Today's letter is T . For more T posts, please click here . As some of you dear readers know, on the 23rd of each month, the husband and I run away from home and office to become tourists, adventurers, and slackers for the moment. For February's special date, we headed over to Point Lobos State Natural Reserve on the Monterey Peninsula, just south of Carmel by the Sea. Neither of us had ever been there. We saw quite a lot in the two short hikes that we did.  I took 90 photos, more or less. No, no. Don't groan or gasp. I'm not going to post them all. Only a few. Just to tease you. If you ever make it to Monterey, you'll have to go see Pt. Lobos for yourself. It's well worth it. Pt. Lobos was established to protect the Monterey Cypress trees. Pt. Lobos is one of the only two cypress tree reserves in the world. See how flat they get. The husband says it's because of the wind. This little fellow sat patiently for his photo to be taken. It wasn't till

Yesterday was a 23rd date for the husband and me.  The first of 2011. Our date was a pleasant ramble that developed and changed with the circumstances and, in so doing, we experienced many new things in our area . I don't know about the husband, but this newly old gal learned—and relearned—some new tricks. For Instance. . . When an waitress arches her eyebrows as we say that we're heading over to the area where she lives and she says it was covered with tule fog when she left for work that morning, take her a bit more seriously. The fog was so thick, we could've eaten it with a spoon. Really. When the fog is too thick to continue safely onward with an adventure, come back another day. The husband and I easily concurred at our first stop—a picture taking opportunity with a golden bear—and drove back down the mountain and back into the sun. Slowly and meanderingly, we crossed our small valley to drive up the mountain on the other side of it.  When a state park's sign say

Mt. Hermon Redwood Canopy Tours Oh boy! Because this week's ABC Wednesday (hosted by Mrs. Nesbitt) features the letter Z , I can blather about ziplining again. Ziplining through the redwoods in the Santa Cruz mountains, as some of you dear readers know, is what I did for my birthday last month.  I hung happily in a harness from a pulley attached to a cable about 13 stories high. When it was safely time to go, the guide slightly nudged me forward and I was gliding quickly along that cable through the redwood forest to the next platform. Swhooooooooooosh! This is the equipment I wore. The zip lines ranged from 110 to  440 feet long. Waiting for my turn was longer than the ride between the platforms. Exhilarating really is the perfect word to describe how it feels to dangle from a pulley and ziiiiiiiiiip among the trees. The initial fear was gone after completing the first zip line.  Yep, that tiny simple machine of a pulley can really hold me up. I may have swayed in my harness as I

Today's post is number 200! Yippeeeee! When I started at the beginning of this year, I didn't know if I could last a month.  :-) Another big number for me is 57! A prime number. The number of times I've traveled around the sun.  Zipping through the redwood trees with the husband and friends was a great way to celebrate the new year. It was the first time for all of us. At the highest points, we were about 10 to 15 stories above the ground. Didn't seem like it at all. The husband says the platforms on which we stood were about halfway up the trees. Didn't seem like that at all, either. By the time I got comfortable with traveling from tree to tree, we were halfway through the tour. Would I do it again? You bet! Want to check out where we went in the Santa Cruz mountains? Click here . Today's Christmas song is "Holly Jolly Christmas," performed by Mr. Burl Ives.  If you'd like to listen to the 12 other Christmas songs that I've posted thus far, p

Hello dear gentle readers, Not much to say other than I begin another trip around the sun today. To usher in my new year,  the sweet girlfriends K and evil2win , the husband, and I will be zip lining  through a redwood forest this afternoon. Whooooooo-hoooooooo! Your Christmas song today is "Peace on Earth" and "Little Drummer Boy" performed by Jack Black and Jason Segal. Some of you may remember this medley being sung by Bing Crosby and David Bowie in the late 1970s. Peace and love, One and All, Su- sieee ! Mac

Were you wondering what the husband and I finally did on our 23rd date last Friday ? Yes or no, I'm here to tell you. Well, actually to show you some photos of different things we saw as we stopped here and there. Wild chickens are continually crossing the streets in San Juan Bautista. Here's a bee that knows a good thing when it sees it! Taggers will leave their marks on anything standing! Can you see the turtle and the chimpanzee sitting on it? In a fancy boot store in Carmel-by-the-Sea, I peeked at the price tag of a pair of cute ankle cowboy boots. Over $1,000! And, they were not as elaborate as these. I didn't even want to know how much they were. Are those golf balls edible? Probably. Up close, they looked real enough not to eat! Cute handbags. Do you think that arm belongs to the bag or an actual human being? How to describe downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea? Drink and eat, see, shop. Or, coffee house, art gallery, boutique. This is the tallest and hunkiest eucalyptus tree

