Maya and I arrived in Boston at 1:30AM this morning.  As such I am deeming photos made during this trip eligible for posting today even though they were actually taken yesterday.

After another incredible breakfast, Maya and I started making our way to the airport for our return flight to Boston.  We did so by way of Highway 1 with frequent stops along the coast including the lighthouse station at Pigeon Point and the beaches of Half Moon Bay.

Maya’s attempt to kill me today almost proved successful. First, she set a grueling 3.7mph (as measured by my very accurate GPS watch) hiking pace as we covered a total of ten miles in Pinnacles National Park this morning. For reference, I generally shoot for 2mph over such terrain.  I am convinced she is part Billy goat. Second, she picked up a huge boulder (pictured above) and tried to throw it at me.

Our first hike was on the Old Pinnacles Trail to the Balconies Cliffs and then the Balconies Cave for just under 7 miles. Traversing the cave required some scrambling and tight maneuvering (see entrance below).

We then made a short drive to Bear Gulch where we added 3 more miles on the Bear Gulch Cave and Rim trails which took us to and from the delightful Bear Creek Reservoir where Maya was unable to convince the local squirrels to attack me.

With no restaurants in the park we decided to lunch in Monterey.  Maya Yelped us a great little breakfast spot where we each had 2 eggs, hash browns and toast for a grand total of $3.25 including tax.  Quite the contrast to our Palo Alto breakfast yesterday which came to $30 with tip. Realizing that Maya had never been to the Pacific Ocean we decided to tour the famous 17 Mile Drive and stopped frequently to enjoy the views, the water, and the Pebbles Beach golf course lodge and 18th hole.

Our final stop for the day before driving to Santa Cruz for the evening was the Basilica of San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo Mission (Carmel Mission) founded by Fr. Junipero Serra in 1770, making it the second of the 21 California missions.

Our college visits today included my alma mater, Stanford University, and Kyle’s, Santa Clara University.  I was amazed by the number of new buildings on campus since I attended.  It was actually hard to find my way around.  When I took Maya to see Lake Lagunita, one of my favorite places to chill out, I was disappointed to discover that it has been dry for a number of years due to environmental concerns.

After we finished with college tours we drove to Pinnacles National Park where we arrived just in time to pitch our tent before night fall. Once reduced to a total population of 27 and near extinction, the California Condor has been successfully bred in captivity and now numbers more than 425.  We were exceptionally fortunate to view 16 of them circling in the night sky and I was able to isolate this pair with the near full moon in the background. They were very far away but with a 10 foot wingspan they are hard to miss.

An early start from our hotel near the San Francisco airport had Maya and I to U.C. Davis by early morning for our first college visit.  The campus was a ghost town.  Yesterday their was their Picnic Day with festivities continuing into the early morning.  It seemed like the entire student body was sleeping in. Our next stop was U.C. Berkeley which lays claim to discovering 16 of the elements on the Periodic Table, 21 Nobel laureates, 32 libraries, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

We were joined for dinner at a Greek restaurant in Palo Alto by Kyle and his girlfriend Corina and longtime friends of Jeanine and I, Ann and Brian Ponty.

Maya’s 2 year old Apple laptop has been behaving erratically lately.  It overheats for no apparent reason and then fails to boot up for some time.  This morning we dropped it off at the Apple store where it is being sent back to the factory for repair under the Apple Care warranty/insurance.  When it is returned we will sell it to offset the cost of a new 12″ MacBook that we picked up while in the store.  At 2 pounds, it is about half the weight of her older 13″ model and has a beautiful high-resolution Retina display.

Maya and I are headed to California this evening to visit with Kyle and make college visits to Stanford, UC Berkeley, Santa Clara, and UC Davis. We will also be camping in Pinnacles National Park for two nights.   Meanwhile Jeanine left yesterday to join her sister for a long weekend in Montreal.

Followers of this blog may recall that I was a mentor in the Gordon Leadership program at MIT.  My mentee, Nora, has gone on to a very successful career at Microsoft.  Jeanine and I attended her wedding to Simon in August of 2013 and now look what they have created. What a cutie!

