Attacked by Bill Gates' bodyguards!

Well, okay, not REALLY ... but we did sail right up to his house in Medina (just outside of Bellevue) on Lake Washington. As we approached, 3 bodyguards immediately came out from the house (or, perhaps, their own house within the ridiculously large Gates' complex) and peered at us suspiciously through their binoculars.

We set out yesterday morning just as the light fog began to lift for some sailing in Lake Union and Lake Washington - what a beautiful day in January

In Westlake marina - sails still folded up. Pre-sail checkup done, ropes untied ... and we're off!

Goodbye, Seattle! Making our way out through Lake Union to Lake Washington

Kenmore Air seaplanes taking off and landing in the lake right next to our boat. The "right of way" is as such: sailboats must yield to rowboats/paddlers, motorboats must yield to sailboats, and planes must basically try to not hit anybody (haha). There's also other 'right of way' rules amongst sailboats (which way the wind is coming from/into your sails, your own direction/tack) which determine which sailboat must yield to the other, but I haven't learned THAT much yet. Apparently taking advantage of these yielding rules is what those super fast race boats in the Americas Cup try to do - it's not just a flat out race, you have to strategize as well.

Lake Washington was like glass today - not any particularly hard sailing, but the silence out there was beautiful. Just our boat, nobody else around.

Bill Gates' mansion. Yes, it's the ENTIRE picture ... there's even an entirely separate wing leading to the boathouse off to the right out of the picture

Grilling steaks on board!

Mt Rainier from Lake Washington

Got some light wind as we were returning to the dock, so we let unfurl the main sail and the Genoa headsail

Back in Lake Union

Returning home from Lake Washington, teaching Rachel and Brad the basics of preparations for docking. I'm helping Rachel to turn the boat into the wind while Kyle teaches Brad how to prep the main sail.

Last snow of the season(?), Roasting root vegetables, and my book so far

January 25th already ... the months seem to fly by. We received official confirmation that there is a tenant who is interested in our apartment in just a few weeks so we will be out the door on February 17th and on our way down to San Francisco. With that in the future, I also got a new phone/plan/number (I'm now an official San Franciscan with my 415 area code!) I just got the little Kyocera Loft for now and I'm impressed that even this cheap phone has Google Maps with GPS tracking! I still remember just 10 years ago when the first cell phone I ever saw was a brick-sized motorola. There's kind of something fun about the (relative) simplicity of a "basic" phone like this one considering I've been using a european unlocked Nokia 5800 symbian platform smartphone for the past year and a half.

Anyhow, I know I've been neglecting the cooking part of this blog so I finally dug up the cords to connect the camera...

A week and a half ago ... what I believe is the last snow of the winter here in Seattle. Lately it's been in the mid 50s (Wednesday is forecasted 62 degrees) so it's getting much warmer already. I survived! Seattle winters were very mild

Whole wheat penne pasta tossed with edamame, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, and preserved green shiso (from my garden earlier last autumn) tossed in grapeseed oil. Made for a wonderful lunch

So I'm always at restaurants where I see roasted root vegetables (often, in salad) on the menu. I thought to myself how I've never really grown up eating a lot of these "American" root vegetables like turnips, radishes, rutabaga, parsnips, etc. Also, since it's the winter, I see a lot of these now at the co-op market. In an effort to try to eat more seasonally (since it just makes sense), I tried my hand at roasting some root veggies for a fancy salad. My thoughts on various root vegetables:

Left to right, clockwise: parsnip (carrot looking root), golden beet, fennel bulb, and purple-white rutabaga.

Initial thoughts on the "smell" of each root after cutting ... parsnip smelled like a carrot, golden beet didn't really smell like anything distinct, fennel bulb of course is really licorice-y (but totally gone when roasted), and rutabaga smelled like cabbage.

Pattern inside the golden beet was so pretty

After roasting in olive oil and rosemary about 30-40 minutes - fennel is nice and cripsy, everything else is cooked through with a nice browning of the outside

Put all the root vegetables over some hand torn local lettuce (my fancy way of saying how I was too lazy to cut the leaves with a knife :-p), along with some honey tangerine and caesar dressing.

