Fishing

We made Memorial Day weekend our flagship attempt at fishing this year up in Arnold. On Sunday we tried our hand at fishing with two new poles up in Lake Alpine, a large seasonally-opened lake at the top of the pass on Highway 4 about 30 minutes away from the cabin. Bites: 2, fish: 0...it was a bust. But it's a beautiful location, and one we'll come back to rent boats and do more hiking. On Monday we joined a couple of neighbors from Redwood City for fishing at their Pinebrook Lake just a few minutes down from our house. The results were much better: Julie caught (but then lost) the largest trout of all, and Nate helped bring in a couple of trout (13" & 11") brought in by our former neighbors. We were given the fish, cleaned and all, and now we know pink Power Bait and and large sinkers are the way to go. We're looking forward to doing more this summer.

de Young museum

We're feeling the countdown to summer, and now is the time when certain activities are best done without interruption from kiddos. For example, going to the deYoung Museum in SF to catch the last week of the "Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Scotland". Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at the museum cafe and walked around the glass tower before heading to Julie's school for the 2:40 pickup.

Martinez / Benicia

After a few days of summer camp and summer vacations planning, Gina and I broke away from our laptops to enjoy the spring weather. We grabbed breakfast in Martinez and then walked both downtown and along the waterfront where we found some neat bridges, signs with notices of shipwrecks within the marsh, and families of geese & ducks. With an extra hour to kill, we drive across the bridge to walk in Benicia where Gina found a heart rock formation in the low tide. Benicia is a neat, artist-type town, but I can imagine how cool it would have been when the train came down to the waterfront, then steamed onto the ferry, and was transported across to Martinez before heading off again.

Mother's Day 2015

I haven't posted anything on the blog lately, so I thought I'd share a few photos from Mother's Day. On Saturday we slept for a criminal amount of time before heading due east for the cabin and a day's worth of clothes. The weather was no different than in Lafayette -- sunny, upper 60's. We tried our BBQ on the deck for the first time (hamburgers) and made dinner for Gina the next morning (lemon ricotta pancakes and bacon). In between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening it was mellow time around the house along with a quick walk to the lake to look at all the tadpoles. Oh, and time for Gina to open up her cards and a couple of small gifts....thank goodness for a low-maintenance wife. Homeward bound, we again stopped at for BBQ dinner in Copperopolis, which is quickly becoming our favorite stopping point, despite it's slowest-in-Calaverous-county service.