Winterizing: maritime version

Last weekend, Anuenue helped with haul-out of the Viking longship. The ship needs to be taken out of the water for maintenance (sanding, caulking, hacking of barnacles, etc). The day was chilly and overcast....

After rowing to the boat ramp, the ship is readied for haulout.

A trailer is lowered on the ramp, and the ship is pulled onto the trailer with ropes. Anuenue stays out of the water and help direct the trailer instead.

It is low tide, and difficult to get the ship onto the trailer, but finally she is winched on.

After a short drive, the ship arrives back at winter quarters on a nearby farm.

It was a long day, and the sun is setting. A ground fog quickly develops as the air chills, making the farm look creepy. Anuenue is glad to ride back home in the warm car, where she can get ready for holiday fun on Sunday!

AGU annual meeting

While in San Francisco, Anuenue attended the American Geophysical Union (AGU) annual meeting. There are about 20,000 scientists at the meeting each year.

 Anuenue checks out the daily newspaper listing all of the presentations for the day. Lots of choices!

 On Tuesday, she gets to the poster hall early, while the posters are being set up. Each day, there are about 3,000 scientific posters on display, and the posters change each day of the meeting.

From the mezzanine, there is a view of the poster hall. This is a tiny section of the posters. It is hard to see one end of the poster hall from the other end.

San Francisco

Next stop on the trip: San Francisco! After a plane ride from ABQ to San Jose, Anuenue takes the Caltrain to downtown SF! The train is pretty empty, and she gets her own seat.

 

Anuenue is staying in Union Square, where the holiday decorations are going up. This cherry picker is placing the star on top of the holiday tree. 

 

At night, the tree is all lit up!

The palm trees are decorated as well. They remind Anuenue of home, but it is a lot colder in SF!

The Macy's overlooking the square is decorated too.

The best window displays at Macy's are the kittens (and puppies) that are available for adoption! So cute!

 

 Anuenue stops by the Yerba Buena gardens to check out the fountains

 

There are also big ferns that remind her of Hawaii:

Overlooking the gardens is this historic church:

 In the evening, Anuenue heads to Chinatown to get dinner.

 Yum - xiao long bao and lion's head meatballs in clay pot at Bund Shanghai!

 On the way back to the hotel, Anuenue spots this big lighted holiday tree near Chinatown:

 

The next night, Anuenue went out for cocktails. First, she went to a dueling piano bar in an Irish pub:

 Then she headed back to Union Square to go to the Starlight Lounge (with the neon sign)

The lounge is on the top floor and has a special elevator button!

 

The fog blocks off some of the view of the city, but Anuenue can see the whole downtown area of SF from the lounge dance room.

Before leaving, Anuenue watches the trolleys turn around at the base of Powell Street.

There are handy tips on how to ride the trolley without getting into trouble.

On the Road Again

First stop on the trip: Albuquerque (again). Not much in the way of anything new, except this time there are holiday decorations up.

An uneventful daytime flight allows Anuenue to check out the stratus clouds below...

The hotel lobby with cow skull and fireplace. We spent a lot of time here, although sadly the fireplace had a glass door and put off little heat.

Anuenue spent an afternoon checking out Old Town, and this time the stores were open. This store has a nice selection of chilis.

 

The Old Town historic church, in better light.

Old Town is decked out for the holidays with this large tree.

The prevailing decoration is luminarias,  placed around the roofline of buildings. The modern luminarias are electric with plastic bags instead of the traditional candles and paper bags.

Magic mushrooms

It was a cold, rainy November day.

What to have for dinner without going shopping...what do we find in the cupboard? It is time for mu'er (wood ear fungus) with pickled peppers!

 

 

The dried fungus doesn't look like much at first....

But we add some boiling water and voila!

Within a minute or two the fungus has expanded to fill a big bowl!

While the fungus is soaking, we make a tasty sauce with the peppers.

Yum!

Alpacas and Baltimore

Today Anuenue went to the Maryland Alpaca Festival! There were all kinds of alpacas, including some baby alpacas (cria).  The parent alpaca kept a close eye on Anuenue.

This herd of alpacas stayed in a tight cluster.

One special part of Anuenue's visit was meeting several other craftsters and craftster-to-be!

After the festival, Anuenue headed over to downtown Baltimore. She took a short stroll through the Federal Hill neighborhood with classic rowhouses.

From the top of Federal Hill, there is an excellent view of the inner harbor with lots of boats.

There are even some cannons on the top of the hill, used during the Civil War to threaten the business district of Baltimore to ensure that the city and state would remain loyal to the Union. Riots that accompanied the Union seizure of Baltimore lead to the writing of what is now the state song, the lyrics of which encourage Maryland to secede and join the Confederacy. Really.

Next to Federal Hill is the American Visionary Art Museum, dedicated to self-taught, intuitive artists. No photos allowed inside, but there are a number of outdoor sculptures:

And this art van too...

At night the chandelier tree is extra sparkly!