Adventures of a Midwestern Girl in Sunny, Sunny California

Last weekend, Steve and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Sonoma County Fair.
Until I moved to California, I went to the local county fair in Illinois with my dad every year for as long as I can remember, and my favorite thing was always the animal barns. My dad jokes about taking a deep [...]

We should have spent last Saturday repairing and remodeling our foster care raccoon cage before the season hits us between the eyes. Instead, we took advantage of the absolutely gorgeous weather and the relatively rare lack of fog and low clouds in southern Marin to go on a hike. And I don’t regret it one bit.
As [...]

Yesterday, Steve and I went for a short hike at Olompali State Park. It had been such a gorgeous weekend and we just had to get out and enjoy some of the sunshine.  As we were hiking around a bend, Steve stopped me and pointed out 2 turkey vultures sitting on a fence about 50 [...]

In the hopes of getting another day of snorkeling in before heading home, we went back to Poipu Beach Park today.  Once again when we got there, there was another Hawaiian Monk Seal resting on the beach.  I don’t know if we just didn’t spend enough time on the beaches on past trips to Kauai [...]

There has been another trailhead that has called to me during our previous trips to Kauai, but we have never ventured onto it until today.  This morning we drove to the end of the road on the North Shore to hike the first portion of the Kalalau Trail. 
When we first got to the Ke’e Beach [...]

We got up as intended today and left the condo at the time designated for our horseback ride, but other than that the day did not go as planned.
Shortly before the alarm was set to go off, the phone started ringing in our room.  No one has the number where we’re staying – people just [...]

Yesterday we left the Big Island and flew to Kauai, my favorite island. There isn’t much to say about that day. Our flight was uneventful and we spent the afternoon getting our provisions for the week and browsing the local markets.
This morning we headed south to Poipu intending to do some hiking and snorkeling in [...]

Today we headed out to the Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park for a special hike.  We have been to the park a few times before and, unless there is an active lava flow, we don’t really need to see all of the craters and sulphur vents again.  But there are still several hikes that sound interesting [...]

Today we did some of the things we were originally going to do yesterday afternoon.  The change in plans does mean that our bike ride out to the green sand beach at South Point will have to wait until our next trip, but I suppose it’s good to have something to look forward to.  We [...]

Okay, well I was wrong yesterday when I said that the 2 hour time difference made getting up early feel not early at all.  If you don’t sleep well the night before, getting up at 5:00 feels early no matter how you cut it. This morning we headed out early for our 7:00 whale watching [...]