Monterey and 17 mile drive

We had hoped to be able to drive all the way up highway 1 through Big Sur but highway 1 is shut down. So instead we drove straight through to Monterey and after a walk through Cannery Row took the famous 17 mile drive.

Very very beautiful place to be with humungous expensive houses and LOTS of golf courses including, of course, Pebble Beach. I like this grove of Cypress trees.

Asilomar beach is always pretty and free too ;-)

Mother's day with Emerson

The B Davis's joined Anne, Wood and me for a Mother's day celebration yesterday. We played bubbles Lots of bubbles And olayed with every ball in the house. Every time he arrives, Emerson very sweetly gives me a hug and some flowers or on this occasion a gift, and then runs into the den to collect every ball we have which he then arranges in a circle out in the living room. He also brought out the golf clubs this time to add to the mix (the bowling pins were a little delayed on this visit). I think my favorite part of the visit was walking down to the weedy (not grassy) area by the pool and watching Emerson hit balls with his new bat and then run in the imaginary base circle back to home base and jump up and shout YAY!!!. He has just the sweetest smile and LOVED hitting the ball and then running the circle with a huge grin on his face the whole time. What a wonderful memory.

4 generations for Mother's day

Having a race between blogger and Facebook to see which will post quicker ;-) Facebook is grinding away. This was on the occasion of my granddaugther's first birthday. 4 generations together.

Emerson

Got to stock up on the juice before the long ride :-)

Sunday's new hike exploration

Who knew there is a pretty cool visitor's center at Allatoona Dam near our house? We decided to take the Cooper's Furnace and Branch trails and then the Laurel Ridge trail and go see it. You can drive a car up there... but what fun is that? Much of the Laurel Ridge trail (which is labeled easy) would be easy for a mountain goat! No really it is beautiful and not too steep but it is only about one person wide and in some places I did wish I had my mountain goat legs. The picture above is what you see from this out look below. This trail had lots of markers and we learned a lot about the trees in our area and at our HOUSE! More pictures on facebook. It is much easier to load them up there

New Hiking trails- Saturday

We decided this weekend to explore and do a couple of new trails. We normally do the West Loop of the Pine Mountain trail, which you can see from the switch backs is pretty steep. This time we parked one car at the West loop and one car at the east loop and hiked across using half of each loop trail. We took our normal counter clockwise (bottom portion on this map) up to David Archer Look out and decided it was just as pretty as usual.

Then we took the long way down on the east loop... the top half on the trail map. It is one of my new favorite hikes. It is longer but not quite as step as the west loop. And it meanders by a really pretty creek for awhile too.

There were caterpillars and inch worms everywhere, gnoshing on all the new growth. Wood and I ended up wearing quite a few of them as they are very very clever about dropping on you and then hanging on for dear life.

Then we took the top long part of the East loop trail ( the part including Whiskey Point) down. I think it may be my new favorite weekend hike. Really really pretty... not quite as steep but a little (a little I said) more meandering. Still some steep places but it follows a creek bed for a while and is really very nice. 10 minutes away from our house. Only 10 minutes!!! There are caterpillars and inch worms EVERYWHERE. Between the two of us, Wood and I ended up wearing quite a few of them. They sure know how to hang on tight!