Owen, Ben & Erica visit Cali

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About this Quest

With a bit of coercion (polietly asking), Owen, Erica and Ben all flew down to visit me in the Bay area. The three of them had a few things on their agenda, with this being the first time that Ben had been to San Francisco. The three big ticket items were; explore SF, go hiking in the Redwoods and go see Napa Valley. As with all good quests, there was sidetracking, yet I could not have asked for a better funemployed weekend for some of my best friends to visit. Below are some highlights.

Into the City | SF

We decided to take BART into the city, being something that both Owen and Ben where geeking out over, Owen being an engineer and Ben being an architect. It acts s a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes and 131 miles (211 kilometers) of track - Wikipedia. While my favorite fun fact is that BART has official anime mascots if you visit bart.gov/anime.

Throughout the City, we visited many iconic; Lombard Street, China Town, Francisco Park, Ghirardelli Square, The Haight and The Golden Gate Bridge. Finishing the day with food at a newly discovered restaurant in China Town (one which I have been backto, yes it is that good).

Olympus XA | 35mm | Kodak Gold 200

Samuel P Taylor Park

No California trip would be complete without visiting one many parks. Per my recommendation, we visitted Samuel P Taylor, a state park located in Marin County which I had camped at the previous winter break with Felix, Addison and Ash. The park containts 2,700 acres of redwood forest and grassland with 600 of those acres being old growth forest and every inch being just as beautiful as the last.

It is difficult to describe the vastness of the forest and the scale of the trees, but not everything needs to be described, in this case an experience carries more weight than words.

Olympus XA | 35mm | Kodak Gold 200 & Canon SL2 | 35mm

Olympus XA | 35mm | Kodak Gold 200

Canon SL2 | 35mm

Coffee Roasting

One of the hobbies, Manning, Addison and I have taken up is coffee roasting. We buy "green beans" which are non-roasted coffee beans. Manning jerry rigged up a mix of a heat gun, a funnel and a electric drill to roast the coffee beans. The drill spins a dowel in the funnel which rotates the beans above a metal sieve wiht the heat gun turned on below it. While not the prettiest, it makes for a fun activity and a welcome gift. Owen, Erica and Ben all got to learn how to roast beans with Manning, while Kevin and Milo stopped by. Kevin being our recently retired firefighter neighbor and Milo being a friend from gradeschool who Manning is teaching luthier techniques.

Olympus XA | 35mm | Kodak Gold 200

Grizzly Peak

Owen decided to stay an extra day, for the sole purpose of doing a bike ride. I brought him up and along Grizzly Peak and down the bikeside of the hill and up through inspiration point. If there is a challenging, scenic and fun ride, this loop would be it without a doubt. From the curves under the eucalyptus trees along Grizzly, the view of the bay, the wide overarching oaks to the rolling hills of the from Tilden to San Pablo. As a treat, we were able to link up with Milo following the Oakland Flea Market (TM) experience to get some of the best Chinese food, served by a $15,000 robot.

Olympus XA | 35mm | Lomo Purple Petaillant 400

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