I've always loved roasted fennel. While it smells like really strong star anise or licorice when fresh, after roasting, it is so incredibly mild and even crispy if you get the slices thin enough. Technically I guess this isn't a root vegetable since it's the bulb of the plant that forms just above the soil line. The rest of the root vegetables softened to a sweet potato like texture: rutabaga still tasted like cabbage after roasting, parsnip turned out to have more of a potato texture than carrot, and golden beets were quite sweet. All in all it was good to try each of these prepared with nothing more than olive oil and the oven for roasting. While not my absolute favorite, they provide lots of nutrition in the winter time  and were a tasty departure from what I'm used to. Maybe I'll try some different recipes in the future.

As I mentioned before, I'm reading "Night Train to Lisbon" and I can immediately say that this book is wonderful. It's about a Swiss professor of ancient languages who is stuck day in and day out in his life's routine, not noticing anything around him and not really "living" his life. One day he witnesses an enigmatic Portuguese woman who looks like she was about to jump off of a bridge after reading a letter and just the sound of the way she says her native tongue ("Português", pronounced poh-tu-geishh) perks his interest in the woman. At the same time, he comes across a book in a used bookstore of a mysterious doctor who wrote revolutionary works to assuage his guilt for what he believes was helping the dictatorship during the Salazar dictatorship in Portugual. The professor decides on a whim to take the night train to Lisbon to figure out who this man is, and to perhaps see the country of the strange, enigmatic woman. Along the way, you read of the professor's trepidations and hesitations since he's never done anything spontaneous or given into life's clues ... he could have turned around so many times along that long train ride from Bern, Switzerland to Lisbon, Portugal ... but somehow, circumstances and people along the way (not to mention his own self doubt about not being able to return to his old life in Bern) keep him interested enough to carry on. Whether it's him getting new glasses that might be too fashionable for him (but help him to see much more clearly without the burden of his old heavy glasses ... an obvious analogy to how one sees life), or his reading in Amandeu de Prado's mysterious publications who nobody seems to know about, the story is really engaging and I can identify with it a lot. Growing up in Ahwatukee for 20 years, even moving to downtown Phoenix seemed like a whole new world. Then came my first long-haul spontaneous roadtrip 2400 miles round trip to Austin, Texas, then a move to Hawaii, then a drive up the entire Pacific coast on the way here to Seattle, and now we'll be in the San Francisco Bay Area soon. While I might stay put for a while now, hopefully, (moving and packing gets old kinda quick) my experiences have really changed my life the way that "Mundus", the professor in the story, is quickly learning. I guess I identify with the professor's character easily because that was me just two years ago. Sometimes, however, one little experience (be it a roadtrip in my case, or an enigmatic Portuguese woman on the bridge and an old used book in this story) can be all one needs to see the world just a little differently and open oneself up to life.

I said goodbye to my fellow violinists at the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra last night when I gave Dan back his suit which I borrowed for the last concert. They seemed sad to see me go (Karissa my stand partner gave me a hug) and I was sad too ... they've been such a great group and I'm so happy to have been a part of it (even for just one concert). Getting back into playing the violin regularly in an orchestra ... I really missed that when I lived in Hawaii. I guess I'll have to audition for the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony once we get down in California.

And with that, I'll have to start on my homework! Week 2 of the new semester ... one of my online classes doesn't even have a syllabus quiz until the end of this week!

Book and Movie thoughts

Any new book suggestions from anybody? I could use another one! [Update 5:50pm]: I came across "Night Train to Lisbon" after returning "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and wandering the aisles at the Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle public library. While I'm afraid it may be a little more "heavy" than what I had in mind, I was meaning to read this a while back. Plus, it sounds a bit like "The Alchemist" in its message of letting yourself be inspired by life and changing your life when you want to, so it should be pretty good. I was going to read this book with my black eyed peas & cheese stuffed poblano pepper that I'm baking in the toaster oven right now and I was going to have those little nugget corn dogs along with it (forgive my junk food fix) but I think Ian threw them away :(. It's probably for the better and I'll end up thanking him for doing so, but as of this second I am definitely not a happy camper ... I wanted my junk food while I read my book!!


