colorado Weekend

Henry and I spent a long weekend in Colorado. The weather was cool and the trees were all changing color. And Alicia and Kyle were such wonderful hosts - thanks, you guys!

Alicia cooked for us at home and at work. Everything she made was awesome!

  

We did some local hiking.

Dave came up from Denver and joined us for some beer tasting and dinner.

 

Henry and I visited the town of Golden and thought it was really beautiful.

On our last day Alicia, Henry and I visited Dave at the Colorado School of Mines, where he works. We got a tour and then we all had lunch.

Dave had to go back to work, so he couldn't join us at the Coors brewery where we stopped on our way to the airport.

We took a self-guided tour...

and did some tasting.

It was great spending some time with Alicia, Kyle and Dave.

We love Colorado in the fall!

Thanks to Kyle for contributing a couple of pictures!