May 1. Our camper hasn’t moved much since our desert trip in January so, after two months of staying close to home, we decided to go camping in our own driveway. Actually, I did move the camper. I took it to a local car wash to clean off two months of dust and dirt; one of those car washes where you drive into a stall and grab a wand to wash and rinse.
Here we are in the morning with our fresh coffee. As tempting as it was to go into the house to cook, we used the camper to advantage. I dubbed our driveway “Wisteria Canyon,” since that sounds poetic. We did have a festive dinner the evening before. Chicken Cordon Bleu cooked in the Dutch Oven, and a glass of wine. That event was captured on video, but you’ll have to wait until my main computer is up and running before I can edit the video.
This is not a job I relish. I’d much rather be out in a kayak playing on the water or knocking about in the camper looking for spring wildflowers. Circumstances being what they are, though, perhaps this is an appropriate DIY project. My main computer died last week. I took it to the local repair shop thinking it might be a quick fix, but the diagnosis was a bad motherboard. When I asked for a quote to upgrade, the technician suggested I buy the parts myself. So here I am a week later, with most of the parts in hand to upgrade. New motherboard, new processor, RAM, and various other parts.
I built this machine in 2011 as a beast for processing photos. The fact that I got nine years of service out of a computer is amazing in itself. I’d prefer to do this when cash flow was good, not in the current negative cash flow situation with the stay-at-home order. Even with buying the parts myself, it’s a chunk of change.
I hope to be up and running again by the end of the week. Wish me luck.
April 1, 2020. It’s a bit more challenging to go paddling these days with the stay-at-home order. How do we manage to get some “essential” outdoor recreation while minimizing the risk associated with the coronavirus? On our paddle today, we did our best to practice social distancing. Three of us launched from the boat ramp at the Emeryville Marina. While we are used to helping each other get the boats off the cars, today it was every person on their own getting the boat on the water.
We had the boat ramp to ourselves. The marina was very quiet. Once we were on the water, it was no problem to maintain a good distance. We paddled from Emeryville, north past the Berkeley Marina, out to the end of the Albany Bulb, and then to the Albany Beach. We landed at the south end of the beach away from the few dog walkers and beachgoers, keeping a good distance between us as we landed.
Emeryville boat ramp
Landing at Albany Beach
Between Emeryville and Albany
We maintained our distancing while we ate lunch. After lunch the prediction was for the wind to come up, and as wind ripples started to form we were anxious to get back on the water. As we approached Emeryville, we could see the wind ruffling the water on Ashby Shoal, so we went to check it out.
Ashby Shoal
Kayaker with her dog
Track of our paddle
On the shoal we had just a few inches of water, so I decided to climb out of my boat and pose for a photo. There are not many places in the middle of San Francisco Bay where you can get out of your boat on a low tide. Low tide was 0.2 feet at 1 p.m. As we were heading into the Marina, we passed a solo kayaker with a cute dog dressed up in a mermaid outfit. We had very little traffic on the bay with few commercial or pleasure craft, just a paddle boarder and a couple of kayakers. Our paddle covered 8.5 miles. The wind remained light through the course of our paddle. You can view more photos here and see more details about our track here.
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