Two months ago today (the 28th), my family got a new addition.  Luckily when I was in California, I had the chance to spend some time with her – Baby V is amazing.

Mimi and I talked about doing a small photo shoot to capture some of V’s early days, so Kris and I brought along some of our photo equipment (umbrella, remote flashes) and set it all up.  Fortunately, we had a very sweet and generally cooperative little model:

With over 200 photos, it just might be my favorite photo shoot ever

~ ~ ~

We arrived in Monterey after one of the most lovely scenic drives – up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles.  Kris and I took frequent stops and did quite a bit of photography along the way…

[one of the many...]

The end of the trip was quieter and more reserved – it was all about Baby V, helping my sister and her husband, and generally enjoying our time together.  They just so happen to live in a spectacularly beautiful location… so Kris and I were quite happy!

One day, we went to nearby Pacific Grove for some sightseeing – a yarn shop, lunch, and then a walk by the water.  It was perfect!

~

The trip was wonderful and came at a special time.  Baby V is such a blessing.  She is quite the topic of conversation!

Thanks for all of your comments on my trip photographs!  It is a joy to take them, as well as to share them.  Plus, writing the vacation blog posts takes a little pressure off from the return to the norm around here… the knitting is happening at an alarming rate, but inches of stockinette don’t quite seem as blog-worthy as sharing photos of beautiful scenery and new family members!  Alas, the trip photos are done (but you can see all the ones I have uploaded here on Flickr) for now… but I have other exciting news to share, so stay tuned!

As you may recall, Kris and I are huge hockey fans. Kris has been in to it since he was a kid, and when we started dating in high school, I really got in to it too… and since we got married in 2002, we have had this informal lifelong goal of getting to every National Hockey League arena in North America…

This trip to California was precipitated by the birth of our niece (first and foremost!) but… it also coincided with the western roadtrip of our team, the Pittsburgh Penguins.  So, yeah.  Kris and I were totally roadies.

…We followed them to Anaheim…

…where we happened to meet up with a very lovely lady!  Stacey and I have known each other for years (through the blogs, Rav, and Flickr), and we finally had the chance to meet.  She managed to get last-minute tickets to the Anaheim Ducks game, and although we didn’t sit together, we texted throughout the game, and then met up afterward at the pub across the street.  She was with her hockey-loving (albeit Ducks-supporting) friend, Nicole.  The Penguins managed a win in this game, so it was a fun night!  I also met some very nice fans (season-ticket holders) that were sitting next to us, and they were so much fun.  They bought us a Ducks puck, and a hat to remember the occasion.  (The Ducks have a pretty “gritty” reputation in the NHL, but their fans were the nicest of all!)

(We had so much fun that we planned *another* date night with Stacey and her partner Randy for the next night.  Lots of hockey talk!)

…next up to see the Los Angeles Kings at the Staples Center…

The tide really shifted in this game, unfortunately.  The Penguins, who had a great start to the year, got hit really hard with injuries – broken bones and strained muscles everywhere!  The LA game was a loss, but it was still really great to watch.  As a general hockey fan, it is really neat to see a team that hasn’t done that well in years put together a fabulous line-up.  Since the Kings are in a different conference, we rarely see them play.  This is all my justification to make myself feel better about the 5-2 loss

Final stop: San Jose Sharks at HP Pavilion aka “The Shark Tank”

…Let’s just say that we are smiling *before* the game…

It was an abysmal loss (5-0) for our guys.  They were so beat up by this game.  I felt a little beat up after the game too, considering the heckling that we got in the stands.  Yikes!  Whatever happened to that mellow California vibe?  It wasn’t present at the Sharks game.

The good news is that our team is slowly getting better – they beat Atlanta last night!

So, the new list for North America arenas is updated to:

Washington Capitals (DC)
Tampa Bay Lightning (FL)
Boston Bruins (MA)
New York Rangers (NY)
Carolina Hurricanes (NC)
Pittsburgh Penguins (PA)
Anaheim Ducks (CA)
Los Angeles Kings (CA)
San Jose Sharks (CA)

We have several more to go… but it’s a fun goal to work towards, and be able to see a little more of our continent in the process

Next up – saving the BEST for last!  You get to meet Baby V!

Southern California offers some world-class museums and cultural institutions.  Since my own career is very closely aligned to these museums, libraries, and such, they are often at the top of my list.  I often have to entice Kris with architecture and gardens (in other words, photographic opportunities) for him to go along with my plan.  Luckily, that wasn’t too hard to do with the amazing weather that we had while we were in the LA area…

The Getty Center, Los Angeles

We took a docent-lead tour of the gardens and heard all about the architects and how they designed the buildings along with the adjacent gardens.  It was fascinating.  We got there a little later in the afternoon and didn’t have a full day to enjoy the galleries, but we made the most of it – I particularly enjoyed the photography exhibit on the Irving Penn’s “Small Trades” photographs of workers in three cities.  You can see many of the photographs online (click link above).  Kris and I had some very interesting discussions about it as we browsed the gallery.  We also enjoyed some of the modern galleries, the sculpture, and a quick peek into the other galleries.  This amazing painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema was a highlight  I loved the detail and the emotions on the faces:

It is entitled “Spring”, and you can see the full painting here.

