Thanksgiving Weekend Part Deux

Some more photos from the Thanksgiving 4 day weekend. First, on Saturday, I went cycling out on 17 mile drive. There was a high surf advisory and the breeze was pretty strong too (which was a pain when I was cycling into it, but really nice when it was at my back).

This combination also caused the local pelicans some issues too, as this echelon proved when it flew close enough to me that the point and shoot could capture their fly by.

Then today (Sunday), the weather was perfect for a motorcycle ride, so off I set down the coast again - I've been doing this ride down to Lucia and back regularly for almost a year now, and it's nowhere near getting old.

Today I planned to set off early-ish (I let it warm up a bit first) to avoid most of the going home after Thanksgiving traffic - however, my plan initially backfired as I ended up meeting more than my fair share of RV's and campers travelling south from Big Sur - I hadn't realized folks camping in Big Sur for Thanksgiving would be that numerous - but I soon realized that there was no-one heading north, so I got to Lucia, grabbed a Mounds (dark chocolate Bounty for the UK readers), then headed north and had a really excellent ride back up - no traffic, sun at my back, excellent visibility - as good as it gets.

I stopped at 7 pines on the way up (a popular condor hang out) - only saw one condor, and it was high up and quite a ways away, but it was circling with two turkey vultures. Turkey vultures are impressive birds in their own right, so it's no surprise they're frequently mistaken for condors, but when you see the two side by side, you realize there's no real comparison.


As I was sitting on the cliff side, enjoying the warm weather and blue skies, keeping a weather eye on the sky for condors, I noticed something in the ocean, and then realized it was a pod of dolphins. The pod was around 15-20 dolphins in size, and in the photo below you can see two breaking the surface with another four below.

So, all in all, despite the rainy Friday, I spent most of the four days outdoors, enjoying the weather, the motorcycle and life in general. Of course, this meant that housework was neglected - the house really needs a vacuum - oh well!

Thanksgiving Weekend, So Far

This last Thursday was the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US of A. For me, that means a 4 day weekend as I get both Thursday and Friday off.

The traditional Thanksgiving holiday involves a turkey dinner, eating way too much, flopping on the couch with family and watching American Football or old movies. As you might imagine, I rarely have a traditional Thanksgiving, and this year was no exception.

It was a nice sunny day, so I headed down the coast on the Ducati - roads were pretty empty, so I had a grand old time. I stopped at the Condor place on the way back up and got to see a couple of Condors (through binoculars, I could tell there were a couple down on sea lion beach having dead sea lion for their Thanksgiving dinner).

Below is a picture of Condor #190 taking off from a rocky outcrop above me on Highway 1.

I ran into some fellow Condor fans that I'd met before and we all ended up chatting away.

Just before I was about to leave and head home, a motorcyclist pulled up to ask about the best bits of the road. We soon got talking and it turned out he was a Brit from London on an around the world bike ride!

He hadn't got many photos of himself riding, so I obliged and shot a few!


We exchanged info and are now friends on Facebook, so he's seen the photos (and he likes 'em) and I'll be able to keep track of his travels.

I didn't get home until about 4:30pm (skipped lunch), so had a family sized Shepard's Pie to myself for my dinner - very predictably an atypical Thanksgiving.

Friday dawned wet and windy, so I ended up staying in, watching movies on TV and generally lazing around - very nice.

Today (Saturday) is bright and sunny though windy and chilly, so went for a bicycle ride this morning - now it's time to go get some lunch somewhere.

Largest and Fastest etc.

Been a while since I updated, so this post is an amalgam of recent activity.

Firstly, a week or so ago, I was out condor spotting with Ali - we briefly saw a couple of condors quite a ways away, but by the end of the day, we'd seen both an example of the largest creature on the planet and the fastest creature too.

I've told a bunch of folks about this largest and fastest afternoon - they all got the largest at first guess, but most missed the fastest.

Yes, largest was a blue whale - we weren't sure it was a blue (though the spout was mighty impressive) until just before it dove deep and I got to see a large blue body as it was diving.

The fastest - well, there are no cheetahs in the wild in CA - it was a peregrine falcon - capable of hitting 200mph in a dive. The one we saw was in the top of a tree - zero mph!

Now on to this weekend. Original plan was to hit jade cove given that low tide was both low and in the middle of the afternoon, but that plan got usurped when the motorcycle dealer called me Friday afternoon telling me that my Ducati was ready.

So, this weekend has been busy with riding the Duc after a 6 week absence - the weather was great (mid 60's and sunny), the bike is awesome and I saw 7 condors during the ride (all high up on the ridges - typical recent behavior according to the biologist intern I chatted to at one point).

All that, plus a few improbable coincidences all added up to a great weekend.