Friday, September 25, 2015

Steens Mtn Bikepacking - on Exposure

Check it out.
https://Snowymonk.exposure.co/steens-mtn-bikepacking-loop

Tomales Bay Bike-Yakin' Kidless Campin' Weekend.


Ready to go!  GoodGirl loaded up with the kayaks & camping gear.  And we're ready to ride up to Tomales Bay!
Had an amazing kid free weekend a few weekends back, as the Metres took care of Kai & Nikko.  For our weekend free, we though about the activities we used to do before kids, and decided we should either kayak or go on a tandem ride... then we decided to do both.  SO... here was our plan.  On Fri, we'd drop off Kai, have our nanny take care of Nikko, then we'd bike take the tandem bike on BART to SF then ride to San Geronimo via multiple breweries... where we'd stay at an AirBnB for the night.  Sat morning, we'd ride to Nick's Cove, where we'd meet up with Tim, Laina, Kat, Katie & Dylan to go kayak camping on Tomales Bay.

Here's where we went:
Fri - biked from SF to San Geronimo
Sat morning - biked from San Geronimo to Nick's Cove
Sat afternoon - kayaked from Nick's Cove to our beach.
Sun afternoon - kayaked back to Nick's Cove

On the BART elevator off Embarcadero... the smell in here is wonderful.  
walking to our official start....
by far the worst section of our ride. The clueless tourists on this bridge really makes me not like the Golden Gate Bridge...

second beer stop... @ Iron Springs.  
Made it to our AirBnB in time to cool off, take a shower, and get ready for dinner.  
at the Two Bird Cafe, which we just walked to.  Amazing food.  Really...
They even have some wild chickens running around...
the next morning Kimbo wasn't feeling so hot, so we were getting ready to get picked up.... but they were all running late, and so we just started riding.  
soon we made it to Point Reyes Station.
for a coffee & muffin stop.  
we arrived at Nick's Cove boat launch all around the same time... 2 hours after planned.  
Durbo drying out his wings like a cormorant before he can take off...
They were planning on brining a SUP, but they forgot a paddle, so they all squeezed on to the canoe.  Not a whole lot of room for error.  Wind waves above 4 ft?  Forget about it.  
Next to our beach, we came across this sick Cormorant.  We named him Cory.  
we thought he was tangled up in the seaweed, but I think he was just sick.  We decided to put him on land...
But he liked chilling on woody.
not sure what this is.  Can't find him in the Gordon Sherman Library.
Time for some beers and oysters!  I think we were at South Blue Gum Beach.  
mmmm....
ugh... WTF? Mud-ster
We walked back to Cory's beach at low tide, and found him hiding in a cove...

Mmmmm
Dylan trying out some SUC-ing.  

Booya!  I love canoe camping!
The beach camping life...
Loving the beach fires...  A bit later we went out paddling and experienced some amazing bioluminescence.  
Beautiful morning.  Folks were out taking advantage of low tide to get longnecked clams.
Next time? http://honest-food.net/2012/04/10/chasing-the-clam/
http://monkeyfacenews.typepad.com/my-blog/2009/11/bay-area-shellfish-101-1.html
 http://www.lawsonslanding.com/SERVICES/ACTIVITIES/Clamming.aspx
we also saw a few boaters pull up with some nice halibut & sharks.  
Hello Sun Dog!
Saw these tracks... coyote?  
and some Raccoon tracks... tide was quite low, I think they were going for some mussels... but Cory was gone.  
we ran out of fuel, so brekky was served on the open fire.  
around this time Dylan started feeling really sick.  He thinks it was the oytsers.  
notice the green-yellow bile below him...
for this reason it was actually a good thing that Dylan, Kat, & Kate were all in the same boat.  Dylan could barely sit up.  
and every once in a while, he'd have to tell the girls to lean to one side, so he could hurl off the other...
GoodGirl with 2 boats and a tandem. 
this is a great stop in Pt. Reyes Station, FYI.  Amazing burgers, beers, and....
the most amazing ice cream ever.  Water Buffalo Ice Cream.  Amazing.  

Next time:
  • take a SUP!  If possible... I got myself a new toy, a 12'6" touring SUP, I'd love to take it there!!!
  • don't let Dylan get sick.  
  • look at the tides for clamming or fishing
    • look for bat rays in the shallows at the mouth of Tomales Bay

  • take Kai & Nikko on the canoe?
  • try to take pics of the bio-luminescence... look into how?  Probably need a camera like the sony alpha 7 with a bigger sensor.  
  • look into some of the other beaches... 
    • http://www.nps.gov/pore/planyourvisit/upload/map_boatincamping.pdf
  • stay at Lawson's Landing the day before?  

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Weekly Pano: Sculptured Beach @ Pt. Reyes.

Scuptured beach is a great place to spend the day with your little ones.  Arches, tunnels, and tide pools to explore, and small beach to chill at, it's a really nice destination on your next run. On this day, we hiked a mile south from Coast Camp with the kiddos.  

Monday, September 14, 2015

Steens Mountain Vid...



I'm working on the full post... but it's been quite busy the last few months, so not sure when I'll be finished with it.  Here's the vid, which gives you a better taste of our experience.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Monthly Pano: Tomales Bay Sunrise

From our beachside campsite at Tomales Bay.  Full report coming... 

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Spring Lake Family Camping 2015!


Here's some pics from our awesome weekend up at Spring Lake.  Our second year of visiting this amazingly kid friendly park.  Here's the pics from last year... when the world cup was in full swing.  

This year we had Roger, Geo & Alice; Kev, Laura, Riley, Sully & Shaye; Morton, Marian & Zoe all stay overnight.  Hoeft brought his boys, Danielle her girls, and Odin and his family came up for the day for Kai's B-day celebration.

This park is so easy and fun, it's a no brainer as an annual visit.

on our way up we stopped by Ippo Ramen for a yummy snack.
And when we got there we had enough daylight and warm sunshine to have a quick soak.
Geo captivating the audience...
Nikko the race car driver...
The next morning Kai rode his bike down to the lake in his PJs, while I jogged behind him.  
And set up for his B-day!
Time for cupcakes!
The SUP provided quite a dock for jumping off of.  This one has removable fins, so it's good to bring here.  



Nikko proving that he would've been a cute girl too.  

maybe not as cute as these two
Kevin goes down easy for naptime.
more stories... Kids love Geo!
We went to the campfire talk where Kai & Riley participated in charades!
hugs...
Kevin basking solo in his disco dance party


BTW.... This guy just became my hero: