Full Circle

On August 18 we began to wend our way back to Oregon, not looking forward to the smoke and hot weather we had been following on the weather forecasts.
We made an overnight stop in Davis to visit long-time friends Dave and Nancy, who love to travel also, so it was a lot of fun to share stories.
Our next stop was an Airbnb in Arcata on the California coast. We wanted to stay where the air was clear and the temperature moderate for a little while longer.

This is the house where our apartment was located, it is the structure on the left in the rear. We thought it might be noisy, as Hwy 101 was just across the street, but it was amazingly quiet. Thank goodness.

For those who are not aware, Arcata is home to Humboldt State University, so has a lively collection of cafes, coffee shops, and galleries. We strolled through the Saturday Farmers Market held on the grassy plaza downtown. The guy above was peddling around on his home-made tricycle.  Not sure the reason?!

Lots of local produce available, I particularly liked the multi-colored cauliflower and peppers.

I just gotta get some rest!

I did say it was a University town didn't I?

Just a lovely dog.

We also paid a visit to neighboring Eureka and it's waterfront.

We were surprised to find so many murals in Eureka, quite amazing.  Very well executed and we did not see any intrusive graffiti.

The bottom one of these two is quite large.   I have another set of photos that I will eventually merge into a better panorama.

This was the plaque next to the large panorama above.

Eureka is also home to the Morris Graves Museum of Art. The building used to be the city library before the city built a new building downtown. This original building was to be torn down, but the local arts council caught wind of this and approached the city council. Bottom line, the city agreed to sell the building to the arts council for $1.00, providing they raised the money to refurbish it.
$1.5M was raised and a splendid building got a new life.

This is a view looking down onto the tiled floor of the museum foyer, apparently each tile was placed individually.

Just south of Eureka is the Humboldt Bay Natural Wildlife Refuge, so we decided to take a short walk there. This area was once a 9,000 acre salt marsh until the white settlers decided it was just useless wetland and would be better used if it was diked and drained to provide grazing for cattle. It wasn't known at the time just how important these tidal marshes were to the local ecology.

Cute little devil.

There were quite a few of these Herons visible in the marsh. This would be a great place to revisit and hike a longer trail. Stopping by the site office we saw there was a daily log for people to note what kind of wildlife they had seen on the day they visited.  It was a long list.
We headed back to the Rogue Valley on Monday August 24, and made our first stop to say hello to our former neighbors, Jack and Carol. This brought us full circle to where we started out in mid- March, returning many thousands of miles and photographs later.

Unfortunately, not the beautiful clean air that we associate with this part of the world. It has been a pretty brutal summer here while we were travelling.  Very hot days and terrible forest fires in the Northwest.
Next stop, house hunting.  Stay tuned.

Back in the USA

We made the flight from London on Aug 4, too many hours flying, but all went well. We had reserved exit row seats and the extra leg room makes a lot of difference, poor meal trays and no seat recline not withstanding.
We had arranged to stay with our friend Kathleen in San Francisco as soon as we arrived and not pick up our car.

We managed not to accumulate any extra baggage on the trip and landed with the same bags we left with. We did, however, accumulate a few personal pounds after eating our way around Europe!

As I left the UK I had noticed some new floaters in my right eye and felt that my vision was a little different. Diane inquired of the friend we were staying with if there was some form of "walk-in" clinic for eye-care that we could access. Very quickly our friend Kathleen had organized a visit to the Ophthalmology Department of UCSF on an emergency basis. The bottom line, after a very thorough examination, was a small retinal detachment that was repaired that same afternoon. I was fortunate in receiving this attention, as it is apparently very important to catch these small detachments before they grow large and more serious.

On a much lighter note, we learned that there was an exhibition of over 60 Turner paintings at the de Young Fine Arts Museum and we paid a visit as the museum opened. This was a good strategy as the museum was not very crowded, so we were able to see the paintings up close. The works exhibited were Turner's later paintings as well as a number of unfinished works.

It does seem a bit odd taking photographs of original paintings, but the photos do serve to remind us of these remarkable creations.

We also saw these remarkable works of art, all wire sculptures. I was taken by the shadows they cast on the walls.

Ruth Asawa was the artist.

The view from the tower at the de Young.

Some graffiti as we drove by.  You have to love San Francisco.

After a few days in San Francisco, we made our way to Berkeley to visit a friend who used to live in Ashland.  We decided to take BART, our first use of the system. To get to BART we used Uber, another first for us. We used Uber and Flywheel with mixed results.  The first trip was very good, the driver had worked for Uber for three years and was helpful in telling us about the Company. The next two rides gave us drivers we had some difficulty understanding, but we did get to our destinations.
BART was a bit of a disappointment.  We were expecting something a bit better from one of the world's centers of Hi Tech. It did, however get us where we needed to be!