[Update 1:57am]: So I read the first couple chapters of "Night Train to Lisbon" and it's actually very accessible. Although I'm sure eventually the themes will develop quite profoundly (it is categorized as a "philosophical novel" after all), it reads like any other fictional novel and catches my interest in foreign language ... looks like this one is a pretty good keeper! I'll have to read on. Apparently 2 million copies of this book sold worldwide, so we'll see... Oh, and Ian DID throw away my mini corn dogs I found out. They weren't even in the kitchen trash can, but thrown out of the apartment completely. I'm kinda glad I guess ... should've just made a fancy salad for a healthier snack instead.

Just yesterday I actually finished a book! Can you believe it? I really can't remember the last time I 1) sat down and actually picked a book to read for pleasure, and 2) finished it. There seem to be many more instances of the former than the latter.

En tout cas, I just finished "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larsson (the first book in the three-part Millennium series). Without going into detail, I'll just briefly say that I guess I was left a little underwhelmed. The buildup of the story was so tremendous and had so many intricate details, but the climax seemed a little weak in proportion to the huge plot development, and then I thought the conclusion was even weaker. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't horrible at all ... after all, I did finish the book because it kept me interested. So I guess at the end of the day, it was a fun story to read and pass the time this winter break. I have to keep in mind that I picked that book not for any particularly "deep", mind-opening, thought-provoking reason ... instead, it was just entertainment (like a TV show, but much more engaging) and it did very well at that. I also have to say that me having watched "The Girl Who Played With Fire" on DVD (the second book) before reading this first book may have dampened my excitement since I had a basic idea of Lisbeth Salander's skillset and Mikael Blomkvist's general dilemma. All in all it was a wonderfully satisfying feeling to finish a book this break. I really need to continue doing this. Thank you public libraries! :)

Last night I also watched "Inception" finally since it was available at the grocery store's Redbox machine. Wow ... what an interesting movie - I thought it was really cool. What I liked most about the film was how it played off of every viewer's real-life experiences with how it seems like you can go through an entire day's worth of events in a dream when we were actually only sleeping for, say, 30 minutes. The movie's idea that "if dream-time is much longer than real-time therefore if you have a dream within a dream, time at that level would be even further compounded" was so interesting, and I really think that they did a great job of showing the different characters at different "levels" of dream states while still holding the whole piece together quite clearly. I also loved how the movie played on the idea that the mind can create for itself given a real-life experience (for example, something that happened to us earlier in the day), and create a whole world of its own. And I definitely enjoyed the idea that the characters would "wake up" from their sleep state when they felt the falling sensation (the "kick" in the movie) or if they were killed in the dream since that always seems to happen in our own dreams ... we wake up suddenly from either of those two, but rarely something else. But then, what was even more fascinating was the idea that in the movie, if you were killed when you were too deep into the subconscious, you would not wake up but rather fall into a coma. Finally, the movie ended with the hint that while everybody came back out of the dream, the Japanese businessman could quite possibly start questioning the reality of his own "real" life, think it's a dream, and try to end it.

It all reminds me of the process of anaesthesia in medicine ... how we induce a coma, and depending on what we need, we can induce different "levels" of sensory block. Just a local anaesthetic for killing the pain in a wound? Or general anaesthesia for surgery so we don't feel pain and don't remember what happened .... and how far do we go? General anaesthesia can go as far as to stop even subconscious brain function like breathing .... it's absolutely fascinating.

Anyhow, I must go return the Redbox dvd, mail off some packages, and finish going through this new semester's syllabi and writing deadlines into my planner all while helping Ian finish the crossword puzzle via email (haha don't ask :-p). My classes seem very easy this semester so hopefully all runs smoothly, and it's decided that San Francisco is for sure in the plans ... hopefully by early March!

