California Dreamin'

So, if I haven't told you a lot about my brothers lifestyle here you go: he's a traveler....for work. In fact, he recently informed me that last year (2013) in its entirety, he spent 106 days away from home (Brooklyn NY in his case) and 91 of those days were days that he was working. He's a film guy-he does a lot of camera work and is good at it. His name is in credits in shows like Apprentice, Project Runway, and recently and most proudly (and the reason for the majority of those days away in 2013) a show called Years of Living Dangerously. More on that later. Anywho, he got a call for a 5-6 week job in CA. Yes, California. Which meant he would be on my side of the country for over one whole month. I don't know when the last time was that we spent that much time in the same time zone. Seriously.

I jokingly said I, as big sister should come down and party crash one if his weekend if he didn't have to work everyday. He said sure...whatever. Then, when he found out he really would have weekends off I jokingly and seriously said it again and he asked if indeed, I would be willing to come down. Heck yes. A chance to see my brother AND have a weekend away. I couldn't say no. Life is too short too not jump on that bandwagon. So...a mere 2 weeks before I would get on a plane an airline ticket was purchased. This felt so foreign to me because any trip that required the purchasing of a plane ticket MUST be planned more thoroughly and more in advance than two weeks, right?! Not this time. Josh would have a rental car and the place to stay-really all that had to happen was a the purchasing of a plane ticket and the time off work. Done and Done. 

So, I wisked away this past Friday evening, arriving in SFO around 8pm and flew out of SFO Monday morning at about 7:30am. Quick trip, but I'd do it again.

Portland's airport has famous carpet. Google images for PDX carpet and you will see. The sad thing is that they are planning to take it all out and replace it. With a different pattern. Heaven forbid. Portlanders are mourning this loss. Seriously. They've made souveniers to remember the carpet. Yes-really. Souveniers. t-shirts, coffee mugs, socks, water bottles, coasters. This is Portland and its Keep Portland Weird 'thing.' And did I mention I want a coaster? Oh, and maybe some socks. Maybe. I think the t-shirt is too much, but that's just me. Oh-and someone, somewhere has a tattoo of the design. I don't lie (about that anyway). Google image it. I dare you. I wonder who dared her to get that tattoo? :) 

Here's the "must" of photo ops...my traveling feet with the carpet. Yes- you'll see lots of those when you Google image PDX carpet. I guarantee it.

Mt Hood with some planes. Being at the airport excites me. I love to travel and the airport epitomizes travel by being the very place to travel from.

 My beautiful city all cast in setting sunlight.

 Portland and Mt Hood. Love!

 The Three Sister in Central Oregon.

 Crater Lake...looking almost not real.

 I've seen these plateaus in Southern Oregon (Upper and Lower Table Rock) from ground level and was excited that I recognized them from the air.

 Mt Shasta! I'd like to see Shasta from ground level.

 Sunset while landing in San Francisco.

 So, before I left PDX my allergies started raging so I took my allergy pill thinking I'd be fine by landing. I wasn't. I was feeling about the same. The next day I woke up and realized a nasty cold had made a deal with my allergies to make my weekend away a miserable one. Together, they only partially succeeded. I slept poorly each night, but perservered in daylight. On Saturday Josh took me to the work site. He's working on a pilot show about remodeling vacation homes. In addition to filming he got to do lots of construction himself as well and was proud to show off his work.

Here's the house...in a gated community right off the beach near Watsonville (where he/we stayed).

 Josh and the house.

 Show and tell about the deck and house...

 After looking at the house we made our way down to the beach and saw this little guy hanging out.

We then ventured North to Capitola for lunch. We sat outside in the sun and it felt good. I also ate the best sandwich ever. Chicken with pesto and some other deliciousness on really good gluten free bread. Then we walked a bit along the coastline.

 My little trip to CA was just days after National Sibling day, so we have this picture and a few more to add to the stack of sibling pictures! Love my brother.

