Smokey Mountains trip with Annica

Annica was a bit put out by the whole "homecoming" scene, so I flew out to Georgia to be with her, hang at the homcoming game Friday night, then we decided to take a trip north to the Great Smokey Mountains. Well, it turns out this week was the "premier" week for the Smokey Mountains, as this was the prime fall colors week for the entire year. Nearly every place was sold out, I found a place in Maggie Valley, which was a very nice place, not as crowded or touristy as Cherokee. Homecoming parade was fun, Annica and her senior friends had "Japan" as their theme, they had a pickup truck with a large jaw and teeth to represent godzilla, and they dressed up in Japanese outfits, Annica a samari chef (we watched John Beluchi clips from Samari Chef for research), Emily was a box with Japanese writing on it (um not sure what that was), there was a sumo wrestler guy, and a few others. I think they came in last. The Freshmen won the parade float thing. Milton won, that was good, even though we left early.

We left early Saturday morning, like at 6am, stopped and had breakfast at "The Moose Cafe" in some small mountain town, the food was ok, kind of a cool laid back place. Then we made it to Bryson, North Carolina, at the foot of the Smokey Mountains. The hike on Saturday was beautiful, Deep Creek, we took the trail which was a 4 mile loop, but decided to keep going past where it started to loop back, we hiked a total of 6 miles. The trail followed a creek the entire way, there were falling leaves, there were beautiful waterfalls, just a great place.

We then drove through Cherokee, saw all the tacky tourist places, saw the 400 room Harrah's Casino, then as we left town going toward Maggie Valley, we saw it - - Santa's Land. Annica made me stop, she says Santa is her favorite guy (next to me of course). When we later got to Maggie Valley, we saw the most incredible fall colors, much more than at Deep Creek. Our hotel room was nice, with a creek right outside out back door. We drove into Ashville that afternoon, about 30 minutes away, a really cool town, kind of like Berkeley of the South, lots of nice stores and restaurants, plus street people. We noticed that many of the Street People played guitar, not sure of the connection. On Sunday we did a 8 mile hike to "Charlies Bunion" which was nice because it gave us some expansive views of the smokey mountains. The colors were not quite as nice, but that was because it was a higher elevation, their colors problably would hit a week or two later.

We returned Sunday night. Monday I dropped annica off at school, and then had her oil changed, and took her car for a complete detail . . . it needed it. Annica was so surprised and happy when I picked her up and she saw her shinny car. Tuesday, I got new tires for Annica's car, it needed them, especially as she may be driving to California next Fall to start College somewhere hopefully in California. Tuesday after school, we drove to Sandy Springs where I met the attorney and his wife/office manager where Annica will be doing part time work. They were really amazing people, turned out that the wife worked at The Meadows in Arizona, a place I know through a friend, and turns out the wife, Sonia, had gone to Camp Swig, in Saratoga as a teen/young adult, and I too had gone to Camp Swig in my youth. I also talked to her about law office technology, and scanning mail, which my office has developed, so I was able to provide her some useful ideas. We had fun discovering these things we had in common. That's it for now. Keith

Our 2nd Anniversary, in a town called Elk

Pam and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary with a trip to Mendocino, we stayed at The Griffin House, located in the town of Elk, about 15 minutes south of Mendocino. Elk was very quiet, and right on the coast, our cottage had a back deck with two chairs right over the water, just a wonderful place. The weather was incredible, sunny with no fog at all. There was one nice gift shop in Elk, and a General Store, complete with a really funny sign post listing distances to various locations, like Bezerkeley, Spendicono, and Greystoke, Tanzania (9,553 miles away). The gift shop had a cool garden, photo is posted. Mendocino was really nice, a fun little town, and we had an incredible dinner at Cafe Beaujolais, recommended by our friend Larry. The couple next to our table at dinner was a French man, and an Italian woman, we would up talking to them for a while, they both live in San Francisco, he does a lot of cycling so we talked about different Bay Area rides we had done in common, and the woman was a chef instructor at the SF Culinary Institute. The music at the restaurant was really delightful acoustic French music, when we asked the waiter for the title, it turned out that the restaurant was selling copies of the CD, so we bought one. We did drive up to Ft. Bragg, and an ok lunch at the Wharf, but really, that's a pretty yucky town, I have heard since then that there are some good things to do there, we were just put off by its size and dirtyness. We made reservations at The Griffin Inn, in Elk for next year's anniversary, same room, The Matson.

