38 hours in California

36 hours, two meetings, three airplanes, two trains and a rented Toyota 4 Runner.

If anyone has preconcieved notions about California being a crowded over-built state, then you should have been with me for a few days in November. A meeting in Yosemite Park and a site visit to San Clemente Island were on the agenda and there are only so many ways to get this accomplished, namely driving from one end of the state to the other.

My journey started at 4:00 am as I drove out of San Rafael for a 10:00 am meeting with the Park Service in Yosemite to kick off a couple of projects. From there it was an all afternoon drive to San Diego so I could fly out to San Clemente Island to look at a new project for the Navy. After returning from San Clemente, it was off to San Diego airport to fly home and grab Bart back to the City and my car. Whew, what an adventure, but also what a great State we live in!

Soccer Season Already?

It's obviously been a crazy few months around here has I haven't updated the blog in a while, so I'm trying to catch up in the next few days as best as I can.

One activity that seems to have come and gone too quick was the fall soccer season. Mikayla was a Cosmo and Savannah was a Ruby. Both girls did great, though the Cosmos were greatly outnumbered at most of their games this year. It was a year of learning for both girls and they are excited about the next season.

Mikayla was a solid player for her team, but her lack of previous playing really showed at this level. However, she worked hard and improved greatly as the season wore on.

Savannah's games were a bit less structured, but she got the knack of the game pretty quick and knew how to make her mark. A typical Ruby game (all of 30 minutes long) consisted of Savannah scoring three to four quick goals and then deciding she wanted to play defence or goalie the rest of the time.

I have to admit the only knock on the season was the rainouts. I spend the entire first two months trying to explain the great thing about playing soccer in the rain, but then as soon as the rain hit, all games were off because they didn't want to tear up the fields. What's that all about!!!! Well guess grass is more expensive or harder to grow these days. Must be something to do with gloabal warming.

The Girls from Snowy Rafael

OK, so it didn't snow in San Rafael, but today we went horseback riding for the first time and coincidenly enough "The Man from Snowy River" was on this afternoon so I thought I'd steal the title. For those who haven't seen the movie its one of the better horse riding movies I've ever seen.

As for the Jones cowgirls, they both did great their first time out. We went for an hour long ride out in Olema (Western Marin) on Aerial, Snip and Spider. The girls quickly got the feel for riding and were soon trying to trot the whole time. Driving through the farms of West Marin and then off to a ride in the hills quickly had me thinking of dropping the whole engineering thing and being a horse hand, but maybe not. Of course the girls were instantly asking when the next ride was....oh boy, what have I gotten us into?!?!