Dateline: Cambria, California

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

True Californians rarely notice the hundreds of earthquakes that occur every year. That includes Diana and me.

A couple of Saturdays ago, we woke up and got going on the projects for the day. After I returned from my usual jaunt with the dogs on Fiscalini Ranch, I discovered that the door to the deck from our kitchen was impossible to close. Strange; but I wrote it off to humidity or something equally benign. A bit later Diana came up from the bottom floor and said that the bathroom door in the guest room wouldn’t close! I noted in the kitchen that some of the joints between the fake beams and wall had separated slightly.

Very weird. But being the curious fellow that I am, I contemplated these telltale signs in our home. Earthquake was the only logical conclusion for what caused this type of damage. I went on the USGS Earthquake tracking site and, sure enough, there had been a 4.1 earthquake nearby in the early morning hours of Saturday. We didn’t feel a thing and it wasn’t reported in the press.

We are thankful that this is the only damage we’ve ever had from an earthquake.

The Great Unwashed Swim

Last week we had great experience swimming in the Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle in San Simeon. I am a docent at Hearst Castle and Diana and I are both docents at The Coastal Discovery Center at the William R. Hearst State Beach across Highway 1 from the Castle’s property. As a “ reward” for volunteering at these two venues, we get to swim at Hearst Castle once a year in September.

Both Di and I were able to bring a guest along; Di brought her sister Marlene who was visiting from Wyoming. I brought along good friend PJ Webb.

I put together the video below documenting the fun we had in a rather unique (as well as very beautiful) setting! Hope you enjoy!

PINEDORADO

Small Town USA

Every Labor Day weekend the town of Cambria holds a three-day festival called Pinedorado. Organized by the Lions Club of Cambria, Pinedorado features a parade on Saturday which kicks-off the festivities; followed by three days of games for big and small, a nightly show featuring local talent, a car show, arts and craft fair, and food, Food, and more FOOD!

Pinedorado is the quintessentially small town activity—it is no small deal! Well over three to five our town’s entire population shows up from all over California, America, and the World! The parade this year included 81 floats and the auto show had to cut off at 75 entries due to lack of space!

It’s a great way celebrate the end of summer (or the beginning of the football season!) while raising a pretty good sum of money for local Cambria charities.

I have put together some photos and video from the weekend; including the “building” of the Friends of the Elephant Seal float, one of Di’s projects, and a small bit of the parade. Hope you enjoy!

OMG! WHAT IS IT?

FIND OUT AT THE END OF THIS POST...AND NO CHEATING!

dumb. Dumber. Dumbest!

Diana and I went on our what’s-coming-to-be annual whale-watching trip on the R/V Fulmer with folks from the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Although the day was overcast and cold, we had a great trip. Except…for a gigantic brain fart on my part! For some reason I got it in my head that taking video of the trip would be way cool, especially to put here, on my blog. With foresight like that, it’s hard to believe I’ve survived in this world as long as I have! Checkout my resulting video; keep in mind I shot 1.5 hours of video and could only fudge enough for this clip!

Pathetic!

THE AMERICAN DREAM IN CAMBRIA
 
This one is of a semi-derelict house on the street Di and I take to go up the hill to our home. A certified nut case, who threatened a deputy sheriff with a 357-magnum revolver (which, not surprisingly, brought out about 20 more deputies with shotguns M16s, etc) owned it. This man was concerned because the authorities were going to shut off his water for non-payment of his bill for a year. After about an hour the standoff ended peacefully (I’m not sure how). It did create quite a stir in the neighborhood!

This person had other troubles-both legal and mental-which necessitated a surreptitious disappearance for him. But before he went bye-bye, he managed to destroy a perfectly good house in the short time he lived there.

Obviously some entity other than Mr. X now controls the property and has put it on the market. I’m assuming they’re selling it “as is”. What strikes me as funny, though, is the name on the for sale sign: “American Dream Realtors”!!!

AND THE ANSWER IS... 

You guessed it...the photo is of my pineapple upside down cake! More precisely it's my birthday cake. Yes people, although I try to ignore is annual anniversary, too many people seem to enjoy sensing my general feeling of doom and gloom! This year was special: I awoke to Abbey licking my head's bald spot telling me it is 4:00 AM--time to get up! Arise I did and dutifully feed our three malnourished Brittanys. When I did, I noticed a greeting card envelope leaning against a Betty Crocker Cake package in the pantry where we keep the dogs' food.

Abbey, Max, and Bandit were enthusiastically scarfing down their breakfast, so I slowly tore up the greeting envelope--I knew it was a dreaded birthday card. Sure enough it was a "funny" birthday card with the usual copy intended to make one feel even worse than you already do about this particular day. Yes indeed, Diana got in the first dig of the day; she wrote that the cake mix was for me to make my own favorite birthday cake, pineapple upside down cake!!! Believe me, my first thought was NOT "oh, how sweet, how thoughtful of her." No indeed, it (that first thought) was something very different, believe me!

But, as all of you well know, I take up the challenges with enthusiasm and gusto. So what if I had to make my own birthday cake--it's the usual treatment I get everyday. I got to work crafting my own birthday cake later in the morning. It took awhile to read the direction on the box because the print was so small, but I persevered. The “cake” was ready to come out of the oven a couple of hours later. As is usual with all upside down cakes, I had to immediately flip the hot cake pan upside down on a plate. It literally made a big splash; evidently I wasn't supposed to add the entire juice of the pineapple can to the concoction, just a tablespoon full!

Oh yah, my birthday cake turned out nice and juicy! It wasn't pretty, but it tasted great!