Category: family

Living at Mount Hermon

As the year draws to a close, we find ourselves living in Mount Hermon while our house in Albany undergoes remodeling. Our adventure here begins on December 1st, when we drove our rental U-Haul truck up the driveway at #6 Pine Avenue in Mount Hermon.

Thanks to our daughter, Amy, we found a very cute house to rent for our stay here, which will keep us comfortable through the end of January when we anticipate moving back to Albany.

Originally, we were going to stay through December with the idea that we would take the pop-up camper on a road trip for part of January. On December 14 through, I broke my left wrist, so I no driving and thus no road trip. We could do worse than have such a comfortable place to stay in such a beautiful location here in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

We’ve been coming to Mount Hermon for over 40 years for church retreats, so we have some familiarity with the place. And our daughter and family live here as well. We are a 5-minute walk from our grandson.

On December 8th Amy hosted a gingerbread party and we were happy to participate. Cutting out dough shapes, gluing them together and decorating the resulting houses with frosting and candy.

On December 24th our son Aaron arrived with his family. We were blessed with having our whole family together for Christmas with both of our kids, our two grandkids and our son-in-law’s parents as well.

With family together we enjoyed hiking through the majestic redwoods, up to the cross on the top of the mountain and exploring the Bonny Doon Ecological Preserve.

And when the rain prevailed, we contented ourselves with putting together jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles have been a holiday tradition in my family since I was a kid. More photos are available in an online gallery.

Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve

The Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve encompasses 552 acres protecting a habitat known as the Santa Cruz Sandhills. These sandhills are perched high above the bluffs, prairies and forests of the central California coast. The sandhills are outcrops of ancient marine life, sediment deposited over 15 million years ago when the region was beneath the sea. These habitats are host to a number of rare plants and animals. The reserve is managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Grandson Micah was quite the nature guide, pointing out various plants and trees including Ponderosa Pine, Redwood and Madrone. We also saw a number of wildflowers.

What’s notable is that in 1989 The Nature Conservancy hired me to photograph this location as part of a fundraising effort to purchase the property. Fun to think that I played a role in protecting this environment.

Also it’s a joy to be able to enjoy this hike pain free. Nine months have passed since I had knee replacement surgery. A year ago I would have been hobbling in pain. I still have work to do on the recovery. I’m continuing Physical Therapy and building strength in the muscles that I hadn’t used for years.

We spent about two hours exploring the preserve, covering 2.3 miles of varied terrain from pines to redwoods, through ferns and chaparral. A glorious day to be exploring nature with family.

16-Day Road Trip Highlights: Scenic Stops and Adventures

On February 11 we climbed in our rig and headed off on a 16 day road trip. On February 27 we returned home after logging 2508 miles and having seen some amazing places. We tend to take our time on road trips. We don’t like to spend more than four or five hours on the road on any given day. There are so many things along the way that catch our attention. And traveling with a dog and a rig that can get us off the beaten track, we tend to avoid busy places like national parks. Suffice it to say that we found some wonderful locations to park our rig and our dog Carson had plenty of off leash time.

Our first destination was Bishop to spend a couple of days with family and to play grandparents. We took our time getting to Bishop, stopping one night at Kern River Campground just east of Bakersfield, and another night at the Alabama Hills.

Here’s a photo of our camp in the Alabama Hills. We timed our trip to avoid a storm that was predicted to play havoc with mountain travel. The storm caught up with us at the Alabama Hills dumping rain on us in the middle of the night.

Our kids like to camp, so after a couple of nights in Bishop we all packed our gear and headed to Goodale Creek Campground. Here’s a photo of us around the campfire in the morning drinking coffee. The third photo shows Joann hiking in a slot canyon at Valley of Fire State Park, one of our destinations on our trip.

From Valley of Fire, we headed to Monument Valley. Using HipCamp, one of the apps we use for locating camping, we found HummingBird Campsite, a private campground.

The highlight of Monument Valley was a tour led by Carl Phillips, a guide who specializes in taking photographers on tours. Being in the Valley at sunrise was a magical moment.

Then it was time to start making our way home. We had no planned itinerary; we were just playing it one day at a time. Taking our time, we discovered the ghost town of Stanton, explored Indian ruins, and walked in the footsteps of dinosaurs.