Snow storms this past winter brought down one of our big pines and countless branches throughout our yard.  Together with the bushes and vines I removed yesterday they provided fuel for an all day bonfire.  Jeanine helped me for parts of the day and we were joined by Maya late in the afternoon to enjoy our massive “campfire.” There remains at least another full day’s worth of branches that I will deal with tomorrow. Concord has fairly strict regulations around open burning and a permit must be obtained each day. This used to require a drive down to the fire station but is now easily handled online.

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See if you can find the devil in the flames.

I can’t remember the last time I put in an 8 hour day of yard work but it has probably been close to 15 years.  I think I will wait another 15 before trying it again based on the unanimous opinion of my aching muscles. There are just a few days in early spring when it makes sense to clear the underbrush and vines from the woods that line one side of our property.  Too early and you freeze your butt off.  Too late and everything has leafed out making the job five times harder.  Normally, I give anything with thorns a wide berth but this year I decided they were getting out of control and took out about twenty bushes.  Each one found a unique way to draw blood in an attempt to dissuade me from the task.

Although her big party was on Sunday, today is Jeanine’s actual birthday. I still see my 27-year-old bride in her beautiful face. We had a nice lunch date to celebrate the occasion and finished it with a scrumptious cheesecake.  Regrettably, Jeanine had to endure my solo acapella rendition of Happy Birthday.

From sun up till sun down my entire day was consumed with preparing my federal and state income taxes.  Between receiving income from two different companies, exercising various stock options and restricted stock units, and dealing with royalty income, it was an exercise in extreme frustration. The 6-digit incremental tax bill on top of all the withheld taxes was no prize for all the effort.

Jeanine celebrated her 53rd birthday with a party of her own design. She invited twenty or so of her friends to prepare one of the recipes from the memoir cookbook she is writing and bring it to sample with the others.  Each guest was asked to provide feedback on both the quality of the recipe and instructions as well as the taste of the final creation. My contribution was to make images of the various dishes for inclusion in the book. Jeanine reported that it was one of her best birthday parties ever!

Earlier in the day I played in my first game of the spring outdoor soccer season. We travelled to Ludlow, MA, a 90 minute drive to face Lusitano. My lack of conditioning contributed to one of my worst performances ever. I did manage one good play, a long cross which I served right onto the foot of an overlapping fullback. The man marking him tried to clear the ball and wound up putting it in his own net which earned me credit for a goal and helped our team win by a margin of 2-0.

Jeanine and I are starting to think about how we will spend our time when Maya leaves for college.  One idea we both like is the idea of becoming Road Writers. The new Tesla will be able to tow up to 5000 pounds and we are thinking about picking up a touring trailer and hitting the road.  As we travel across the USA, Jeanine will interview people in different parts of the country for a new book about food insecurity while I continue my blog from the road.  Its just an idea at this point but I did spend the better part of the afternoon looking at small Airstreams.

Buckman Tavern, located on the Battle Green in Lexington, MA is a historic American Revolutionary War site associated with the  Battle of Lexington and Concord which began early on April 19, 1775.

Having received word that the regular army had left Boston in force to seize and destroy military supplies in Concord, several dozen militiamen gathered on the Lexington town common, and then eventually went to the tavern to await the arrival of the British troops. Definite word reached them just before sunrise, and Captain Parker’s company of militia left the tavern to assemble in two ranks on the common. Following the arrival of the army, a single shot was fired, by whom, it remains unknown. The British regulars, out numbering the colonial militia three to one,  then opened fire leaving 7 of them dead.  When the British advanced to Concord they met a much larger contingent of Minutemen at the Old North Bridge. There, for the first time, the Americans, acting under orders, fired upon and killed British soldiers. The colonist continued to fire upon and ambush the British as they retreated to Boston killing 73 and wounding 174.

Jeanine and I visited the tavern, now a museum, this afternoon and enjoyed the history lesson.  Of even greater interest was the second floor exhibit dedicated to the Battle after the Battle between Concord and Lexington, each vying to be considered the birthplace of the American revolution.