Future American President?

I don't know if it's the hands, the smile or the glasses, but this photo of Gateau's eldest Robbie just strikes me as a photo of someone who could easily end up becoming the President of the US of A.

A Labor Day Weekend Crawl

Yes, it's Labor Day Weekend, which basically means (for you none US types) that the first Monday in September is a (bank) holiday - in US terms, a three day weekend.

My three day weekend started a half day early when the company I work for celebrated a recent success by kicking everyone out early on Friday just after lunch. I spent the first part of my three and a half day weekend by going to the fancy bicycle shop in San Jose. I've now ordered my new mountain bike - should be here by next weekend, fingers crossed.

Anyway, the main part of the three day weekend involved my friends Chris and Laura coming down with their dog Coco. Our vague plan involved walking Coco and pub crawling.


After walking Coco out on the coast trail (where, guess what, the photo was taken), we headed out for the crawl. Given that we're all getting old these days, it was a fairly tame, yet very fun, crawl. In fact, we were debating how many pubs actually counted as a crawl - our (maybe optimistically small) number was three.

We started off in the Crown and Anchor, had a couple of drinks with dinner, then hit the Britannia Arms and then moved closer to home for a final drink in the Bulldog, before heading home. Once home, I finally had an excuse to open the twelve year old single malt (which I've had unopened for twelve years) as Laura in particular is a whisky officiando. I tried it, not my cup of tea.

This morning was a lazy morning with a trip to a local breakfast place where Coco was allowed on the patio followed by a bit of touristing before they headed off on a scenic way home along the coast.

Welcome To Gateauland

Yes, I spent most of the weekend in Gateauland, that far away place full of toddlers.

It's been a while since I visited with Gateau and his family, so with the recent arrival of baby Grace, it was time to go visit.

For those new to the legacy of Gateau, I've known him for around 20 years, was his lodger for a few weeks that turned into months and was the best man at his wedding. He is also known as Mike (and various other names that are not really suitable for a family oriented blog such as this).

He and wife Lianna now have three kids (all under three years old - I think someone should have a little chat with them!), so I got to go visit with them all this weekend.

In the picture below, Gateau is mowing the lawn with Robbie (the eldest) joining in and Laura (the middle kid) tagging along.


Holy crap, dealing with three kids of that age is more than a full time job - I feel for Lianna, as basically she has four kids to deal with.

We all went to the mall, which turns out to be a logistical exercise a crack troop of Marines would be proud of accomplishing. Then in the evening, we went to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, where Gateau and I posed (along with Robbie) for a typical Gateau/Tim photo.


It's good to know some things never change.

Sunset Riding, Cooking and Olympics

Yes, finally the fog that has plagued Monterey throughout August is starting to clear occasionally. Tonight was a good example - the sky had been clear most of the day, although it had been breezy.

Sounds like a perfect excuse for an evening bike ride. The sun was setting as we reached our turn around point - the Restless Sea point on 17 mile drive. In the photo below, you can see the sun setting in the reflection of Wella's glasses.

On the ride back, the setting sun caused some great light in the trees as we rode past Spanish Bay.

Once back home, it was time for some food and some Olympics on the TV - as can be seen in the photo below, something other than frozen pizza is finally created in my kitchen - yes, Orange Chicken courtesy of Wella, (with rice, courtesy of me and my fabulash Target rice cooker - remember, it's pronounced tar-jay).


There was a modicum of despair about the lack of green vegetables, but basically it was an excellent and very tasty way to appreciate great weather on a Thursday evening.

Tour d'Tim

Yes, weak (very weak) title based on all the car weekend's other tours, I felt I should name one after me (yes, totally weak!!). The tour began by heading down Highway 1 (also known as The Pacific Coast Highway). As regular readers of this blog and my other diatribes will realize, at this time of year, this route is plagued by Ford Mustang convertibles rented from all the best rental car companies. Basically, that means patience is a virtue as you make your way down the sinewy piece of tarmac known as 1.

Second major stop on the tour (after the mission at Carmel) was the Bixby Creek Bridge - as seen in practically every tourist guide to this part of the world. Today however, a heavy overcast (ie fog) meant that the light was nice and even, showing the bridgework off to its best advantage - the bridge was built in 1932 and is still awe inspiring today.

