After gallivanting about in Moab with motorcycles and mountain bikes I eventually had to go back to work out in California. My next assignment was out in Moss Landing CA. After making a trip to Crystal Mountain with Brent, Emma, Breanna, and Alex, I packed lightly and headed south. My camera’s memory card decided to die along with ALL of the photos on it. Damn. I sent it into a place that claimed they could help. After paying the initial fee, they called me a week later and informed me they could retrieve my photos for an additional $350. Lame. Perhaps a project much further in the future. I at least managed to salvage a half dozen photos that I took on the camera memory after the card went "bork".
I made the drive from Kent to Santa Cruz in one lengthy drive. On the plus side, I completed the entire collection of the BBC series Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the drive. Gotta love audio books from the library. During my stay in Santa Cruz my commute was a little over 30 minutes to Moss Landing where I was working on inspecting two HRSG units. One of the weekends I went whale watching with an outfit in Monteray Bay. I had made a reservation to go out on one boat, but when I arrived to the pier, I accidentally paid for the wrong outfit. I felt bad, so I asked for my money back, and went to the outfit that I had made the reservation for. The boat took us out several miles from shore, and actually right adjacent to Moss Landing. We saw several sea lions, there at the harbor, along with a few otters. I was amazed on how saturated the water was with millions of jellyfish. Miles and miles from shore, still the water was literally saturated with jellyfish as deep as the eye could see. The density was staggering. After about 15 minutes of travel, a pod of dolphins swam along side the boat about 50 feet out. We headed NE towards a recent report of humpback whales sighted. Sure enough, we encountered a few humpback whales, which seemed to be quite social. A few lunges, tail flaps, fin slaps, and plenty of sprays. A short while later, the other boat which I would have been on if I didn’t ask for my refund, headed back to shore. Thankfully the boat that I was aboard, remained around for about 30 minutes extra. During this half hour, the sea exploded in a frenzy of humpback activity. It was great! The lighting was perfect low angle, and one humpback came close enough to the boat where I could have jumped out and landed on it. We headed back to shore and encountered some more dolphins in that same area as before. By the time I got to the car it was almost dark, so I grabbed some Chinese food and headed back to my hotel.
The Thanksgiving weekend approached, and it soon became apparent that I wouldn’t be needed that entire week after Thanksgiving. I altered my flight home at a rather expensive cost. Seattle was getting some of the coldest weather on record, and was in the single digits even. My Equinox needed to have its oil changed, and chassis inspected so I left it at the dealership in San Jose, and got a shuttle to the airport. I flew home for the holiday. Luckily I must have brought the good weather with me because it wasn’t freezing. It was nice being back, but I didn’t pack much stuff because I wasn’t planning on staying long. Most of my stuff was all crammed in the back of the Equinox. I spent some time at home playing video games, riding my motorcycle, and fixing electrical outlets at my parent’s place.
Soon enough, I left to return to California. I took a hotel shuttle to my car and drove it down to Marina where I checked into a Holiday Inn Express. I remained there for the remainder of my California assignment. On one weekend, I headed up north to San Francisco to check out some sights and take some photos of a beach house for my dad, aunts, and uncle. On this trip I also brought along my kite and junky digital camera. I sent the camera on a test run in Pacifica and got some interesting shots. On the way back to my hotel, I sent the camera up with fresh batteries and an empty memory card on the kite. I let out ALL the string, until I could hardly even spot the kite. The winding process took about an hour for retrieval. Not a single shot came out because I had messed up some digital setting on the camera. Grrr. Maybe next time.
When it came time to leave Moss Landing, I wanted to cruise along HW1 and slither along the coastline. The day I left was exceptionally rainy. It was so rainy that I had to use my rapid wiper settings, and still I managed to make a few wrong turns because I couldn’t read a sign, or completely missed an exit. My efforts to go meet up with HW1 from 101 seemed pointless since my view would be the same on I5 with such poor visibility. I got frustrated, and jetted East across Nacomis Indian Rancheria. The drive was incredibly curvy. I managed to get around a behemoth RV which exceeded the maximum length parameters for the road. Other than that, I was pretty much the only other fool on the road under those terrible conditions. Eventually I made it to I5, made it into Oregon a good 50 miles before actually turning down my wipers from maximum to steady. I stopped for the night in Eugene, where it was significantly colder, and there was heavy fog and some ice. The next day I got up, filled the gas tank at a nearby Costco, and headed to Portland to meet and catch up with Jennifer at lunch. It was nice to talk some and departed for Kent. There was some concern about how things were going with Grandma Rhoda, since she had some health complications prior, and had gone to the hospital. I thought of going straight up to Bellevue, but it sounded like the family was all in Kent. That weekend we made a trip to visit Grandma, much to her chagrin.
There was a weekend where I felt like getting in some much needed snowboarding. Dustin, Andra, and Hitoshi all came with me to Steven's Pass. The weather wasn't very good with warm rains, but we managed to have a good time. Even though Andra got stuck in some deep powder and became exhausted trying to get out. Didn't really have much of a need for the camera since the lighting was pretty poor. Hitoshi and I broke off and went all over the back side of Stevens. I hadn't explored that much of the area in general, so it was really good to see that area. Christmas was great to have the family together and exchange gifts. I shared some enlargements that I was able to do out at the Windsor Alstom office and ship home to frame. Just another quiet Christmas at home, luckily there wasn’t a huge snow storm this year like the last one.
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