A day in the City by the Bay

 Monday August 9th

Spent the day in the, City by the Bay, I do miss the city and the fog, but not all the people and the noise.

We stopped at, Tartine Bakery, had chocolate croissant and bought some bread. When we got home they had given her the “Rustic” loaf rather than what she had ordered. It was delicious.

My sister, niece and nephew, went to see the exhibit by, Guo Pei, which she thought was at the De Young museum. It wasn’t.

We were passing by the, Japanese Tea Garden, which we had not been to in quite some time so we started there.

In the Japanese Tea Garden

Japanese Tea Garden

My sister, niece, me, nephew, 

We then went to the De Young Museum and saw the Obama Portraits. Where we found out the, Guo Pei exhibit, was at the Legion.

My sister told me to remove my mask, forgot to tell me to fix my hair.

Arriving, at the Legion we found there was a timed entry for the exhibit and we had a hour to kill before our time. so we wandered through the exhibits. Which included some of the work by Guo Pei. Including this stunning Dragon Dress.

At our scheduled time we entered the main Guo Pei exhibit. If you get the opportunity to see this GO!

The embroidery and workmanship, the use of natural and other materials is incredible.

Having done theatrical and art gallery lighting, I can say they did an outstanding job of lighting and casting shadows.

We ordered, Chinese food, for dinner from the Dumpling Depot in Sunnyvale it was very good, I will be having leftovers for lunch, which is right about now.

Checked in this morning for my fight back to New Mexico, we will be flying out first thing in the morning.

Last day in Homer and Heading to California

 Sunday, after the 6+ mile hike the day before, we decided to take it easy. 

My sister’s, “SO” is returning on Monday so we went to the grocery store and bought a few of the things she needed. We went to the, Boardwalk restaurant, for Halibut on a Stick and waffle fries. We ate half and saved the rest for dinner. Stopped by the, Pickled Pear, a food truck, to picked up some Mexican Street Corn, to have with our dinner

Returning to the house we relaxed and watched some TV.

Lola sitting in my lap while watching TV.

Halibut on a Stick

Bea and Esther attempting to crawl in my lap to say goodbye.

Monday, Scotty, Lisa’s SO informed us his flight was canceled and he was rebooked for the next day. The airline booked him a room and gave him meal vouchers, he was going to go back to his mom’s house. Being the East Coast was sweltering and he had no A/C at his mom’s, well sorry mom, he stayed at the hotel.

We went to the airport and she dropped me off. Unfortunately, my hat was left in the car.

I went to check in and asked if the flight was on-time, I was told it was, in a belligerent tone. I then said I had one bag to check to San Francisco and one to gate check to Anchorage. I was informed by the agent that “she” would not “gate check” my bag because it was not a mobility device or car seat. I informed her that every time I had flown with them I had no problem gate checking a carry-on with thousand of dollars of photography equipment. She informed me “SHE” would not do it, thank you #RavnAir in Homer. I had her check the bag to Anchorage, figuring I had an hour and a half to retrieve it and make my flight.

At 8:45, she went to the gate to start the boarding, except there was no plane. It was late, she walked away after 15 minutes of standing there. The plane, finally arrived, no announcement, at about 9:20, thirty-five minutes late. We were supposed to depart at 9:15, needless to say we didn’t depart until 9:55. That left me with less than a hour to collect my bag, go through security and get to the departure gate. 

My bag came quickly, security was very quick, and my gate was just about the last one on the concourse. I made it as they were finishing boarding. The bag that I checked all the way through did not. My AirTag showed it still in Anchorage.

I filled out a form at baggage claim in San Francisco, as the agent was entering the information, my phone alerted me that my bag was in Seattle. A second later she finished entering the information and it told her my bag was in Seattle. The, only, good part was the agent at #RavnAir didn’t charge me for my bags.

My, sister, picked me up and we went to her house. Her husband and I watched a James Bond movie.

Then it was time for bed.

Here are a few shots from my #iPhone12ProMax that I took as we were passing over San Francisco.

San Francisco 

Golden Gate Bridge

Bay Bridge

Basket Making, Bears and Salmon

 Friday, I went to a Basket Making class at the Pratt Museum in Homer. My sisters were suppose to be there but one was ill and the other went back to California early.

The funny thing is I met a women a couple of days before at the Two Sister’s Bakery, then she came into the toy store and showed up at the basket class. 

The class, as the teacher stated, was not going to involve a lot of technic, but rather our primal memories to build our own unique basket. She had collected grasses, willow and spruce branches, shells, rocks, feathers and many other natural items. She started us with the spruce and sea grass to start our baskets and gave us hints and ideas as we build them.

