Snapped this while flying out of SFO yesterday morning.
Tag: travel
Fall begins
My favorite season in Portland is the cusp of Fall. After torrential downpours last week the weather is clear and the air crisp.
Spending last week in Sonoma, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz was fantastic. It also made me appreciate the variety we get in the Northwest.
Last night in Santa Cruz
Enjoying the last night in Santa Cruz at the Automattic meetup. Beautiful weather this week.
Pre-game Giants view
Great view with our pre-game tickets for this afternoon’s Giants vs. Padres game.
San Francisco
Great view from my hotel room. Can see from Alcatraz to the tip of the Golden Gate.
24 hours in Kirkby Stephen
At the very end of our 3 weeks in England Leah and I took the train up to Kirkby Stephen to stay with a college professor of ours. It was a wonderful change of pace from Southern England and London. Kirkby Stephen is just east of the Lake District and is gorgeous.
We stayed in the Cranesbill Barn that Jeanette and Alex own. It’s a great holiday cottage in a small village.
While there we went on a whirlwind tour of the area including Brough Castle and a fantastic old, working mill. Really great way to spend the last day on vacation.
Cambridge and Newmarket
After Bath and London, Leah and I went to spend a week in Cambridge with our friend Sarah. While there we wandered around the city and the colleges and took a day trip out to Newmarket and The National Stud horse facility.
With the exception of the day in Newmarket the weather was wonderful. Sarah’s studying at Lucy Cavendish, too, which meant we got to wander around a bit more of the campuses as well as free entry in to King’s College Chapel.
-
- The gorgeous fan vaulted ceiling within King’s College Chapel.
-
- There were a few sets of these little pieces of glass along the sides of the chapel. I thought the yellow and black was a neat effect.
-
- Young foal at The National Stud horse facility.
Tourist time in London
Before spending time in Bath Leah and I spent a week in London. Overall we spent two weeks in the city in April. It was great to split that time up with breaks in Bath and Cambridge. London is great and all but smaller towns are nice, too.
This was Leah’s first trip to England so we hit a lot of the popular sights in London: British Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Westminster area, Tower of London, National Gallery, and more.
-
- The view south from Trafalgar Square. Outside the National Gallery.
-
- The inspection of the Queen’s Life Guard outside the Household Cavalry museum.
-
- The changing of the Queen’s Life Guard.
-
- The Cenotaph in Whitehall. Wikipedia has more context.
-
- The view south from St. Paul’s Cathedral.
-
- One of a few Egyptian rooms in the British Museum. We spent most of our time in the Greek and Roman areas.
-
- The view out of the Tower of London area. The juxtaposition of the old castle area with the much more modern city behind it was neat.
-
- In the foreground is the old chapel.
Spending 24 hours in Bath, England
As part of the 3-week vacation I took in April Leah and I spent about 24 hours in Bath, a fantastic city about a 40 minutes by train west of London. I remembered loving Bath when I visited as a kid and it lived up to expectations after returning. Since we were there for just the night we wanted to be somewhere close to the train station and ended up staying at the Parade Park hotel. While the room was small we couldn’t complain about the view.
After grabbing a quick lunch we headed to the Roman Baths. For some reason it seemed every school-aged kid from France was there that day. Despite the crowd it was interesting to wander around.
The view from the baths up to the abbey.
Our next stop was the abbey. It’s free (suggested donation) to wander around and we paid the £6 to tour the tower, too. It turned out we were the only two who signed up for that tower tour time so we ended up with essentially a private tour.
The abbey has this amazing organ which is quite impressive when combined with the fan vaulting.
I forget where this eagle was perched but I thought it was a neat piece.
The coolest part of the tower tour was going up behind the clock face. We were able to walk all the way up to the gear system turning the clock hands. Pretty cool vantage point.
There’s also a small hole at the very top of the fan vault which gives you a sense of how thin parts of the ceiling are. You can peer through the hole down to the abbey’s floor.
We also got to check out the bells which sit in the abbey’s tower. Below the bells lie this set of ropes. Each is attached to a separate bell. The abbey still rings its bells the old-fashioned way sometimes so these are still used. The rest of the time they use an automated way of ringing the bells.
The top of the tower caps it all off with some wonderful views of the surrounding area. We lucked out and had a nice day so were actually able to see for a bit.
We ended the day with a phenomenal meal at Sotto Sotto. Thanks to a random table of 4 that cancelled we got a table without a reservation. Perfect meal to end a great day.
Hiking through Haleakalā crater
Way back on March 24th I took a trip to Maui with Daniel, Leah, and Leah. We stayed just south of Lahaina for 8 days in a great condo Daniel found through a charity auction.
The highlight of the trip was definitely the hike through Haleakalā crater. We parked the rental car at the Halemau’u Trailhead. That meant we had to hitchhike up to the summit and the Sliding Sands Trailhead. Luckily it didn’t take too long. After 5-10 minutes we caught a ride from a guy working on one of the observatories at the summit.
Starting down the Sliding Sands trail was pretty surreal. We started down early in the morning so the clouds at the summit were gorgeous.
All the way in to the crater the terrain stayed fairly barren. Some low clouds drifted by as well which created a neat effect against the dry volcanic rock.
The reds of the rock made a nice contrast, too with the blue sky that appeared later in the afternoon. We did make the mistake of taking advantage of a great view to have lunch, though. The view was great but where there’s a view there is apparently wind. Lunch was a short one.
Part of the appeal of hiking in to the bottom of Haleakalā is the silversword, a rare plant only found in the crater. We ran in to plenty of them and they’re pretty unique.
After hiking across the floor of the crater we hit a less barren area of terrain. My eyes had to adjust to the greenery a bit. There’s a cabin you can rent that’s just behind where I took this photo from. Next time I want to hike in to the crater and stay a night or two down there. Would be a great place to watch a sunrise.
The hike up the Halemau’u trail meant that we saved about 1,500 feet of vertical. That’s not to say that the trail was gradual, though. If you look closely here you can see the trail switch backs weaving up the rock face. Daniel decided he was going to run it from the bottom. I think he got about a 1/4 mile in. 🙂
One of my favorite hikes that I’ve been on. This was my first trip to Maui, or any of Hawaii for that matter, and I’m looking forward to heading back.