California: The Beautiful Part. No more desert pictures. I promise….

When I told people that I was moving to California I got a lot of mixed reactions.

Like this:

“Oh, wow, it’s beautiful there. You are going to love it.”

“Ooooh. Gee. I feel so sorry for you.” (sarcasm)

“O. Tough assignment.” (more sarcasm)

“Nice…except for the earthquakes.” (not sarcasm)

“Don’t turn into a crazy liberal, now.” (never going to happen)

“California….eh…that’s nice I guess.  Californians are kind of different though.” (Aren’t we all? 😉 )

…..But mostly we heard how beautiful it is and how wonderful the weather is.

I just kept thinking, “What makes it SO beautiful and wonderful?” It’s not the cities or the land that they are referring to. It’s this:

Point Lobos State Park

 I thought no beach could be any more breath taking than Destin, Florida, but this is pretty awesome. Destin still has this on you, northern Cal, in Destin you can actually swim in the water. The northern area of California has cold water–not quite as cold as Massachusetts–but cold. You need a wet suit to swim here.

It isn’t all rocks, either. There are plenty of sandy beaches, and piles and piles of sand dunes.

Here we were in ‘the fog’. The fog never fully leaves, but it does move around a little, hence the sweater game. Put on the sweater. Take it off. Put it on. Take it off. You can’t hate on the fog, though, because it keeps us cool and not sweaty!

See. There’s the fog line. Fog/Not fog. There’s a blue, blue sky behind that cloud.

This dog was LOVING the waves. Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn’t show my children this photo. Then they won’t want to go to the beach.

Alan had one request on this trip. “If we see the CHiPS, you HAVE to drop everything and take a picture!!!” I did my best. Childhood t.v. shows do stick with a person.

Look closely. Do you see those houses going up the hill? I just thought that looked neat. This was going into San Francisco.

San Francisco’s Chinatown

Don’t you love this sort of thing? He was a tour guide.

This is pretty much all of the Golden Gate Bridge that we were able to see.

the infamous, abandoned Alcatraz

my most favorite picture ever

Doesn’t he look SO adorable, content, and relaxed? I just love him. All the other sea lions we saw were in groups. This one is like, “I don’t know where the others are, and I don’t care. This is a great spot.”

This (probably homeless) man was sitting on the sidewalk, on Fisherman’s Wharf, San Fran, holding these leaves, so he looked like a plant.  Then when people would walk by, he’d move the leaves and roar. It was HILARIOUS. Yes, he got me. Yes, I screamed. I went back and gave him a couple of dollars and took his picture. You have to admire his spirit.

….and as the mom of little boys, I totally get how much they love to roar and scare people.

I love San Fran’s cleaner air mass transportation.

This is Monterey. Wow.

There will just have to be a part three because I still have so many pictures to share!!!

In a month or so, VoiceBoks will come out with a “Top 10 Military Blogs” post, and I’d really love to be on that list, so if you’d like to help, you can vote for me by clicking on this link and following the directions on their site. You do have to give the voting choices a minute to load. They are in alphabetical order, which puts me at #35. Voting ends July 31.

Thanks, ya’ll!!