Best of luck in the new semester to all!

Vancouver again - this time, in the winter

I apologize for the delay in posting this .. a lot of stuff has happened between the last post and today. Mainly, I was busy studying hard to take the PTCB exam for my pharmacy technician certification. I am happy to say that I did pass my exam and am now officially a CPhT! Bad news is, because of the ridiculousness of different state laws, Washington state will not grant me a license because I didn't 1) go specifically to a community college/vocational pharm tech program, or 2) work as a tech somewhere else for more than 2 years (in Hawaii I only worked a year).

So, needless to say that with Harborview Medical Center here in Seattle turning me down on three of my applications (don't even get me started about how their job posting was requiring licenses that don't exist according to the WA state board of pharmacy), I must turn my eyes elsewhere. Considering that I am graduating this May, it would be nice to have a full time job in my field lined up. So, since Ian and I are both flexible, we're looking at San Francisco as an option ... a lot more opportunities since I can be fully registered/licensed in California since I passed the PTCB exam (Washington won't grant an exception even though I demonstrated sufficient knowledge of mixing/compounding/drug classes/pharmacy law/controlled substances, etc). I saw a job posting that closed recently for San Francisco General Hospital which offered a salary of $50,000/yr ... not bad at all.

I'm keeping UW and UCSF pharmacy schools open as an option in the future, but I'm really looking at studying in Scotland as a serious option. Something is wrong with the U.S. when it's cheaper for me to pay international student tuition (mind you, Scottish residents like other Europeans don't pay any tuition at all) than in-state resident tuition in CA or WA. Give me the option to live in a much more socially progressive society where education and healthcare are looked at as fundamental rights rather than privileges, where the field I'm interested in (clinical pharmacology) is in a much more advanced practice level, add in the fact that I don't have to finish pharmacy school with $100,000 in debt and the ease with which one can just hop on the bullet train and be in Amsterdam or Paris in a couple of hours and I'll take that option any day. So I guess my plan for now is to just get a pharmacy technician job at a San Francisco hospital, save up a bunch of money, and hopefully apply to some UK pharm schools in the future. I'm in absolutely no rush however...  enjoying my journey the whole way.

These pics were taken January 2nd, I just forgot to post them ...

The waterfall and wading pond in Cal Andersen Park totally froze over (well, not totally .. just the surface) so I was walking on water! :-p

Ian took this pic one evening... just outside the bedroom window looking south at Mt. Rainier

Anyhow, after studying nonstop for that exam, Ian and I took a little three day trip up to Vancouver again to just relax. Hotel was paid for by airplane mileage and transportation (Amtrak cascades train ... this time, business class!) was paid for using my credit card points so it was basically a "freebie" trip :)

This time we stayed in the West End (in my last Vancouver post in the summer, we stayed in the Gastown area)

This was pretty cool ... in the UBC Robson Square just in front of the Vancouver Art Museum (the building with the pointy green roof), in the winter, the city makes a little ice skating rink in the sunken plaza ... only $3 to rent skates and you can stay as long as you like!

Downtown ... caramel shop

Getting through the cold, wet winter by chowing down on Poutine! (for those that don't know, poutine is a french-canadian creation consisting of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy .. mmmmmm)

Hot air balloon in my matcha latte at Melriches' coffee house in Vancouver's gay village

Crème glacée ... en français!

Walking around town all morning the second day ... here I'm on the Burrard Bridge

False Creek from the Burrard Bridge

Spent the second evening at the top floor of our hotel having dessert in the rotating restaurant .... took about an hour to rotate 360 degrees. We shared a dessert sampler (the little orange balls with leaves are gooseberries!), sipped cappuccinos, and just relaxed

The following morning and afternoon before the train back home, we wandered on foot through Stanley Park. Last time we were here in the summer, we biked the entire seawall surrounding the massive park and the city, but we never ventured into the the densely-forested middle...

