More Big Sur pictures

Hola amigo!

Along the southern end of Big Sur is the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery, where you are literally just 20 feet away from the seals.  They're a stinky, noisy bunch who spend most of their time soaking up sun, playing in the water and wrestling with each other (mostly the males).  The beach was packed with them, some lying around right on top of each other, and others scrapping on the beach.  Watching their bodies jiggle with their blubber dancing was quite entertaining as was the show the males put on when they wrestle/fight with each other, chest bumping and growling.  Even the youngsters got into it.  Quite the show!

Can't beat the sun setting into the Pacific Ocean

View from where I parked the car for the night

Redwoods make it through fires and keep going up!

Morning sun coming up along Highway 1

Rugged Point art

Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery

Elephant Seals doing what they do best

Baby elephant seals in the water

Big Sur is just as amazing as ever

A couple days off of work means a road trip.  This time, I headed back south to Big Sur, one of my favorite places in the world.  Such an epic stretch of wild, rugged coastline, full of booming waves, towering redwoods and some idyllic hikes.

Compared to when I was last down in the summer, there was very little traffic.  Meaning, smooth sailing and more time to just explore without the hassle of people everywhere.  One of the best parts of Big Sur is being away from everything, with no cell towers, telephone poles or anything within sight at most times.  Just you, and mother nature.

It was time for some hiking, some exploring, some road tripping and some good times.  Here are a few pictures from the last two days.  More to come soon.

Where Big Sur River meets the Pacific, along with my rented Toyota Prius

Morning coffee at the iconic Nepenthe Restaurant.  Well worth the price for that view

View from the drive south

A bench on the property of the local hermitage

Picture perfect

Sand Dollar Beach

Seascapes by Justus

Bit o rock out in the water

Halloween 2015

Imagine Rocky Balboa mixed with a unicorn.  That's what I was for Halloween this year.  Quite the fun time downtown, where everyone from the whole region comes to Santa Cruz.  From the early afternoon on, the street is closed off for people parading around, having fun and the little ones getting candy from the businesses.  The evening is still just as busy and a bit rowdier, but nonetheless, quite fun.  Here's a few snaps from the night:

Obama and the secret service!

Zombies awaking, look out!

And above is a video of the zombies arising to Thriller, by Michael Jackson

Another reason to love Shaquille O'Neal

Summertime fun

The days are flying by and although it still feels like summer in Santa Cruz, it is already mid September, the best time of year.  It was just my birthday and the weather has been amazing, with the summer traffic and visitors gone from the coast, it has become a locals town.  Small town beach vibe, with no traffic and lot of good vibes.  I thought I'd put up a few photos from the summer, out and about having fun in California.  Been a great one and it has no end of stopping.

Eric and Mary visit from Portland and we hit up the Boardwalk

Hiking in Big Sur with my housemate Cara

Hanging with good friends during my visit to Portland, here at the waterfront Beer Festival

Outside the community market where I work and get things smooth

Meeting Charlie Brown, the legend!

Driving through Sonoma County wine tasting with two Australian mates

Beer tasting up at Lagunitas Brewery

Keep squeezing that juice!

Round two working on the Zinfandel grapes entailed draining all the liquid out of the vat to be stored into 12 wine barrels.  It was quite the magenta bright purple color, not the average wine color.  Give it time, some oak barrel action and it might just get there.  Of course, in the tasting room they are still serving 2011 and 2012 varieties, so this won't be on the shelves any time soon.  But when it is, drink up a glass of Justus-made Zin!

Just liquid this time through

 After we got the liquid out, it was time to get the grapes out for pressing.  Not the easiest task, and definitely not automated.  Pretty much there were several hundred pounds still in there that had to come out and after using a rake and shovel to get over half out, it was time to go inside.  Shelly drew the short straw and climbed inside the vat, to move the grapes towards the opening where I could get them out.  She emerged later on, a wee bit pinker and smelling of that strong carbon dioxide that the grapes give off when fermenting.  Quite powerful to go with a slight warmth that emits from the grapes.

Time to get those grapes out!

After the manual labor to get the grapes out, it was on to the expensive grape presser from Europe that efficiently squeezes all the juice possible out of the grapes.  Efficient, but lengthy in time (1.5 hours), the machine filled up an extra 4 barrels of wine.  And what was left was just the grape skins, seeds and some stems.  Looked an awful lot like raisins, except not as sweet or juicy.