Mavis Muller led the class, you can see her work here.

Also google her name to see her work.

https://www.facebook.com/BurningBasketProject/

Starting to work on our baskets.

We each randomly, like pickings card from a deck, choose a base to start our project.
I picked the Swan.

The baskets created by all of us.

My basket.

Me with my basket.

On Saturday, my sister and I drave up to Copper Landing to watch the salmon run and bears. Although, we saw fresh tracks and scat, we did not see the bears, a mom and her cub by the size of the tracks.

Bear Track with sister’s shoe

We ran into a Park Ranger, Tom, at the Falls, said hello and chatted for a few minutes. He thought my sister was someone he knew. As we were walking back he was standing at path that went off into the woods. He asked if we had some time, he would take us to the salmon weir, where he counts the salmon coming upstream. We trusted he wasn’t a serial killer and off we went. The bear tracks, pictured above, were on the path he guided us on. We walked for about a mile stoppping at a few scenic places to take pictures. He explained what he did when we got to the weir. His cabin that he been calling home for 18 summers was across the river. We continues up to the Lower Russian Lake, then into the bushes to gather a few blueberries the bears had missed. We didn’t stay long as we knew the bears were nearby. It was a great side trip that we won’t forget, hopefully we will see him again.

Me, Tom and Lisa at Lower Russian Lake

Sister Returns, One Leaves

 Monday was spent awaiting the return of my sister from her trip. The flight was delayed over two hours due to weather. Then she had to get the connection to Homer, that flight was delayed, fortunately, and she was able to make her connection, otherwise we were looking at like driving up to Kenai to pick her up. After she finally arrived we went out to dinner and had a nice meal at the local seafood restaurant on the Homer Spit. 

Unfortunately, the next morning she woke up sick and ended up staying in bed all day and my other sister decided she didn’t want to stay and rebooked herself to leave this morning, Wednesday. Tuesday we sat around and just chatted and took care of her. This morning I took my sister to the airport and I am now at the toy store that my sister owns. Because we closed it for two days to do things and because of her illness we were unable to do that. Since she is still not feeling well I’m covering the store for a couple days so that we are not closed for four days which would not be good. I will cover the store again tomorrow and hopefully Friday, Saturday and Sunday she will feel better, then she and I can go do some things.

So if you’re in Homer stop by, The Captain’s Toy Chest, and say hello. 

Hopefully, I’ll have some new things to post and pictures to post in the next few days until then have a good day and thank you for visiting.

After dinner a flock of Seagulls on the Spit.

Bear Country

 As an early birthday present, for my 70th in October, two of my sisters and my son bought me a flight on Sasquatch Air to fly out and see grizzly bears. So today was the day.

I joined 20 other people and we flew in 4 planes out to search for grizzlies. The first locations were devoid of bears so we ended up at Katmai National Park. A very beautiful location. We landed on the beach, formed into two groups. After receiving instructions, do’s and don’t, we headed down the beach to the mouth of the river. Two male grizzlies were waiting for the salmon to run. Although, we could see the salmon jumping in the ocean, it was low tide and they were not coming up the river.

After a couple of hours we sat and had a bite to eat, waiting for the tide to come in.

We reformed our groups and went back to the river. One of the grizzlies spotted a salmon and charged for it, he missed. The other grizzlies decided he had enough of this poacher in his fishing spot and charged. Nose to Nose, they stared at each other, the interloper bowed his head and walked down the beach. After a few minutes the other one decided there were no fish and he wandered off.

Here are a few #iPhone12promax pictures.

Grizzly on the beach Katmai NP

Landing on the beach Katmai NP

Bear tracks by the plane

On the way to Katmai NP

On the way to Katmai NP

Seldovia, Alaska

Mount Saint Augustine Volcano

Homer Spit

I will have more pictures from my camera.

A Couple of Off Days

 Thursday I was back in the store, nothing really exciting to report.

Friday, went to the Spit to wander through the shops, went through the first section, let’s say one of us couldn’t continue to walk. As the parking was impossible down there we left and hit a few galleries, in town, had lunch and went home.

Attempted to go out again today, not much luck again. We came home watched the last part of a movie, we had started the night before.

I, also spent time preparing for tomorrow, packing supplies, snacks and cleaning my camera. should have some good pictures to share.

I did take a few picture with my #iPhone12promax as we drove around.

Riders on the beach in Anchor Point

We also went by the Farmer’s Market in Homer