The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Living in the DC area provides many opportunities to see amazing exhibits (I am excited to see the terra cotta warriors at NGS this year!) but I never turn down the chance to go to more in new cities that I visit.  We spent the majority of our time at The Huntington in the gardens – it was a beautiful sunny day and there was so much ground to cover. 

[See more photos from the trip...]
Reading through your peaceful memories and moments made me feel at peace! thank you so much for sharing with me. I encourage you all to think about those peaceful moments and invite new peaceful times into your daily life!

Thank you also for the birthday wishes!

Next stop on the roadtrip: Kris and Lolly are hockey fanatics (but you already knew that, right?)

…

I figured I would let the photos do the talking

…

Can you feel the magic of this amazing place?  Being in Joshua Tree National Park was a little slice of heaven.  Peaceful with amazing sights are every turn in the road.  Kris and I were just in awe of this foreign landscape.  Neither one of us had spent that much time in a desert environment; and Joshua Tree is even a different class of desert.  Between the trees and the rock formations, we were clicking hundreds of photos.  As you can see, the day was *perfect* with stunning blue skies as a backdrop for the white, red, brown, and occasional greens of the desert.

The Park is the intersection of two deserts – the Mojave in the north, where the Joshua Trees are, and the Colorado/Sonoran desert in the southeast of the Park.  The two deserts are distinctively different, and when you cross over into the next one, the landscape really changes.  We spent the day in the Park enjoying every minute of the hikes.  We saw so much beauty.  We traveled from North to South through the Park and ended the day in the otherworldly landscape of the Colorado Desert, distinguished by the unique chullo cactus and the rugged mountains.

… and perhaps the best treat of all…

Was ending the day with an absolutely stunning moon rise.  Kris and I pulled our car off the road, walked into the nearby field, set up the tripod, and just enjoyed every minute of the moon rising above the mountains.  The bats were coming out, but there was not a single sound.  It was a stunning silence.  One of the most peaceful moments I have ever experienced.

– All Joshua Tree photos here –

… …

Do a birthday girl a favor, and tell me about the last place where you felt absolute peace -

I would love to hear.

We found a lovely hotel right next to Balboa Park in San Diego.  With a touch of jet lag, Kris and I woke up before dawn and got out into the Park for a nice long walk with the sunrise.  Our arrival in the city coincided with the big Race for the Cure event, and we watched hundreds of people wearing pink preparing for the big race.

We also were able to see the lovely trees in the park and the museum-lined streets of El Prado in the early morning light…

We planned to spend the day at the world-renowned San Diego Zoo.  Once they opened, we headed that way.  It was a very auspicious beginning to the day:  a woman was standing near the entrance gate and gave us a free ticket inside.  She said “Remember how nice the people of San Diego are!”  and so I do

…Once inside…the cameras were clicking all day!

[More animals here... and more to come in the coming days]

Photographing animals is an absolute joy, but also a challenge;  for each photo you get, you miss about a dozen more funny faces.  It was such a beautiful clear day in San Diego, so the factors were right for great photos.  The San Diego Zoo was truly a beautiful spot!

We calculated our walking distances, and it was over 13 miles… no wonder we were so dead tired when we walked out of the zoo.  It was late afternoon, and we were in a bit of a haze, but as we walked back to our hotel through the beauty of Balboa Park, we stopped a few times to rest our feet.  That was when I recognized a familiar group… it started with the sighting of an adorable dachshund… then a very cute baby boy… and then a beautiful familiar face from blogland.  It was one of those funny moments when I was thinking, “Is this real?”

The serendipitous meeting between Disentangled Jenifer and Lolly in the Park!  Millions of people live in San Diego, but what are the chances that 2 knitters who met online years ago  would be in the same area of the Park at the same exact time?  The probability just blew my mind.

…perhaps it blew my mind too much to even take a photo with the camera that hung around my neck…

Either way, I was so happy to meet Jenifer, her husband, her adorable son, and her sweet pup!  I am still shaking my head at the serendipity of that

… We spent two days in San Diego and didn’t even scratch the surface, unfortunately.  It is a lovely city and I truly hope to have the chance to go there again. We totally lucked out when we found one of the pinnacle restaurants of our whole trip on our very first night in the city:

Here I am enjoying the delicious veggie delights of Spread restaurant.  Local produce, prepared in the most delicious and savory way (the chef came out and discussed with us beforehand)  It was sort of a tapas-style, where you order several plates and share.  So memorable.  Now I want to try to figure out what we ate so I can re-create!

Next stop on the SoCal Roadtrip: Mojave and Sonoran desert – Joshua Tree – Palm Springs