Our 23rd dates seem to come too soon. Not that I'm complaining, I love getting away for the day with the husband. It's just that I have yet to accomplish things on my to-do list that have been there since mumble, mumble . As I'm writing this, the husband and I have yet to decide where to go and what to do. Hiking is out this time because I'm supposed to let my ankle rest. According to the doctor, I have a chronic ankle sprain. I have no idea when I even sprained it. All I know is that since we walked up that mountain in May, I was wrapping it up whenever it hurt to walk on it. When I finally couldn't put pressure on the foot, I decided to go see the doctor. That only took, uhm, two months to give in. "Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this," said the patient. "Then don't do that," advised the doctor. That joke cracks me up every time. My doctor felt up the ankle, gave me a prescription for anti- inflammatory medication, and said, "Don&#

Last Saturday night, the husband and I went to an outdoor concert with some friends at a local winery. The evening was extremely excellent! We sprawled out on the green grass under the summer evening sky. We listened to the most glorious music as it joined with the expanse of the golden hills before us. I was in heaven.  The featured band was Dave Mason. Yes, the one and only Dave Mason! I don't know about our friends, but the music transported the husband and I to moments in our 20s. He said he was back at the concerts in Winterland in San Francisco. Me. I was back rocking with roommates as we listened to records, and I was playing an upturned ceramic pot as if it was a conga drum. After the second piece that Dave Mason played, the husband said aloud, "That was almost orgasmic." So true.  P.S. Why is the camera shaking? I was bopping along with music, holding the camera in one hand and banging my right thigh like it was, yes, that upturned ceramic pot of long ago.

The husband and I got on our bicycles yesterday. It had been a couple of weeks. Inconsistency that I need and want to change. I feel so much better for it. One of my pedaling objectives yesterday was to head over to the other side of town to take a photo of bales of hay. Accomplished! The other objective was to pedal further out to a farm stand for some fresh veggies and fruit. Accomplished! Achievements, small or large, are just that.  And, they all equal joy.  Remember that, dear readers.

It's summer! The time to hang out with friends and wander aimlessly. The husband and I did just that on our first summer 23rd date . Our friend Kathy guided us up wooded paths to a lake where I saw my first red dragon flies and heard my first bullfrogs. On the way to and from it, we came upon jack rabbits, deer, bugs, yellow-tail butterflies, a slow-going garter snake, and much, much more. What a glorious and, yes, joyous, day! We were walking a path that used to be part of the Wells Fargo route between San Jose and the Pacific Coast. Can't you just see a Well Fargo wagon bumpity bumping down the road? "Dandelions! I rarely see dandelions," I exclaimed. "What do you mean?" the husband replied. "They're growing on our front lawn."  "Not like these," I said. The golden hills of California. We stood and watched this snake slowly make its way across the graveled path to the lawn. We wondered if it had just eaten because its middle part lo

I am not comparing. No, I'm not. This show-and-tell is more like contrasting the things I saw from the car on our quick trip to and from Humboldt County last weekend. It's all beautiful, don't you think? Transportation today. (Richmond-San Rafael Bridge) Transportation before. (Outside Arcata) Overlooking San Francisco Bay, as we headed into Richmond. Overlooking Salt River, as we headed into Ferndale. Giant steel structures in Oakland. Giant redwoods near Pepperwood.

Last Friday, the husband and I headed north to Eureka for a wedding. Over 300 miles of perfect driving weather on the 101. Sure, it was overcast and it rained some, but I prefer that to being uncomfortably hot. And, as the husband says, when you're under the redwoods, it doesn't matter if it's sunny or rainy. Because we were just off the leash for the weekend, we didn't dally much coming or going. On the way up, we stopped for a food break in Ukiah, which is the county seat of Mendocino County. It's about a two hour drive, more or less, north of San Francisco. For info about Ukiah, check out the city's Web site . Although we were in the middle of wine country, we felt like drinking a beer when we saw the Ukiah Brewing Company and Restaurant. Are we glad we did! The business is the country's first organic brewpub. Organic beer is definitely the way to go. I tried their Coops Stout. It's described as a "heavy stout with chocolate and roast character.&