Thanksgiving

We traveled up to Asilomar on Thursday to begin our Thanksgiving odyssey.

Asilomar is a very cool place on the Monterey penninsula. It's a state park but started as a girl's camp back in the teens or 20s. It has a bunch of condo type places to stay and you eat in a common cafeteria.

The "front yard" is a big beautiful state beach and you can hike around to Monterey and go to the aquarium, so it's pretty cool.

Here we are starting out Thursday morning in Kern County, a typical crummy late fall day here.
If you weren't SURE it was Kern, the oil pumping units should clarify exactly where we are.

As if Kern County weren't bleak enough, western Kern bans any trees or shrubs from growing, ever!

The Salinas valley may have its own problems of poverty, pollution and pesticides, but at least it's kind of pretty!

I thought these crags might be the Pinnacles...Larry disagreed. But since neither of us has ever been there, it was a short argument.

Throughout the Salinas valley, they have these giant plywood cutouts showing people working or petting their dogs or something. I think they're creepy. Larry thinks they're kind of neat. Then we saw one with its head missing, but I didn't get a photo.

Here is the town of Asilomar up on the hill above the state park. Not much to look at really.

Here's the view from the FRONT of our building. Ooooo, aaaahhhh...

That's not where our rooms were, however. Here's the view from where we stayed.

We had to walk around and stand in front of other people's windows for the nice view, which we obviously didn't mind doing!

Here's Karen in my room with her Kern County rescue dog, Renessme (sp?). I just called her Nessie. Karen calls me the dog pusher because I'm always trying to con her and her friends into taking a dog. Hey, the first one's free!

Hard to believe it, but here's Alison, she looks so big! And big brother Robert is showing her all the ropes!

We had dinner reservations at 5 p.m. and before you go to dinner you can hang out on this big porch in front of the social hall, which is where we popped the first bottle of champagne.

Jake was in fine form, as you can see.

Aww...Ali and Gramma Nancy!

The men. Discussing some manly subject, no doubt. Like how many cubic yards of food will Peter consume tonight?

What a lovely photo of the three Henry kids.

It took several tries to get there, however...

Gita shows off her braces. Well, they probably cost enough, we should be taking pictures of them every chance we get!

This WOULD have been a nice photo except for the little hamburgler over there stealing the shot!

Ali and Melanie share a laugh.

The little angels. Just don't turn your back!

It seemed counterintuitive, or just plain torturous for some, that the salads were right next to the desert buffet!

Awww!

Can that plate hold anymore?

The happy fam!

We discovered that Alison's favorite word is "mine," which she employed liberally over the holiday.

I'm not sure I convinced her the pink jacket was actually MINE. She knows her stuff.

In this photo, Peter is NOT eating, which is a rare occurence once we're all at the table and food is in the vicinity. It's truly amazing how much he can put away in one sitting and stay so thin!

AFTER dinner we got wild!

First pool and puzzles in the social hall....

Then Scrabble and cards in our room.

Then mom broke out the Christmas presents because she'll be in Mexico this year for the holiday. Besides our individual gifts, we all got very cool Guatemalan head scarves.

This creepy little guy n0t only kept Nessie busy all weekend, he chased Dave down the breezeway one night!

Friday was the serious hiking day. We walked around the penninsula and into Monterey, about 3 miles along the ocean.

Before the hiking, however, how about a little skateboarding? Hey! Is that Tony Hawk??!!

Then a little high swingin'...

And finally, we set out.

In case you were wondering, YES, that is a doggy backpack, or belly pack, Karen is wearing and YES that goofball little Nessie is snuggled in there. Embarrassing! If I didn't know it myself, I would NOT believe this is a Kern County dog!

Gita and I found a really cool tidepool with lots of starfish(es?). And Gita got hold of a BABY one! I swear that girl will put her hand on anything in a tidepool, even the squishy stuff!

Early Saturday (about 7:30 a.m., so not THAT early) I went for a little beach jog and got some nice ocean shots with my phone.

Here's me jogging, see my shadow? I'm movin' QUICK I tell you!

Not bad for my Blackberry!

It's really ugly here. I don't know how the people who live here can stand it!

Saturday turned out to be a very eventful morning. At breakfast, an ambulance and fire truck showed up and took some woman away while we were all chowing down.

THEN an older lady (turned out it was her 90th b-day) started choking a couple tables away. Dave jumped up and did the heimlich on her and saved her!!! Wow!

Then they ran out of STREUDEL!!

Later Saturday, everyone went for a goodbye hike on the beach. Except me and Larry. We made our escape early and went wine tasting in Paso Robles.

Well, back in Kern County. The End!