Category: Travel

OK yes, I’m going through my panorama stage right now.  I’m addicted people, addicted!

Christina and I headed over to Las Trampas Wilderness today for a hike for a couple hours.  Here are some of the pictures.

Last but not least we finally made it to Point Reyes after stopping off at Petaluma.  Point Reyes is beautiful and home to the original Cowgirl Creamery!  We made it up to the lighthouse but the winds were so incredibly strong that they shut it down.  I think the wind up at the lighthouse was the second strongest I’ve ever felt.

If you ever get the chance to visit Petaluma, CA definitely do it!  I wanted to go to find Leo’s studio but the town is really nice.  I couldn’t help but snap a few pictures on the drive over.  They didn’t turn out that great but it gives you the idea.  We ate at Della Fattoria Cafe and Lala’s Creamery and both were amazing.  The town itself was much larger than I thought it would be and thanks to Wikipedia I learned a few nice tidbits:

Notable residents:

• Coolio, Singer/Songwriter/Actor
• Leo Laporte, radio host on TWiT, television personality and author
• Winona Ryder, actress^[23]
• Benjamin Trott, Co-Founder of Six Apart, creator of Movable Type and TypePad.
• Mena Grabowski Trott, Co-Founder of Six Apart, creator of Movable Type and TypePad.

It has also been in a good number of movies.  Learn more here.

Christina, Tyler and I decided to get away for the day and head over to Point Reyes.  On the way there we saw a sign for Petaluma which was only 10 miles in the opposite direction of Point Reyes so I said “Hey Leo lives in Petaluma, we should have lunch and go see if we can find his studio”.  So I literally turned the car around as we were driving toward Point Reyes.  The drive over to Petaluma was absolutely beautiful.

When I was in high school I started watching The Screen Savers on TechTV and I can honestly credit that show for getting me hooked on computers.  Leo, Patrick, Kevin, Sarah, and many others were literally my computer teachers each evening on TV.  I knew next to nothing about computers, I always loved technology growing up though.  In Middle School I had a science teacher (Mr. Savage…awesome name right?) who offered a course in Ham Radio.  He told the class that if anyone got their license they automatically got an A in the course so I learned Morse Code and passed the test (after 3 tries at age 13…the test definitely isn’t easy for those starting out in technology).

We parked the car after fighting lots of traffic and I looked to check into Foursquare.  We were planning on catching lunch and I didn’t want to drag Christina and Tyler all over town to find Leo’s place but to my surprise the new studio was only 300 feet from the parking garage.  So we headed over and peeked my head in the window.  I saw Leo broadcasting and Christina saw on the front door some times it is open to the public so we popped in really quick and snapped a few souvenir pictures in the lobby.  I ventured toward the back to see if anything was going on but was too shy to go much further than that.  Heading back down the street I poked my head in front of the window again and this time Leo saw me from his studio and gave Christina, Tyler and I a big smile and wave which made my year.  Thanks to Christina for letting us going on a quick tech adventure during our date day.  Everywhere I go I tend to find us something techy to do!  😉 Leo, keep on rocking it!  Beautiful studio, thanks for keeping it accessible to the public…

The coffee (Blue Bottle) is brilliant but the art?  Hmm…some of it.  Oh and we found one of the two Waldos.

Here are some pictures from our hike in Sunol, CA from a few weeks ago.  It took us three and a half hours and I absolutely loved it.  For about an hour at one point we were so far away from society we walked and didn’t see another hiker.  It was great and as you can see a gorgeous day!