Seals and castles and road trips, oh my!

I'm baaack! It was a fun, whirlwind weekend, and its taken a week to get back into the normal rhythm of things :) My dad and I ended up doing 4 cities in 4 days, clocking in about 1,000 miles of driving!

Here's a quick recap of our jam packed weekend!

We first stopped at Hearst Castle, a sprawling 250,000 acre state park in San Simeon. See it waaaaay on top of the hill (I had to use super zoom lens!)
William R. Hearst (an incredibly rich man) and Julia Morgan (an architect who was in my sorority!) built a house with 165 rooms, a zoo, airport, indoor and outdoor pool, and 127 acres of gardens.
The main house (above) and the neptune pool (below). I really wish I could have swam in it! Hmm, wonder what would have happened if I just "fell" in ;)
Its amazing what a lot of money and imagination can build, it was beautiful!

Since I love marine mammals, we drove a little further to Piedras Blancas to see elephant seals!

According to the docent, juvenile males are back to molt, fast, and practice "fighting." Luckily I was a safe distance away, or else I would have been smashed like a pancake. They really went at it!
Went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Why hello Mr. Sea turtle, having a nice snack??
I am now in love with weedy (or is it leafy) sea dragons! Who knew they looked so cool!
Saw more pinnipeds, those are sea lions, not logs!! Very smelly and noisy!
Plus we squeezed in some time in San Jose with my great aunt, and dinner in San Francisco with more relatives! (I took more photos of animals than people..oops!)

What a great weekend to cross things off my 101 list!
#3: Visit Hearst Castle
#1: Visit 3 aquariums (2 more to go!)
#8: Try 5 new restaurants (Cafe Yulong in Mountain View, haven't had Chinese in so long!)
#16: Read 50 new books (All the driving left me with plenty of time to read, I finished 206 Bones, by Kathy Riechs)

I'm so glad I was able to get away last weekend because all I'll be doing this weekend is studying! I have an exam coming up fast! Eeek!

Hope everyone has a safe and sparkly 4th of July tomorrow!

Let's hop in the car & drive!

That's right, in less than 12 hours I will be driving up the coast to Northern California on a little vacation!

You might be wondering "why don't you just fly, its only a 2 hour flight." Well, a little background on my father, he loves to drive. This is the man who wanted to rent a car in public transportation friendly Seattle. So, driving is the logical choice.

Our little trip is actually to visit great-aunt to make sure she's doing okay, but I thought "why don't we make it fun!" Since we are driving, I planned little pit-stops along the way. I took 2 days off of work and we are going to Hearst Castle, Monterey Bay Aquarium, California Academy of Science, and Fisherman's wharf. I'm so excited!!

I'm taking my brother's dSLR and hope to some good pictures!

See you on the flip side :)

Six on Saturday

1) Farmer's Market
Now that I am back in my hometown, I go to the same farmer's market my mom took us to as kids. I still remember loading up our canvas bags with peaches, plums, and apricots.
I woke up early to enjoy tables and tables of fresh fruit and veggies (seriously, they were piled high.) It was so crowded! Guess the organic/all natural/support local growers trend has really caught on.
There's also food from local restaurants and bakeries. That's how I found out about this wonderful bakery that makes gluten-free things!

I'm looking forward to noshing on these goodies in the upcoming week. It's a race trying to eat it all up before the fruit spoils . Usually I win ;)

2) Library
Free books? And free dvd rentals? Yes please! Am I the only one who checks out an obscene amount of books? I don't know why I get so greedy, but I do know that there is no way I can read all these books before they are due.


3) Animal shelter
Today also consisted of a spontaneous stop at the shelter (the same one I got my dog from!) I missed the turn for the gas station and my sister convinced me to continue driving to the shelter. There are so many wonderful animals there!


4) Running
Besides going to the animal shelter, my sister also convinced me to go running with her. I avoided it and hoped she would forget, but it didn't deter my ex-cross country running sister. I felt really good after wards, so thank goodness I have a sister!


5) Sleeping/napping
Weekends+ warm doggie... pretty self-explanatory.


6) Movie night!
I am not a scary movie fan, but am some how I did want to watch the original version on "The Ring." The ironic thing is that I stopped liking scary movies because of "The Ring." I was seriously freaked out after watching it in high school. I watched most of the movie hidden between my fingers, and still screamed (I think I heard everyone else in the theater screaming.)

I'm going to call this my "spontaneous sister Saturday," how's that for alliteration!

Hope everyone's weekend is sunny and fun!

Wednesday Words

I have a friend who loves nothing more than collecting quotes. She can read books, watch TV, and find quotes to fill up her journal. Yes, she has an entire journal. I read some of her quotes once, and wondered what made them significant to her. Some seemed profound, while others didn't appear special at all. They ranged from classic literature to Gilmore Girls. When I asked her why she chose those quotes, she said that they made her happy or they reminded her of a moment in her life.

Since I've been away from blogging for a while, I was going to write some excuse on how I busy I've been..blah..blah..blah.. but instead I stumbled across this quote:

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangeo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

And I realized, that I have been busy... however I also been lazy. I've been making to-do lists (as suggested in a previous post), but still I have plenty of time to go online (like now!), watch TV, walk around the house bothering the dog and looking for food, and lie in bed.

I'm going to try to keep this in mind all week! But for the record, Einstein and Pasteur never had Youtube or dvr to distract them :)

Any good quotes pushing you through the week?