Here is to hope for a fresh start

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Fantasy of Lights - Vasona Park

One of the local parks here (Vasona park in Los Gatos) has a Fantasy of Lights event where they put nice Christmas light displays and you drive through them at <5 miles per hour with the matching music to go on a local radio station.

The light displays were amazing! The kids were initially entertained, but they were not happy with the open passenger side window. While it accomodated the photo/videographer, it made the van too cold for their liking. This was followed by questions like

"how much longer do we have to drive like this?"
"are we going to stay here forever?"

etc. etc..

It is a good idea to teach your kids a few patience lessons before taking them on this drive...

Here is a video and some photos of the trip.

Thoroughly enjoyable!!

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Finding Santa in Santa Places

Every year on Christmas day, we seem to hit some place (usually a beach town) which starts with Santa!

Maybe it is our subconsious seeking out the old man with the beard in the white foam on the beaches, we do not know.

This year, it was a trip to Santa Cruz to visit the Natural Bridges and the Monarch Butterfly preserves. We were in two minds, what with the rain pouring down in occasional bursts all through Christmas eve, but we decided to do the drive anyways.

It was with mixed success. The storm had blown out most of the butterflies and the rest of them decided to close their wings and huddle together. When they do that, you cannot really distinguish them from the leaves on the tall eucalyptus trees. Save for the occasional lone butterfly that was fluttering aimlesslly, we did not catch any magnificent site. Well, we at least know where this place is and will make another visit next year.

On our way out, we went down to the beach to see the natural bridges. Oh, what a sight it was! The sun went behind the clouds and made the whole place look something out of this world. It was a photographers dream, for a full four minutes before the rain came down and forced us to run to our vehicles.

No photos of the butterflies, except this pink one!

The magnificence of the Natural bridge! There were two bridges, but one collapsed recently.

Playing with the lone gull that was scouring the foam

Jr.'s first photo using the Digital Rebel. Not bad!

Finally, the stitch shots...

From atop the Butterfly preserve, looking down to the beach..

6 shot stitch

16 shot stitch. If only I could get the sun shining through the hole under the bridge. Now that would be some shot!

Here is to Santa Cruz!

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California Academy of Sciences - a day trip

This post was done in a rush. Now that it is friday night and it is just me and the laptop and a movie choice gone bad, there is scope to describe this day trip in pictures!

First, a view of the "Rainforest dome" from the outside. You walk on a ramp around the dome (inside the dome) and you have display cases with flora/fauna that is seen around certain heights within the forest, starting with creatures like ants, toads, etc. that are at ground level, then you go up a little further and see tree frogs and snakes, birds and lizards, go futher up and see butterfliers. It is just plain amazing, the way they set up this dome.

The pitcher plant, which eats insects! Reminded me of 8th grade biology class where we heard about this the first time...

30 feet up?

Blue and red tree frogs, the size of quarters!

Fruits that were new..

Aquariums around the bend (which did not fit the altitude logic) but were nicely displayed. They had flora and fauna from Costa Rica and Madagascar.

This snake was creepy. It's head looked like a leaf. The camouflage was amazing.

There were colorful tropical birds living in the trees inside the dome! The only irritating thing was the change you go through. Outside the CAS, San Francisco temperatures were in the low 50's. Inside this dome, it was at least in the mid 80's. The end result, you get to carry the camera and three or four fluffy jackets as you make your way through the dome. They should have a coat rack just outside the dome!

Some of the lizards and geckos we saw were really amazing. Have never seen these in your typical zoo's!

More butterflies, big ones!

Yes, you do see human heads below the water and that is a big fish!

You get out of the rainforest through the bottom, where there is a giant tank of water above your head with 6 foot fish swimming over head. Then you get a taste of aquatic life, not as impressive as the Monterey bay aquarium, but a very diverse selection.

The piranah move fast, what can I say!

This display was really eye catching! They made little waves inside the display.

There are two other impressive sections of the CAS. One is the displays as you enter the place which is a museum with a focus on stuffed animals, birds, eco friendliness, recycling etc. This part is like a mini Smithsonian!

Yeah.. it is pretty lame taking pictures of stuffed birds through glass cages.. maybe someday after retirement, there will be a chance to take pictures of these in the wild?!

You come out of this section and go to the last part (which we saw.. there is also a Planetarium in this place which was filled up, and we missed that!) Out of Africa!

The idea was to take a picture with my head using the skulls on the wall as reference. We did not expect Homowildus Sapiens aka the Little One to crash the photo op. She almost ripped the board out and tried to push me out. Must have been due to the presence of all the other wild creatures around her!

The way they did the displays was amazing. The plants were real. The environs to keep these weird and rare plants live were real! Hats off to these folk for coming up with such displays!

More stuffed animals, birds (once again resembles the Smithsonian) with the exception of a live Penguin exhibit and they fed the penguins to show everyone how wildlife conservation works. It was also a nice sales pitch for the CAS.

You take a little bit of the Smithsonian, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Reptile House at the Philadelphia Zoo, pieces of the San Diego zoo and what you have is the CAS.

The kids loved it but more than that, if you want to spend a day indoors, learn new things, and be entertained, this is a perfect place.

ps. Yes, we know there is Flickr, etc. for posting 30 pictures. The kids love to read travelogs of their day trips during dinner time. We show the kids to the penguins during feeding time in the CAS and the penguins to the kids during feeding time at home. It all works out!

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Mt. Tamalpais - a day trip

We took a trip through the Mt. Tamalpais preserve in San Francisco two weeks ago with San's uncle.

From there we visited Point Reyes for the third time in ten years. This time it was a thursday and could take a lot of stitch shots, thanks to it being just me and San's uncle at the lighthouse.

First we went to the vista point on Mt. Tamalpais where you can see stinson beach and the entire lagoon! (we lucked out because the visibility was really good)

Then we went down back on route 1 to the Point Reyes Seashore preserve and after driving for another 45 minutes we got to the lighthouse. For the first time, tried a composite box stitch shot. Came out okay. Will have to learn and perfect this. (note that you have to eyeball where your last shot was on the Rebel XT! The old powershots will actually split the screen and show you the first shot to align the second one)

You line them up..

Hit Merge on Photostitch ..

and abracadabra..

From the lighthouse we went to Drakes beach, one of the most beautiful places we have ever been to!

Although Chitappa was in two consecutive shots, it stitched him in one piece! Lucky shot..(there are 14 images from which this one was made)

This sweep is from 17 images..

The rock side goes all the way to the ocean

and juts out like some dinosaur leg. Reminds you of Great Ocean drive in Australia.

We also saw a lot of birds and animals we do not see usually when we go on these trips. They were probably out because it was a weekday and there was no traffic.

We saw foxes, hawks, eagles, elk, deer, woodpeckers, cows!

These are not the greatest photos, but because there was this one lane road with no stopping, we had to rush it.

Happy cows come from California. Truly believe it now. If I got to graze on a hillside with such scenery in the background, I would be a happy cow too..

All said and done, a day well spent. Strongly recommended for a one day outing if you live in the bay area!

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