Adventures in California

In October I was lucky enough to attend a library conference in Monterey, California and spend some time exploring the area. Here’s how my trip went.

 

San Francisco

Tiled Steps
This very cool mosaic on a staircase is known as the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps.

Ghostly trees
A typical foggy morning in San Francisco. Fortunately the fog burned off around lunchtime.

Sutro Baths
The remains of the Sutro Baths.

Fort Mason
Looking down on the Fort Mason Center, an old military fort that has been converted into shops and restaurants.

Wind arrows
This is part of the fabulous Outdoor Exploratorium at Fort Mason. These are wind arrows and demonstrate how even a slight change in altitude can mean a difference in the direction the wind is blowing.

Wave Organ
The Wave Organ, which allows you to hear underwater “music” thanks to submerged pipes.

Yoda
A Yoda fountain in the Presidio.

The Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Fort Point.

San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Mountain View

Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House, which is very cool but very overpriced.

Rocky Dogs
I loved this sculpture in downtown Santa Cruz. It’s called “Rocky Dogs” by Michael Eckerman.

Hollerith Electric Tabulating System replica
Hollerith Electric Tabulating System replica at the Computer History Museum. The 60 million cards punched in the 1890 census were fed manually into machines like this for processing. The dials counted the number of cards with holes in a particular position. The sorter on the right would be activated by certain hold combinations, allowing detailed statistics to be generated. We’ve come a long way since then!

Early calculators
Early calculators from the 1970s at the Computer History Museum.


A RAMAC actuator and disk stack from 1956 at the Computer History Museum. This is the heart of the world’s first disk drive. It has 50 24″ disks that spin at 1,200 RPM and hold 5 million characters of information.

Babbage Difference Engine
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was an English mathematician who came up with a design for a mechanical calculating engine. He never managed to build one in his lifetime, but this Engine No. 2 was built in 2008 at the Science Museum in London. Every day the Computer History Museum demonstrates how it works.

 

Monterey, Pacific Grove, and Carmel

Harbor
The harbor in Monterey, as seen from the public wharf.

Fisherman's Wharf
Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey.

Custom House
The Custom House, built around 1821 by the Mexican government, is California’s first historic landmark and its oldest public building. It is where the first American Flag was raised on July 7, 1846, declaring California part of the United States. It is now party of the Monterey State Historic Park.

California's First Theare
This building was built by English seaman Jack Swan in 1846-47 as a lodging house and tavern for sailors. He built the wood portion of the building in about 1845. He added the adobe portion in 1847, as the actual theater. It is now part of the Monterey State Historic Park.

Pacific House Museum
The Pacific House Museum is part of the Monterey State Historic Park and has some very nice exhibits inside that tell the history of this area.

Coral reef
The very cool Coral Reef exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Sea nettles
The jellyfish were completely mesmerizing!

Say what??
Hello there!

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Peering into the underwater world of the kelp forest.

Anchovies
The anchovies swim in circles over and over and over in this circular tank.

Monterey Public Library
No vacation is complete without visiting the local public library! 🙂

Cute cove
A cute little cove at Fanshell Overlook along 17-Mile Drive.

Lone Cypress
The famous Lone Cypress tree along 17-Mile Drive. This tree is about 250 years old.

Carmel Sunset
Sunset at Carmel River State Beach.

Footprints
Footprints in the sand at Carmel River State Beach.

Sunset magic
Sunset at the Asilomar State Marine Preserve near Pacific Grove.

Two birds and a sunset
Another beautiful evening at the Asilomar State Marine Preserve near Pacific Grove.

Pelicans
While watching sunset, flocks of pelicans kept gliding overhead. COOL!

Point Pinos Lighthouse
The Point Pinos Lighthouse, the only lighthouse I’ve ever seen that is surrounded by a golf course.

Big Sur

Sea Lion Cove
Sea Lion Cove at Point Lobos State Preserve.

DSC_0057
Beautiful little China Cove at Point Lobos State Preserve.

Kelp
The top of a kelp forest as seen at Point Lobos State Preserve. Doesn’t look like much on the surface, but after seeing what it looks like underwater at the Monterey Bay Aquarium the day before I’ll never look at kelp the same way again.

Bixby Creek Bridge
714-foot-long Bixby Creek Bridge on Highway 1.

Hurricane Point
Looking north up the California coast from the appropriately-named Hurricane Point (it was very windy).

McWay Falls
McWay Falls at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. The waterfall used to plunge right into the ocean because there never used to be a beach here, but a landslide north of here in 1983 sent lots of dirt into the ocean and much of it washed up here.

Redwood
Redwood trees at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

Force of the ocean
Waves pour through one of the keyholes in the rocks at Pfeiffer Beach.

Sunburst
Sunset at Pfeiffer Beach.

Golden hour
A beautiful evening at Pfeiffer Beach.

Carmel shops
The very touristy town of Carmel looks like something straight out of a Thomas Kinkade painting.

A house in Carmel
A house in Carmel.

Carmel Mission
The chapel at the Carmel Mission, which was established by Padre Junipero Serra in 1770.

Ocean blue
A beautiful morning along the Monterey State Beach.