Our friend Jane and her lovely dog Tawny as she showed us around the Berkeley campus.

The campanile, which we were told, is the third tallest such structure in the world, and has a total of 61 bells. The tower was modeled after the campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, which is the world's tallest.

We also dined in the  Berkeley City Club, which was built by the architect Julia Morgan in 1929. Julia Morgan also designed Hearst Castle.

It was quite hot during our visit, so it was pleasant to visit the Berkeley Botanical Gardens and see some water flowing in this very dry state of California.

Some iced latte's were in order!

Loved this building.

From Berkeley we once again took BART to Fremont where we were picked up by our daughter-in-law Pauline.   We had a short visit with the family and picked up our car, which we had left with them while we were traveling.

A really nice farmer's market in downtown San Jose.

Flowers as well.

David suggested I try "sports mode" on my camera, which takes a rapid series of photographs and then you can pick the one you like. You can end up with a lot of shots if you are not careful!

It was very hot during our stay, so the grand-kids wanted to see if you could fry an egg on the back patio! (We left it a bit late in the day, so it didn't work this time).

We had a lovely visit with family and friends, but it was time to begin heading back to Oregon.
Next stop, Arcata, for a short stay in the cool.

West London

As we plan to return home, I wanted to find a rental that was close to Heathrow and easy access to the Avis rental return. A search on Airbnb found an available flat in Ealing. I had no experience of this part of West London, but the flat looked nice and we decided to book it.
It was quite close to Ealing Broadway, where we could get to central London by tube. The area was just great, quiet, a short walk to shops and an easy frequent bus to the tube station. We lucked out again with the perfect accommodation.

This is the building where our flat was, the window top left in the front was our kitchen window. The building has many art deco features and the rear of the building had extensive lawns. We were also impressed that there were several parks near by.

Sunset from the kitchen window!

This pub was just a short walk away and served enormous portions of fish and chips.

We had been told of this "book arts" store in East London, in the borough of Islington and set out to find it. We eventually found the store only to discover that it was closed for the month of August (it was August 1st!), which was a shame as it looked interesting when we peeked through the windows. 

This area of London is awash with street art and unusual art galleries.

The above are just a few of the many murals we saw. (I think I need to remove the pole that is distracting in the large B&W mural.)

I don't know if this is a protest statement, a Company, or a description of an office building.  Whatever the facts, it was an amusing statement on a large high rise being built in the area.

This building was a lot more fun.

Next stop was to get back to the central part of London and go window shopping. These ornate arcades are always intriguing.

It would make shopping a lot more welcoming if today's malls took some lessons in design from these places.

A busy trip on the underground and the ride to the surface. We learned of the "Oyster Card" from our friends, so decided to give them a try. They are cards that you can add money to and are used to enter and exit the tube stations where the trip cost is extracted from the card. The good news is that there is a maximum amount that can be taken each day, so all rides after that are effectively free. This max charge varies based on the zone where you began.  In our case the max was just over $10, representing significant savings. The cards are also used on the London buses, which now do not take money.

Bond Street is full of the top brand shops that have guarded doors, so window shopping is the way to go!

Dior's "window", while the store behind was being completed.

Walking in Piccadilly Circus.

A visit to Fortnum & Mason was a must.  We like to check out the food halls.

Got to have some statuary to guard the entrances!

Wandered down to Soho to look for a quiet place to eat. Came across Tostado on a very narrow backstreet.  Looked interesting, and since we have friends who live in Ecuador, we decided to give it a try.  The food was excellent and the staff very friendly.

One of the wait-staff took our photo through the window.  It was the perfect place to watch the world go by while enjoying our meal.

For dessert we shared a dish of tree tomato and ice cream. I had never heard about or tasted a tree tomato, it is delicious.  Now I have to find seeds and grow some!

Back in Ealing we learned that a four-day jazz festival had been underway in a park within walking distance of our flat. We managed to spend some time there on the last day of the festival. It is quite a big event with two stages and a significant number of food and drink stalls, but a bit dusty since the park was very dry. There has not been much rain here either.

The main stage under a lovely marquee.

We liked this band and Wednesday Gray has a powerful Edith Piaf kind of voice. The band plays Balkan Gypsy jazz as well as Argentinian tango music.  It was a nice way to wrap up our time in Europe.  Now we had to pack up, ready to fly to San Francisco, discarding a few items that had accumulated along the way, and hoping everything else would fit back into our suitcases!

Next stop USA.