Bay Area Fly Over

Dave and I got the coolest gift from his daughter and her husband…a plane flight over the Bay Area through SF Air Tours.  We scheduled our flight for sunset and I’m so glad we did.  The light was absolutely incredible and shockingly no fog!  Well there was a bit of haze and light fog on the coast outside the Golden Gate but it only added to the beauty.

Let me say that these pictures are not that great.  Unfortunately the windows were not the type where you can take crisp pictures through them plus I discovered how mistakenly easy it is to change the ISO on my camera!  It’s so pathetically easy that I have to assign that button somewhere else.  Evidently this is a common thing that happens with this camera and I got to experience it first-hand.   Anyway, without going into all the drama that ensued with me trying to adjust settings on my new camera in a plane that’s moving….lol….here they are for your viewing pleasure.  I’ve tried captioning most all of them so you know what you’re looking at.

Just fyi, I’ll be off my blog starting Saturday for about 10 days on a break.  I’ll be back at the end of July!

Golden Gate Bridge

Sign

Executive Terminal at Oakland Airport

From inside the terminal

Our little plane waiting!

Military Helicopter spotted on takeoff

SF side of Bay Bridge (Treasure island in foreground)

Berkeley Hills with Mt. Diablo in Background

Golden Gate & Presidio

Oakland & Mt. Diablo in Background

Berkeley & Albany near Bay

Oakland-Alameda Estuary toward Bay

Oakland-Alameda Estuary

Oakland-Alameda Estuary

Looking out from SF Presidio over SF to Oakland and Mt. Diablo in the background

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

SF Side of Bay Bridge (SF to the right)

Out toward Tiburon and Sausalito

Alameda

Oakland-SF Bay Bridge

Lake Merritt in Oakland

SF out by the Ocean (Golden Gate Park is the strip of green)

Touch down!

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iPhone Art – Inviting at Joaquin Miller Park

Amazing all the apps that are available to edit your prized iPhone photos!  I have to admit I enjoy it.  Here’s an image I created from a hike in Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland, California.  I used to practice here when I was on the cross country team in high school and grew up down the street a bit.  It’s a beautiful oasis of rustic woodland trails that lead you through redwood groves and oak woodlands across lush creeksides and wet meadows.  Hikers, equestrians, bicyclists, joggers and picnickers from all over the Bay Area regularly frequent the 500-acre park.

The park is named for one of the more colorful figures of the 19th century. Cincinnatus Hiner (“Joaquin”) Miller.  He was born in Indiana in 1841 and during his life he was a pony-express rider, lawyer, judge, teacher, gold prospector, nomad and author.

During a trip to the Bay Area in 1870, he met California’s first Poet laureat and Oakland’s first librarian, Ina Coolbirth.  Coolbirth convinced him to take the colorful pen name of Joaquin Miller. He became well known as the “Poet of the Sierras.”

When he returned to Oakland in 1886, he settled on 70 acres of grassy hillside, which he had purchased parcel-by-parcel in the hills about the “City of the Oaks.” In an effort to create an inspirational artists’ retreat, he erected monuments, built structures for his mother and daughter, and coordinated the planting of 75,000 trees — monterey cypress, olive and eucalyptus. He died in his home in 1913.

Inviting – Joaquin Miller Park

The Stars are Aligned – GO WARRIORS! (video + pics)

Anyone who knows me, knows I am a huge Warrior basketball fan.  I’ve watched almost every single game this year and we capped it off by going to the record-setting game a few nights ago which was the last game of the season.  It was an historic game as they broke the record of most wins in a season by winning 73, one more than previously held by the Chicago Bulls in the 1995-96 season AND Steph Curry set the record for the highest three-point score in the season which is now 400.  WOW…what a game!!!!!!

A couple fun and somewhat eerie facts about all this are:

1.  Steve Kerr is the current Warriors coach.  He was ON the Chicago Bulls Team when they won their 72 games…a record that has stood until this year when the team he coaches now broke the record.

2.  Another somewhat eerie fact is that on the night of the Bulls trying for their 73rd game, Steph Curry’s dad Dell Curry was the hero for the Hornets who were playing the Bulls.  Dell Curry scored 19 points and hit the final two free throws to give Hornets the 98-97 lead prior to the Bulls’ final possession and kept the Bulls from winning 73 games.  How odd is it these connections between the Currys and Kerr to the Bulls.

Oracle Arena which is in my hometown of Oakland, California, is the loudest arena for basketball.  Oakland fans are awesome and I was in my glory feeling the complete joy and energy of the crowd.  If I never go to another basketball game in my life, I’ll be happy having attended this one!

The playoffs start today and I’m so excited that I thought I’d share a video from the historic record-breaking game of the crowd doing the wave (yes I can’t believe we are still doing the wave) along with some iphone pics.

 

Stef Curry Dribbling in Warmup