We did find that mid-February was a bit of a challenge. Nighttime temperatures were a bit low on the first half of the trip, in the low 20s. Many campgrounds were still closed for winter. Having captured over 1000 photos and with many stories to tell, I’ll be posting more details about the trip in separate posts.

Thanksgiving 2024

Plans change. Our original plan was to host Thanksgiving dinner at our house, but with part of the family hunkered down in Bishop with Covid, we opted for “Plan B,” to take the turkey and fixings to Aunt Sue’s place in San Jose, arriving Wednesday afternoon, with time to get a jump on preparing the food. I’ve become an advocate for spatchcocking and brining the turkey. Here you see the spatchcocked turkey in a pot with brine ready to go into the refrigerator to sit overnight.

You can also see Aunt Sue attacking a squash with hammer and knife, and Joann getting the resulting squash pieces ready to go in the oven. Not shown here is the cranberry relish which is a tradition for us, raw cranberries, an orange and sugar, all thrown into a blender. We much prefer this raw recipe to cooked cranberries. The challenge here though was finding a working blender. I threw all the ingredients in Sue’s blender, hit the switch and nothing happened. I then grabbed her immersion blender, hit the switch, and nothing happened. I dumped the goods into her food processor, hit the switch and the motor whirred but the blades didn’t turn. Broken. A text message to my daughter Amy resulted in a blender that finally got the job done.

The 14 pound turkey went into the oven at 10:00. At 11:15 it came out looking quite delicious and juicy.

There we six of us for dinner. Amy brought a homemade apple pie. Yum! And while the turkey was in the oven, we entertained ourselves with a board game, Top Dog.

While we missed the Bishop contingent of our family, we had a festive time with enough leftovers to keep us going for a couple more days.

A 49ers Game Day Experience in Levi Stadium

About a year ago, Peter, my Cornish “cousin” asked me if I would take him to a 49ers game on his visit to California. Peter is actually my Aunt Sue’s nephew. Sue is my aunt by marriage. She grew up in Cornwall and moved to the United States in 1964. Last year we escorted Sue, who is now 87, back to the place of her birth, Cornwall. Peter was kind enough to drive us around and to look after us. Thus, it was with pleasure that I agreed to take him to a 49ers game. This particular game was a big game with the 49ers playing the Kansas City Chiefs, in what was being billed as the Superbowl rematch.

Since I am not yet driving following knee surgery, my wife Joann drove us to Levi Stadium, a 20-minute drive from Sue’s place.

We arrived at the stadium plenty early, which was appropriate, given we did not know our way around and I was not moving fast with my gimpy knee. As we walked by the parking lot, we observed hundreds of tail gate parties going on, some with very elaborate setups with 49er branded pop-ups, pizza ovens and grills, and even a few well-stocked bars. Once we were inside the stadium, we were entertained by the 49ers drum corps. Then it was time to get in line for hot dogs, fries and beer.

Our seats were in section 201, row 7 seats 24 and 25 over the end zone. We were quite early as you can see from the empty seats behind us. By the time of kickoff at 1:25 those seats were full. As you can see the proper attire included 49er jerseys, but we managed to get by with just our 49er caps.

It was a lively game, although we were disappointed that the 49ers lost 28 to 18. Our quarterback, Brock Purdy, apparently wasn’t up to his usual performance. Once the game was over, we found our way out of the stadium without much trouble. We discovered that our intention to use Lyft or Uber for a ride was not viable. No drivers were available. We prevailed on my wife Joann to come pick us up. It was quite an experience at the game with some 68,000 very noisy fans. I took a few photos to document the experience–including experimenting with a long exposure app on my iPhone to create something of an intentional camera motion (ICM) photo. I think this image captures the emotion of the game, at least from point of view in the stands.

Family Reunion on Whidbey Island

On July 8 we all congregated at my brother’s place on Whidby Island for our biannual family reunion. Sixteen of us, my two brothers, and their families. Missing were one nephew and his wife that were in the midst of moving and job hunting. We came from Texas, California and Hawaii.

Johnson family reunion 2024

My brother has 25 acres of beachfront property, which I like to refer to as the Johnson resort. His place would not accommodate all of us, we rented a house in Langley, a short drive from Kurt’s place.

For food we feasted on oysters which Kurt grows on his beach, clams that inhabit the same beach, as well as crab and leg of lamb; Kurt raises a few lambs as well.