Beaver Lake in the center of Stanley Park ... is that a blue heron?

It seems as if the nature gods thought that this trip would have been too relaxing if we had returned, as planned, via cozy business class on the Amtrak Cascades train. When we arrived at the station to pick up our tickets, the agent told us that our train had been cancelled due to a mudslide across the tracks. I figured we were going to be stuck in Vancouver, but we were able to get put onto the coach buses leaving for Seattle (you bet I got my extra points refunded for business class!). It wasn't all that bad and actually arrived in the city faster than the train would have, but at one point about two hours north of the city it began to snow so hard that everybody on the freeway was driving at 20mph in a single file since the lane lines were not visible.

All in all the trip was just what I wanted it to be ... not running around trying to see everything (we did that in the summer), but instead just wandering around Granville Island public market, taking naps each afternoon, and getting a lot of reading done.

Anyhow, glad to be back home ... now just waiting for my PTCB certificate to arrive so I can start filing for a CA pharm tech license. Final semester of college begins next week ... 3 years went by so fast. From Ahwatukee to downtown Phoenix, to Hawaii, to Seattle ... and soon to come ... San Francisco?

Haha. We'll see ;-)

My past year(s) in photos. Welcome, 2011!

Note: This is mainly a recap of my last couple years for my own journal purposes so I have a place to post photos that I took of my adventures prior to the creation of this blog. It's ridiculously long, but I think the pics are fun and it encompasses my very eventful past year or two ... read or skip to your heart's content!

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So I just about read everybody else's New Years posts and I guess it's time for a short (or maybe not so short) one of my own. Wow ... what an eventful year.

First off, like A., I love getting a new planner for the new year. It's a physical "starting fresh" of sorts with the pages totally blank, the binding still crisp and stiff, the edges not quite worn down yet. It's the physical embodiment of the year ahead waiting to be written, literally.

2010 (and I guess the greater 2009-2010 academic year) was a really interesting year for me which tested my boundaries like never before and gave me experiences I never would have previously imagined possible. I switched into 100% online class mode (who would have ever imagined doing my entire Bachelor's degree online on full scholarship at ASU and graduating a year early?), moved to Hawaii for the hell of it, playing tennis once a week at the base of beautiful Diamond Head crater and learning to really cook a lot more, drove up the entire Pacific coastline on Highway 1 (one of my life dreams) on our move up to Seattle ... but most of all, I learned to just mellow out.

I can be high strung, an obsessive planner, extremely type-A ... but over the years having moved from Ahwatukee's bubble to downtown Phoenix, to Hawaii, and now to Seattle, there were many barriers that I've overcome. I've also learned that having planned everything doesn't mean that I am in control of what happens. Cockroaches still find a way into your cabinets no matter how high up you live or how clean your apartment is in Hawaii, so you learn to deal with it if you want to live on a tropical island.

Nobody I know is better at seeing the opportunities in what may appear as a defeat than Ian, so maybe over the last couple years that's been rubbing off on me. I've learned to find all the ways to say "yes" before simply saying "no", to see the small victories just as importantly as the larger ones (since the smaller ones help you get to where you're going as well).

2010 also saw me get rid of my car - B. is putting it to better use now in Phoenix. The logistical annoyance of having to spend $3,000 to ship my car to Hawaii (and it arriving a month later) led me to say "forget it". I had a moped in Honolulu which was so fun, but moving here to Seattle I've gone one step further and become a full-time pedestrian. It's incredible how much more you see in life when you just slow down. Plus, walking is just plain healthier - both from an exercise standpoint, but also from the fact that car accidents kill and injure more people than anything else. I think because they're around everywhere, we don't really put that into perspective. To me, just being able to slow down enough to see that giant mushroom growing under the tree by the public library (I wonder if it's still there?) brings me enough joy to remind myself how happy I am as a pedestrian in life's winding path.