The tour continued down the coast, dippng in and out of the fog as the road's altitude changed. At one stage, just south of Big Sur, a Condor appeared out of the mist and circled next to the road as we drove past, its radio antenna obvious on its left wing (and its markings clearly indicating it was a Condor and not a Turkey Vulture) - my closest Condor encounter so far.

The next stop on the tour was the waterfall on to the beach at McWay Falls - which has appeared in this blog before, no need to repeat. Again the overcast was down low. After the falls, we stopped for lunch.

After lunch, the only vague in the first place plan changed to head inland to go check out the San Antonio Mission in Fort Hunter Ligget and get some sunshine.

The photo below shows that almost as soon as we climbed up the hills inland from 1, we were soon above the marine layer (yes, yet another term for the coastal fog).


The road we were on was one of the many that were closed for the recent forest fires in the area. Once into the fort itself, it was soon apparent where had burned and where had been spared.

We made our way to Mission San Antonio (the second mission on the tour - as previously mentioned, we did start at the Carmel mission). Mission San Antonio is definitely my favorite mission I've visited so far, it's isolated at the end of the military fort and is totally devoid of any obvious modern trappings.

Even though the tour had only moved 20 miles inland or so, the temperature had climbed from the around 60 degrees farenheit at the coast to 80 plus. This is the normal variance for this area, but it's always a bit of a shock to experience the change so quickly.

The mission's buildings and gardens are in great condition. In the photo below, Wella is sitting on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the gardens (yes, she is the one who had to suffer the Tour d'Tim). Sitting in the middle of the gardens, it was easy to transport yourself back to when the mission was originally built.

After we'd evaded the kittens (don't ask), the tour continued back to Monterey via Carmel Valley Road - this part of the tour is tarantula country. Unfortunately, the only one seen crossing the road appeared from between the wheels of the pickup truck the tour was currently following too late for the tour guide to take evasive action - yes, this tour killed a tarantula.

That and the rather weak performance of the tour vehicle's AC were the only blemishes on an otherwise successful adventure.

Cycling Amongst The Supercars

Yes, for a new twist on the car weekend, my friend Wella and I finally managed to find time to do our planned for a long time bicycle ride to Carmel and back. The route would take us down 17 mile drive and past the Concours d'Elegance location at Pebble Beach as well as the Blackhawk auction too - plus all that beautiful 17 mile scenery.


Any 30 mile bike ride has to start with a healthy breakfast (well, that was our excuse for heading to the trailside cafe only a half mile into the ride for a hearty breakfast).

This ride is typically all about the scenery, but today it was frequently punctuated by various Ferraris, Rolls, Bentleys, Spykers, Lambos, Aston Martins, Lotii (?) and various other la-de-daa cars passing us in either direction - our heads were on swivels.

Below is only a semi unusual sight on this ride, a guy sitting down in the road with his camera, and a SUV behind taking either the same photo or a photo of the situation (hey, maybe I'm in that situation photo!).

So what were they taking photos of? Well, of course, the most expensive production car in the world (the second example of which I'd seen this weekend), a Bugatti Veyron, capable of over 250 mph. The guy on the ground is doing some sort of an official photo shoot. The driver of the Bugatti had a heavy german accent (VW employee perhaps??) and despite Wella's best attempts, wouldn't let anyone sit in the car.

Regardless, it stopped traffic.

More Car Weekend Stuff

One of the big events in downtown during the car weekend is the RM Auction at the Portola Plaza hotel. There are always a few cars that get auctioned for multi million dollar prices.

This year, what looks to be the prize exhibit is the blue Ferrari at the back of this trio of Ferraris ready for the auction block.

The RM folks take over the customs plaza area with cars, and have a chain link fence up so they can charge $40 to get inside the fence and close to the cars. Typically, their most expensive lots are in the hotel lobby, which they can't charge for, so I go check that out (hence the photo below) and stare through the fence at the rest of 'em.

There are a lot of fancy road cars in town, complete with your typical older white (though typically tanned) male and frequent younger trophy wife in the passenger seat - off wining and dining at swanky events around town.

Below is such a gentleman offloading his Lambo from the truck that brought it to Monterey. He took about 20 minutes to carefully offload the car from the bed of the truck, then got his female companion to drive it the 50 yards down the road and into the hotel valet parking lot. I wonder if the car ever really gets driven?


