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Yosemite Valley
–Claire and I took advantage of the new long weekend to go camping in Yosemite Valley. We drove out Friday night, and stayed 3 nights at the Pines campgrounds. Saturday we hiked to Vernal and Nevada Falls, which was a tough climb but a great hike. Afterwards we relaxed while cooking dinner over our campfire […]
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Diving at San Carlos Beach
–Drove down after work Friday for a night dive. I met up with one person, who also invited a worker from the dive shop on the wharf. He guided us out to the Metridium (after getting turned around for a little bit). After a short night’s sleep, I drove down again early the next morning […]
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St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
–We went to St. Croix to meet up with my family for our holiday get-together. We caught the red-eye to the east coast on Friday night, then arrived Saturday afternoon to the island. After a very tiring day of flying, I didn’t get to catch up on sleep too much because we had a dive […]
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Pinnacles NP
–We took a quick weekend trip to Pinnacles, arriving and setting up camp just after dark on Friday night. The next day we did a 11 mile hike that took us through Bear Gulch Reservoir and caves, the High Peaks and Pinnacle Rocks, and the Balconies Caves. We saw lots of wildlife including several deer, […]
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Yosemite NP – Tuolumne Meadows
–We went on a quick weekend trip to see the Tioga Road section of the park. The drive in Friday night was miserably smokey in the central valley, and we arrived to our campsite at Tuolumne Meadows after dark. We spent the next day hiking, seeing soda springs (and tasting the soda water), then making […]
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Hawaii (The Big Island)
–Had to get Covid tested within 72 hours of takeoff, so we took care of that on Wednesday. Negative results came back within a few hours of the test. No real problems once we got off the plane, other than a fairly slow-moving line to get through the Covid checkpoint. It was very hot and […]
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Breakwater Dive and Point Lobos
Did a morning dive on the breakwater to clean up fishing line, found a handful of pieces with various tackle attached. Poor viz, about 3-5 ft going out, coming back with the tide improved the visibility slightly to 10 ft. Quite cold. Wildlife included several fish, including small cabezon, shark eggs, along with anemones, starfish, […]
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North Table Mountain & Chico, CA
–We arrived to find the pasture surrounding the highway and parking area blanketed in wildflowers. The parking lot was full, and cars were parked along the highway for what seemed to be miles. Hiked to Phantom Falls, passing over the top of Ravine Falls on the way. Flew the drone at Phantom Falls. On the […]
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Montara Mountain
Parked across from Gray Whale Cove Beach, hiked to the top of North Peak, had lunch, and hiked back down. Was significantly easier on both Claire and me than when we did this hike last year. From halfway up the mountain, we could see several very intense bait-balls in the ocean, several hundred yards off-shore. […]
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Yosemite
–Claire drove us there. Entry was a breeze despite the reservation requirement. Almost as soon as we entered the park, we started seeing snow on the ground. Stopped for a few pictures of the Merced Gorge at the entrance, and saw a coyote who was kind enough to pose for us right next to the […]