Anyhow, enough rambling - here is my 2009-2010 in pictures. I guess it's my own "bildungsroman" of sorts, whereby each step of the way my personality has changed bit by bit for the better:

First up, downtown Phoenix. Leaving the Ahwatukee bubble where I grew up was eye-opening. I took on new responsibilities (like paying rent/bills on time! and cooking so I could eat!), but also had the time and space to explore my own interests for the first time like...

Gardening edibles! Even on our little balcony in Phoenix, I managed to grow some morning glories, herbs, and tomatoes

Growing a garden first-hand also brought me a newfound appreciation for plants (the whole seed to plant to flower to fruit process is mind blowing!), caused me to rethink our relationship with agriculture, and ignited my interest in learning to cook ... mainly because I wanted an excuse to wander over to my balcony to pluck herbs for lunch!

http://stylepeterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/metro-light-rail-phoenix1.jpg

I took the newly built Metro Light Rail from ASU's downtown Phoenix campus to the main Tempe campus (I had classes at both, just for fun, even though we lived right next to the downtown campus) and developed my appreciation for well-designed and well-used public transit systems. Then again, if we built our cities properly we wouldn't even need transit ... but alas, I'm on my soapbox again.

Where I grew up! Sometimes I really miss the warm, dry air

Having been away from Phoenix now for 2+ years, looking back, the dryness of the climate (except for monsoon season) is pretty incredible. The landscape is so drastically different than tropical Hawaii or temperate forest Washington.

But a key defining moment in my personal development must have happened when, at 10pm on the first day of spring break, it was suggested that we drive 2400 miles to Austin, Texas to visit M. I had never done "spontaneous" before since I was a person who planned every mile of anything. I made up excuses (what about the fish in the aquarium, the plants on the balcony?), but when B. offered to take care of that for me while I was gone, I was all out of excuses. So, two hours later at 12am, we were out the door and on the road to a state I never thought I'd ever visit ... the first barrier (my apprehension at spontaneity) was broken

Van Horn, Texas ... just past the New Mexico border. This place was literally one main street that was totally deserted - a completely dead town aside from a couple motels for travelers like us

The drive through NM and west Texas wasn't particularly scenic - kind of flat and dry like southern AZ. However, once you get towards central Texas into the hill country, it's actually quite lush with trees all around and lots of water springs and rivers. Driving at night into Austin, I had to watch out for deer and black ice on the bridges!

Texas Bar-B-Que extravaganza begins! We had a list of places to try, and our own "scorecard" to rate each place. Here we are at The Salt Lick just outside Austin, TX

Funky Austin, TX 

Slow, fire-roasted BBQ

Brisket and ribs. This was funny ... every BBQ place we went to served the meat with sliced white bread. Notice: no forks allowed!

I love this little roadside stand selling "Happiness" through plants, pottery, and art :)

Then of course, the islands of Aloha. We first visited Ian's dad during winter break and I had jokingly said out loud "I wonder what it would be like to live here and not just be here on vacation". Well, Ian found out my entire degree sequence could be completed online without interruption to my graduation, so having broken the first personal barrier of apprehension in the Austin, TX trip, I said "why not?" and we moved!

Of course, an orchid lei upon arrival at HNL airport

North Shore

Looking inland ("mauka") from our apartment in Waikiki ... ocean and beach is just 3 blocks in other direction

Besides walking, my main mode of transportation in Honolulu .. moped!

Papayas growing outside the apartment

Toads on the front lawn every night

Geckos inside every night .. they make a "chirping" sound

Eastern coast of O'ahu

Giant char-siu-baos known as "manapua"

Real coconuts in the coconut tree! haha!

