We went to the all-new Walnut Creek Farmer’s Market this morning. It was moved from Broadway to Civic due to a renovation of the public library near the old site. It has a much better feel to it being in the center of downtown in the street, as compared with a parking lot on the edge of town.

After our hike, we took the dogs to Briones for an afternoon hike. Of course the weather was perfect, the dogs were behaving great and I let them off leash. Oscar runs ahead of me and rolls in cow sh*t again. I guess he just loves that stuff so much he wants it dripping from his ears. Now he smells like his new Lavender soap.
Here is a picture of the California Poppy, which is also the official state flower:

Our lawn has actually been in for a few weeks, but this morning I finished the installation of the sprinklers and timer. We had a house-warming party last night, and about 12 people showed up. It was pretty fun! We drank a lot of wine and beer and had tons of great food. This weekend we’re enjoying the sunshine and warm weather.

10 of us went up to Yosemite this past weekend for a good dose of R&R. Erin and I drove up Friday afternoon and stayed through Sunday. On top of the 8-10 feet of existing snow, we received around 10″ while we were up there.

Saturday we went snowshoeing on Glacier Point Road and detoured up towards Dewey Point. We didn’t make it all the way due to an incoming storm, but we did get in over 4 miles of snowshoeing.

Somehow we managed to not get a single photo of the cabin front. We also never seemed to make it into the hot tub. Here is a link to the Scenic Wonders Cabin that we rented.
Here’s Andy on our late Friday night sledding excursion. Only myself, Andy and Laura were daring enough to partake.

Sunday we got up, cleaned the cabin and packed, and drove down to Yosemite Valley to find rain and slush. After a few drinks at The Ahwahnee® Hotel we drove back to Pleasant Hill and the Real World!

Oh, and here’s a photo of me being mischievous on the way back. I found a working cable ferry across the Merced River, and had to try it out (Erin seemed like she was going to have a heart attack!)

All the photos from the trip can be seen at my Picasa Web Album.

On our evening hike through Briones, I thought Oscar was being a good enough dog to walk off leash. On the very first corner he disappeared around, he found and rolled in a big, sloppy, fresh cow patty. What a good boy :). So he got to wear a garbage bag home; a not so unfamiliar embarrassment for him.

I went for my first real ride of the season yesterday. Not too many people had Lincoln’s Birthday off, so the back roads were wide open. It still amazes me that only 10 miles from this over-populated area, there are still single lane roads that go absolutely nowhere. I road around the back side of Mt. Diablo on Marsh Creek Road to Livermore, then back to Clayton along Morgan Territory Road. That road is so bad you can hardly get out of second gear. But, it’s a great road for my KLR. I found a break in a fence where some construction was going on and zipped through it. There aren’t too many places around here that you can ride completely off-road, so I welcomed the find. I can’t imagine there will be too many long road trips this summer with all the planning going on, but I’m still hoping to get in my ride down to Mexico sometime.

I went for a ski/camp/snowshoe trip this weekend to the Tahoe area. I camped Friday night at Sugar Pine Point S.P. near Lake Tahoe. I did some cross-country skiing there Friday and then camped at the campground. Today I packed up and headed north to Donner’s Pass, where I got put on my snowshoes and made my own trail. I love how close the snow is. When I got back home this afternoon, the sun was shining, it was warm, and I had on my flipflops and shorts. Only 120 miles apart!

I snapped this photo on our way to the airport last week. This is the North Wayne Dam, which creates Lovejoy Pond in Fayette and Wayne. The spray from the water was freezing to the trees (8 below zero!)

I shot this photo in raw on my new Pentax DSLR camera, then processed it using Bibble Labs software.