Making sandcastles, flying kites and making forts out of driftwood were all fun activities. Kurt roasted up a delicious leg of lamb for one of our meals. And one morning when donuts were on the mind we piled into our cars and drove to Whidbey Doughnuts, a short drive from our rental property in Langley.

On the beach it took no time to collect clams and oysters, and we spent quite a few hours telling family stories, looking at family photo albums, and looking at maps to plan the next leg of our road trip.

It was such a delight to spend time together and to watch the grand kids playing together so famously. I’m looking forward to our next get together, sometime in 2026.

Hiking Hobbit Trail and Visiting Cannon Beach

On July 4 we left Bullards Beach to continue our journey up the Oregon coast. I broke out my stars and stripes cowboy hat as part of my Independence Day regalia.

One of the recommended stops was the Hobbit Trail. This was a short 1.2-mile hike through a mossy fanciful wood to the beach. We kept our eyes open for any diminutive inhabitants. The trail emerges at a beautiful and secluded sandy beach where we broke out our lunch. Our next stop was Heceta Head Lighthouse.

Our destination for the day was Cannon Beach where we spent two nights. I was intent on photographing Haystack Rock. When we were planning our trip, we could not find any available camping. Everything was booked. The Oregon coast is a popular place in the summer. We made reservations to stay at The Studio at the Harrison Inn. This suited us well, since it was a short walk to the beach. Cannon Beach is a delightful place to visit, even with the Fourth of July crowds.

From Cannon Beach we headed inland to join our kids and their families for two nights at Seaquest State Park. Here it was time to fire up the Dutch Oven. We cooked Enchilada Casserole for dinner and Mushroom and Brie Breakfast Strada for breakfast.

And of course, no camping trip is complete without roasting marshmallows. You can view more photos in an online gallery.

2023 In Print!

Here it is! All the blog entries from 2023 in a book. This marks the ninth year for my blog and the eighth book. In 2023 I posted 35 times.

Where’s Treve 2023

Travels included Baja California to Lopez Island in the Pacific Northwest. We also make a trip to England. We made good use of our Four Wheel Camper, carrying our kayaks to Baja and Lopez Island.

It’s such a great feeling to pick up the book off the coffee table and browse through last year’s adventures, remembering travels and details that have already grown faint.

The book is 85 pages long. There’s no point in showing much of the book since you can simply view all the original posts on this website. We’ve been using the service Intorealpages.com which makes turning a blog into a book a breeze.

Adventure is worthwhile – Aesop

Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving Day we congregated at a cabin in South Lake Tahoe. Eight of us: our two kids, their spouses, their kids (grandkids), and two dogs. As grandparents it was a delight to watch the kids playing together. They are five years old and a month apart in age.

Being that we were traveling on Thanksgiving Day, it seemed like cooking a dinner with all the trimmings was out of the question. We arranged to take most of the dinner fixings with us, provided by a friend of ours, Peter, who runs a catering business, The Table Catering. Highly recommended if you need a caterer in Berkeley.

In addition to the catered dishes, our daughter Amy cooked an apple pie, and daughter-in-law Serena cooked at pumpkin pie. We brought an olallieberry pie from our local FATAPPLE’S bakery. More than enough pie for eight people.

On Friday, November 24, the day after Thanksgiving, we had a birthday to celebrate and we took a short drive to the Cascade Falls trailhead, donned our hiking boots, and had a very pleasant hike on a beautiful and chilly day. The kids found playing with ice in frozen puddles an entertaining activity. The frosty mornings led to some exploration of ice crystals near the cabin. So much fun to be together as a family. More photos are available in an online gallery.

To Bishop and Back

With our recent travels we haven’t had much opportunity to play grandparents, so this past weekend we made our way to Bishop. Along with visiting family we had the task of delivering a Tigermoth camping trailer. Here’s the trailer ready to tow over to Bishop and a photo of my son’s family sitting inside. This should be a great camper for a family that loves to camp. Well designed and quite fun!

Our short trip and the fact that we were recovering from colds kept us close to home, although we did manage to get out to explore a bit. The Cottonwoods were showing color. And we took a short hike in Birchim Canyon just off of Highway 395.

On Sunday November 5, we made the return trip, stopping near the Groveland Ranger Station just off of Highway 120 to enjoy the display of the black oaks – a mix of green, yellow and red.