It's been a few weeks since my last post. I was in San Ramon, CA for a few meetings and then off to Texas to visit my girls and family.
I've taken a few pictures of Monterey Bay. This has always been a favorite get-away spot of ours for a weekend. Howard and Deb, friends from Aberdeen now in Fresno, joined us for a couple days of relaxation. We walked from the "tourist pier" to Lover's Point and back. Then it was off to Highway 1 down to Big Sur. Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the central California coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big country of the south". The terrain offers stunning views, making Big Sur a popular tourist destination. Big Sur's Cone Peak is the highest coastal mountain in the contiguous 48 states, ascending nearly a mile (5,155 feet/1571 m) above sea level, only three miles (4.8 km) from the ocean.
After a couple of relaxing days, it was back to work in San Ramon. We flew to Austin on Friday to meet up with Rachel and Becka. We ventured to Horsebay in the Hill Country of Texas near Marble Falls (the falls are now covered by water due to a dam upstream). We needed a hiking fix so we drove 40 miles to Enchanted Rock. Enchanted Rock is a spectacular granite pluton just west of State Highway 965 near the Gillespie-Llano county line in southern Llano County. The granite dome rises some 385 feet above the streambed of nearby Sandy Creek to a maximum elevation of 1,825 feet above mean sea level. This great monadnock is the largest pink granite monadnick in the United States. The name Enchanted Rock derives from Spanish and Anglo-Texas interpretations of Indian legends and related folklore, which attribute magical and spiritual properties to the ancient landmark. According to one nineteenth-century writer, "the Indians had a great awe amounting almost to a reverence" for the rock.
After Austin, we headed to Richardson to visit my folks, then over to Berryville on Lake Palestine, 25 miles south of Tyler. We rented a lakehouse where Meg and Lauri's dad visited. We enjoyed the sun, heat (by Scotland's standards at 75F/23C), and down time. Alas, vacations all come to and end and we headed to Houston to catch a plane as a cold front approached bringing SLEET and SNOW!
No comments:
Post a Comment