Presser in action

Wine anyone?

So when a friend asks if I'm free to help crush some grapes at a local winery, I hop on my bike and head over.  Just going with the flow, with images of stomping on grapes in the sun, wine squirting everywhere for a few hours.  Turns out, we'd be working in a huge warehouse full of wine vats, very industrial and the grapes I would be working with would be the infamous red, zinfandel.

Oh, and the amount of grapes we would be working with was over 7 tons.  That's over 14,000 pounds.  Not just a few hours work.  14 crates packed to the brim with zinfandel grapes, each weighing around 1,000 pounds. 

I would be working on the destemmer, taking stems, leaves and twigs out after the grapes had been run through a grinder and mixer, to separate the grapes from the vine and stems mechanically.  The grapes were dumped up top:

Then after working their way through, they would move via vibrations towards me, to use the human element to get what the machine couldn't.  The hours passed and it turned into an all day project, grapes being sorted, squished, destemmed and finally being dumped into a vat:

All in all, we yielded about 9,500 pounds of zinfandel to be turned into the first wine of the season.  Not all the rest was lost, as the juice that came off the processor will be turned into a rosé blend that will contain the juice of 3 grape varieties and be on the lighter, sweeter side.  Two 60 gallon barrels were filled up with the rosé grapes from today.

So that is what my day off turned out to be.  How was yours?

Zinny zin zin!

7 tons of zinfandel grapes ready to go

Fan for life

Dodger fan for life, ever since my first birthday outing at Dodger Stadium.  The Dodgers were up in Oakland to play the A's, so a friend and myself drove up to watch the boys in blue.  Definitely lots of the color blue all over the stands, it was a great atmosphere, more of a party atmosphere than other stadiums I've been to, and people were pretty riled up.  Lively and loud, Oakland lived up to its reputation.  With Clayton Kershaw (best pitcher in baseball) pitching, the Dodgers took a 3 run lead in the 7th.  A's fans started leaving and the Dodgers fans took out, getting loud and loving it.  Until our dismal bullpen gave up the lead and ended up losing the game in 10 innings.  Great time despite the loss, as I visited my 10th ballpark.  Checking them off the list one at a time!

Shots from the garden

Bay Area Fun!

When an Australian friend says that they are coming to be with you on the 4th of July, you gotta think big.  Which means that I was leaving my small, happy beach town of Santa Cruz on the morning of the 4th and heading north to San Francisco, which people in my area simply call The City.  Got to whoop it up American style right?

Playing tourist around SF is awesome.  It's packed full of things to do in a 7 x 7 mile radius, and we saw tons.  From eating clam chowder bread bowls by Fisherman's Wharf, to exploring Chinatown, to BBQ food, we got in a ton.  The fireworks show, right off of Pier 39, was a bit on the foggy side, which gave it a spooky feel, with often just thick clouds of smoke being lit up as if we were in a battle. 

We road the cable car, ate Lengua (tongue) tacos in the Mission, and with a rented Smart car, drove down Lombard St:

After a couple days in the big city, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, north to Napa, land of fine food and wine.  Some of the top chefs are up there and we checked out the restaurants and ate at Bouchon Bakery (pretty much the only place to have top chef endorsed food without a reservation).  Hands down, one of the best bakeries I've been to, and my brown sugar encrusted bacon cheddar scone was amazing.

We stayed with a high school buddy of mine, catching up and barbequing up a feast from the local Mexican market.  My Aussie friend was shocked by the prices, especially as bottled Mexican Coke sells for over $6 in Oz and here was just over $1.

We explored a few wineries, met some descendents of the original winemakers at some family vineyards and had wine referred to as "good with an In N Out burger", "fit for a cowboy, like yourself (me)", and "packs a punch".  Some good ones, some mediocre ones, but all from the Napa Valley, which makes them all fairly famous around the world.

Mumm Napa, Champagne!

V Sattui Winery

And for two days, I was driving around a Smart Car.  With handicapped plates.  Not sure which one got more smiles and waves from people.  We were popular, and could park anywhere.  Apart from bouncing as if it had no shocks, and not shifting into a higher gear a couple times, it felt pretty roomy on the inside.  Two people with one suitcase fit just fine.  Kinda feels like a normal car inside and then when you get out, and see room for one more Smart Car in your parking space, you realize, it is tiny!