There's a new fancy hotel in town this year, so I decide to go check it out to see if any of the spots in front of the hotel (where the fancy cars typically get put) had fancy cars. I wasn't dissapointed. They have around 8 spots - six of them had Lambos in them. Most of the Lambos had Michigan plates, so I'm not sure if that means that they were actually factory cars or not - a little strange, but cool to see all those cars none the less.
It should be a fun weekend.

2008 Tour d'Elegance

It's car week in Monterey County. It happens every year, and every year it gets bigger. There are classic car shows, classic car auctions and classic car racing at Laguna.

The fanciest of the classic car shows is the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, which takes place on Sunday on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach. To stand a chance of winning the classic car competition, participants really need to get the bonus points available for taking part in the Tour d'Elegance on the preceding Thursday (ie, today!)

Around 100 or so classic cars take to the roads around Pebble Beach, driving down scenic Highway 1 and hopefully ending up back where they started from.

The tour is sponsored by Mercedes, so the first few cars through after the Mercedes F1 Safety Car (complete with flashing lights! - hey, they are the sponsor) are all classic Mercedes.

This is my second time watching the tour on the local roads and the second time that the first car through is driven by Stirling Moss.

There are all sorts of cars in the field, all trying to gain those extra concours point by taking part in the tour. Below is a car I really liked, a 1907 Itala 36/45 Peking to Paris. I was watching near the start of the tour, hopefully it made it all the way through!

So how do I know it's a 1907 Itala - well, in a move similar to the Tour de France bicycle race, before the cars come through, a Tour car comes through, handing out posters and guides - the guide tells you all the cars that you're going to see.

The poster typically features artwork incorporating a particular car on that year's tour - this year, the poster car is this 1954 Lancia D24 Pinin Farina Spyder.

I do like the racing cars more than the street cars, but they all look splendid driving down the country lanes in and around the Monterey peninsula.

The cars came in three groups - with gaps in between. The gaps gave me chance to look around where I was waiting. Whilst in the position where I was shooting the Itala, I noticed a garter snake about 2 feet away from me in the grass. I noticed it before the batch of cars came through, and then I concentrated on the cars. After the cars had passed, the snake had moved on too.

The morning started foggy (as can be somewhat seen in the Stirling Moss photo), but had pretty much burned off by the time the cars came through - around 9am. However, that didn't stop dew landing on the spider web below, which if viewed at the right angle, the strands really stood out against the green plants in shadow in the background.

So, I got to watch around 100 odd classic cars out for a drive around the country lanes of Monterey county first thing on a Thursday morning - plus I saw a snake - how cool it that?

The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything

That's me! For the next 12 months anyway.

Yes, it's self portrait time. Here's a photo of me about 5 miles into my typical 6.4 mile Tuesday morning run - at the end of the municipal wharf with fisherman's wharf and an older fishing boat in the background.

The fog was so thick this morning it was drizzling, and as you can see in the large version of the photo, my hair was collecting moisture as I ran.


Then this evening, I decided to go on a quest for naughty cake - in particular, black forest cake (as it's known over here - the word gateau doesn't really work). Unfortunately, I was too late, the cake shop had just shut when I got there (about 6:30pm), so I had to do without (probably a good thing).

On my way back up to the house, there were three deer just down the road. They let me get close enough to take this photo of two of them before they all disappeared into the yard of the yellow house you can just about see on the right.

Ghost Bush

I was out walking down Cannery Row today and noticed something I'd never noticed before. I've walked down this piece of coast access frequently since the new hotel opened in May and I'd never noticed this before.


This is a photo of the back of Ed Rickett's lab - in particular, the wall of the old cannery building that is adjacent to the back of the lab. Obviously, there was a bush there at one time, and now it's gone - no idea when it went, but it left a cool pattern on the cinder block wall of the adjacent old cannery building.

Ahaaarrgghh Jim Laaaad

Yes, pirate ships ahoy. The "Tall Ships" had been in San Francisco the week before and a couple of them made their way down the coast to Monterey. The more exciting of the two ships was HMS Bounty - a larger than real life ('cos the original was designed in a time when people were generally shorter) pirate (well, sort of) ship.

It was built in the 60's for the movie Mutiny on the Bounty based on the original plans for the original ship and was also used in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

It docked at the municipal wharf (wharf #2) and was easily the tallest ship in Monterey Bay.

It was an impressive ship to look at, complete with figure head.