Cal Rolls On - 66-3 over Washington State

Cal's first Pac 12 Game this year, and it was a huge win over Washington State, in Washington where they have had problems over the years. Quarterback Riley still looking good, though he is up and down. Running backs Jahvid Best (200 yards, 3 TDs) and Shane Vereen were great. And, while the Bears were running wild and scoring 66 points, the University was cutting down trees at Memorial Stadium back in Berkeley, only the single tree with the tree activists remains, likely coming down this week. Go Bears.

Goooooo . . . BEARS!!

Cal opened its 2008 season against Michigan State. There is a bit of a quarterback controversy this year, Coach Tedford has named sophomore Kevin Riley the starter over senior Nate Longshore. Longhore was great at times last year, but inconsistent, Riley had some great games but then made that horrible play at the end of the Oregon game that started Cal's downfall last year. Riley started the opening game, he looked ok in the first quarter. Longshore came in the 2nd quarter, which was planned, threw a 50 yard completion, but then promptly threw two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown. Riley played the rest of the game and looked pretty impressive. Running back and receiver Javed Best (no 4) looked great. Clips are attached. Note the new uniforms, with no names on the back. It's going to be a long season for the Bears. Goooooooo BEARS!

Simone in London

Simone is in London, on the UC exchange program for the fall semester. You can check her full story and experince at her blog http://www.withlovefromlondon-simone.blogspot.com/ . Here are some pictures she has sent, she sounds like she really loves it there. The apartment UC provides is nice, her roomate is from UCLA and is very nice, and she loves the class she has, they study London drama, then go see plays. Most of all, Simone says its all great because she is not in smelly, dirty and foggy Berkeley, she is in foggy, cold London. I'm thinking Simone is getting a bit burned out at Cal . . .

Annica and Dad Tour Colleges

Annica, supergirl ace, is a high school senior this year, and that means she will be applying to colleges this winter. So, we took our big college campus tour, starting with a flight to San Diego to tour UC San Diego, San Diego State, then up to LA to tour USC (just for fun), then drove up the coast for a tour at UC Santa Barbara, a drive around Cal Poly, then UC Santa Cruz and finally Stanford. Of all these schools, I think Annica likes UC San Diego best. There are other schools Annica will apply to, including UC Berkeley and others, but UC San Diego seems to peak the most interest. Pictured here, we made stops at Tommy's, famous for their chili cheese burgers, and of course Anderson's where we had of course, Split Pea Soup. I nice lady took the picture of us at Andersons (she could see we really wanted a picture of Papa and Split Pea. Oh, the picture of me here is from our stop in Woodland Hills, that's the house on Larkwood Avenue, across from Calabash Elementary School where I grew up.

bikes and weddings

This summer 2008 saw my best friend Brian getting married, to Cyntia, they had a beautiful wedding in the Palo Alto hills at his sister's home. The highlight, was the release of butterflies, you tell them a wish, then they open their wings and fly away . . . your wish is forever safe because they cannot tell anyone. Brian's brother Darryl put on a "Last Tri for Bri" ride, photos attached. This was a good summer for riding, met some new riders, had a good mix of rides with after work rides with Larry and Peter, weekend rides with Peter, Larry, Nick, Kelly and Beth, and others that would join, and even did a few crazed rides with psycho triathelete Fred (including a 75 miler, with Fred's friend Jim)(Fred went out on a 3 hour run the next day).

bikes, marathons and surfing

Summer 2008. Kind of an interesting summer, no golf this year, things got off to a different flavor by training and doing the Avenue of the Giants marathon in May, did a personal best 3 hours, 48 minutes, so I sort of stuck with the i'm an athelete theme, continuing with running and then picking up the cycling. Bought a commuter bike, as I've decided to commit to a no driving commute to work. The commute bike has full fenders, its a single gear for simplicity . . . well, I guess for coolness. Took the fenders off for summer, but will put them back on when the rainy season comes. Riding with a fixed gear was challenging at first, but I am getting the hang of it. Last summer we did lots of water skiing, not as much this summer, but some. No golf, did I say that already. I miss golf, its so fun, but just no time this summer. We did surfing behind a wakeboard boat this summer, with Pam's cool friends Dennis and L (is that Elle?), I'll post a video of that, if I can. Well, that's it for now, bye now.