 Before we'd left Watsonville-home of farmland galore, we'd gotten freshly picked, organic strawberries that melted in my mouth. I had to take a picture before they were all gone.

After lunch and a few strawberries we headed to Henry Cowell Redwood State Park. That was my only request when we were talking about the trip. I wanted to see the Redwoods as I never had. It was amazing and they weren't even the "giants" of the Redwood world. I can't wait to see those.

 It's hard to capture the sheer size and majesticness of these huge trees. Not only are they big around they reach so far into the heavens that you can't believe it.

 Josh did some work and filmed a bit while we were there.

 I just couldn't and still can't get over these trees.

 Another sibling picture for the books! Automatic timers on cameras are wonderful things!

 After the Redwoods we headed back to the hotel and did some hot tubbing and then went to dinner. I had another poor night of sleep, but was glad Josh was in a suite and I wasn't disturbing him. Sunday we got up and packed stuff up for a night in San Francisco. My flight was leaving early enough Monday morning we didn't want to drive the hour and a half at like 3am to get me there on time. We had decided to go up Hwy 1 to San Fran and stay the night in the city.

We stopped at a few beaches. Always beautiful.

 And stopped to see a lighthouse from a distance and from close up.

Time for a bit o'camera work.

 Wonderful coastline.

 This is the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

 A working brother.

 Can you find the fisherman?

If I had taken this picture differently (or maybe even as it is) I would title it "Engulfed" as this beautiful pink geranium was slowly engulfing the bench. I've never dreamt that a geranuim could ever get this large. I was amazing.

 The lighthouse is being restored. There is also a hostel on site. I bet there is some great whale watching and storm watching for those guests.

 These lenses came from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which my friend John has mentioned and seen. Shipped in 72 boxes from the Outer Banks to CA. Pretty amzing.

 Sea life. We even saw a whale. Try as I might I could not get a picture of the whale.

 More "Engulfed"

 Poppies!

 I took the below picture for the divot of pink just about center of the picture. It was better in real life.

 We eventually made it to San Francisco and went to the Golden Gate Park. Oh. My. Goodness. How did I not ever know about or make it to this park on any previous trip? It is amazing.

We saw buffalo (which I've seen lots before but not ever in a huge city).

 We explored a bit, but also knew we wanted to get closer to Golden Gate Bridge so we didn't linger too long.

View of the bridge from the edge of the park.

 We made our way through the Presidio of San Francisco, which I've also never been through and we were amazed by the buildings. I shall go back...also to Golden Gate Park.

There was an area being developed to improve trails near the old Batteries from WWI and WWII. We walked/hiked part of the Batteries to Bluffs Trail for some amazing view of the bridge. I shall spend more time learning and exploring here some day as well.

I love these pictures of Josh under that amazing tree!

The picture below was one I was going to delete, but I look at it now and what I see is the contrast between the solidness of the steel bridge and he malleability of the trees as a result of the strong ocean winds that blow and forse them to look like they are trying to escape from their main source and they inch further away from trunk, from being centered.

 A sunny, clear, but windy and cool day.

Alcatraz. We opted to not go get locked up while we were in the area. Been there, done that!

Downtown San Fran.

We had to head to Lombard St for some crooked-ness. To get there we went up this very steep hill.

  We got stopped due to traffic next to this very crooked tree.

 And here we were going down crooked Lombard.

The Trans-America building. We were staying near there.

After getting checked into the hotel we walked ALL THE WAY to Pier 39 for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. I just Google mapped it and the route we walked was 2 miles one way. We logged so many miles on this trip. It was impressive. We also passed the Bay Bridge all lit up for the night.

After the walk back we crashed. Or I did, as we were getting up in a mere 5 hours or something. Apparently it was Josh's turn for a poor night of sleep. Up early and out to the airport we went. Josh was safely back in Watsonville for work just before I started boarding the plane.

Even though I didn't feel 100% on this quick trip, I was so thankful I got to go and see my brother and do a bunch of fun stuff with him and break up some of his down time there. Thanks for everything, Josh. I love you much, brother!