Rabbit Island, east coast of O'ahu

Portuguese Man of War ... stings like a jellyfish, although technically it's not a "jellyfish"

Ali'Iolani Hale ... my favorite building in Hawaii (I love the dark stone). I think the architectural style is called "American Florentine" and it's only found here. The residence of the Hawaiian monarchy prior to Hawaii becoming a US state

Oh, how could I have forgotten ... we survived what was supposed to be a massive tsunami! I've always heard the sirens once a month (since they are tested at the beginning of each month), but we were woken up in the dark at 4AM ... of course it wasn't a test! Luckily, it didn't end up being bad although we did see the water recede a lot. Still, we had to gather provisions like water and food just in case there was a big mess for a while

Waikiki totally blocked off to incoming traffic since we were in the flood zone

Then, just like the same pattern with visiting Hawaii for fun and the moving, we visited Seattle for fun and ended up moving here as well! I've posted lots of Seattle pics before, but never of our drive up the entire pacific coast ... stopping at hot springs and berry farms, redwood forests, lighthouses, etc.

Shield's Date garden! I saw this place on Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" and since it was on the way up the coast, hey, why not!

Date crystal shake was really delicious! Plus they had hundreds of different dates in the store from all of the date palm trees that were growing the back

Strawberry fields alongside tulips

Further up the coast, Avila Springs, CA. We stopped here because Ian had been here before and it was a good resting point after driving a lot the past two days.

Berry picking just across the road from the hot springs at the Avila Farm

Each room has a private mineral hot tub with water from the underground mineral springs

Hiked up the trails surrounding the hot springs

Drove into San Luis Obispo (SLO!) for dinner

This "night trip" was really fun because we ended up visiting a lot of the places that Ian used to go to when he lived here ... listening to all the stories (like why he came to this Woodstock's Pizza place regularly) was so fun

Pismo Beach, CA

Rolling hills of the central California coast

Monterey peninsula ... tons of sea lions!

This is where Highway 1 along the coast starts getting tricky ... high up in the mountains, 20mph speed limit, heavy fog, and one lane in each direction (sometimes only one lane for both directions) with a huge drop down to the ocean on the other side!

Random rest stops along the road

Stopped to take a side-of-the-road bathroom break (shhh!) and this is what I came across near Big Sur, CA

Working our way up the coast now about an hour south of San Francisco ... Moss Landing, CA. Headed to Phil's Fish Market (Ian's favorite restaurant in the world and now mine too!)

Seafood cioppino, fried cod and fried oysters all with a house salad and garlic bread ... oh, and my cute bib!

Exit the back door of Phil's Fish Market and ... voila

Stopped for a night in San Francisco to visit a friend, and then off again towards the north!

North of San Francisco, driving through Sonoma and Mendocino wine country

Redwoods forest ... we are at the "trees of mystery" park taking the gondola up into the old-growth forest

These redwoods are amazing

If anybody is thinking about moving to the pacific northwest, definitely invest in a rain shell like the one I'm wearing!

We continued onwards to our next resting place ... Crescent City, CA in the way north of the state. Ian found a place called "Crescent City Motel" which was great! For only $90, included free wifi. But who needs wifi when the place sits directly on the beach filled with amazing driftwood, fog, and dozens of photo opportunities. Not to mention hearing the foghorn in the distance as you fall asleep...

Doing some old fashioned 35mm film photography with my 1980 Canon AE-1

The shot I was framing in the previous photo

The next morning ... the Oregon coast

Heceta Head Lighthouse

Hiking around the lighthouse

And then further onwards to Astoria, OR ... the oldest establishment west of the Mississippi and a fun, sleepy little fishing town. Right on the Columbia River with Washington State just across the river. The underwater currents are so strong here since the Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean that pilot boats (pictured above) are needed to guide/tow each boat that passes (pictured below). It's one of the most dangerous shipping areas

And finally, arriving at our new home in Seattle!

View of Mt. Rainier on a clear day from the bedroom window

Panorama of the city from the roofdeck ... I get this view as I walk to the front door of our apartment too :)

So this has been my latter half of 2010 and now heading into the first part of 2011!

I forgot to mention that upon moving here I've now also already visited Portland and Vancouver, British Columbia (going up again in a couple days!) both by train, as well as driving into the Cascade Mountains for beautiful snow and all the fun that entails.

I wonder what other adventures this coming year has in store .... actually, I do have one under consideration but I'll wait to post about that until it's more definite ;-)