Busy, Bruins, Baseball...

In case you are wondering why I've been slacking on my responsibilities as a blogger I've been super busy at work.  The last two weeks involved getting ready for the re-opening of our Drifters (jellyfish) exhibit.  And because our jellies team rox it all opened Saturday on time and is a HUGE success.

I've also been preoccupied with the Bruins!!!  I honestly never in my life thought I'd see the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals.  Yes, they were in the ultimate championship game back in 1990 but I couldn't tell you anything about my life as a 9 year old outside of being on Mr. Wright's baseball team and even that isn't a clear memory.  All of my recent memories of the Bruins are of utter disappointment, a true Boston sports franchise.  I remember watching them back in 2004 when they managed to lose three consecutive games in the first round to be eliminated by their rivals from Montreal.  It only got worse after that...the Canadiens taking them again in 2008, the painful loss to Carolina in 2009 and who can forget last years despicable 3-0 lead blown to Philly???  This is what the Bruins do...or I guess did.  Somehow this year they managed to squeeze passed Montreal, destroy Philly and tough it out in one of the best playoff series I've ever seen against Tampa.  And don't worry Charlie, I've got my jersey ready and waiting for you when I come visit in February!  So my hat is off to Claude and co. and I wish them nothing but the best of luck as they go on to play Vancouver in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals!!!

On to baseball...I've now been to five games this year in four different stadiums and I'm heading to my sixth tomorrow to watch the A's hopefully embarrass the Yankees.  But how bout them Sox huh???  Is anyone even thinking about the 2-10 start they had back in April?  I think not!  The bats are on fire and the pitching is finally where it should be, without Lackey or Dice-K.  I don't get to watch too many games out here but I listen to as many as I can online and listening to Joe Castiglione is always just as exciting.  I know it's still early and there are a lot of things that need to be worked out, but the Red Sox are looking good right now and I'd be worried if I was anyone else!

Go Sox!  Yankees Suck!  Go Bruins!  I LOVE (and miss) THAT DIRTY WATER!!!

Getting Caught Up (Part II)

We continued our adventurous weekend Saturday and started off, as every morning should, with a nice big breakfast.  The Old Monterey Cafe (http://www.cafemonterey.com/about.html) is only a ten minute walk from my place and is known for having the BEST breakfast in town.  I devoured a couple of blueberry pancakes, easily some of the best I've ever had, along with a biscuit and some sausage.  After breakfast we went to pick up my friend Megan and then we headed off on our way south towards Big Sur.

The weather was perfect; 70 and sunny with the ocean all different shades of blue.  Our first stop was Julia Pfeiffer State Park and if you've been keeping up with my blog you know I've already been here a few times, but parking is free (on the street) and it's an ideal trip for people that have never been to the Big Sur area.  We started up through the woods, over the brook and got up as far as we could at the smaller waterfall, known as McWay Creek Falls.  I decided to climb up a ways to see what was there and as I got to the first ledge I realized I could also get to the second.  From there it seemed like it would have been much easier to keep climbing up but since nobody was following me I thought that maybe I should head back.  Even though these types of climbs are easy going up they are not necessarily the equivalent going down, but I managed without a problem and we turned around and went towards the water.

McWay Creek Falls

As I had mentioned the water was all different shades of blue and the sun was shining.  It was a perfect day and I was happy to be guiding three Big Sur newbies around the area.  

McWay Falls

From Julia Pfeiffer we went north to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.  Pfeiffer Big Sur is named after John Pfeiffer, a gentleman that lived on this property back in the late 1800s.  This was a new state park for me as well as my friends so once we got our bearings we began our hike.  Our main goal was to reach another waterfall, Pfeiffer Falls, but the direct path along the creek was closed so we had to take another path that took us through some redwoods, up some hills and eventually we meandered our way to the falls.  

Superhero pose

 On our way back we took a different path the lead us to this great overlook of the area.  We passed a tree that had "Climb Me" written all over it, so of course I had to stop and pose for a picture.

I was in a climbing mood

 We eventually made it to the top where there was a lookout point that just went on forever and if you look close enough you can see the ocean far off in the haze.

View from the top

 We even made friends with some of the local wildlife in the area.  I'm thinking this is a Mountain Pocket Gopher (Thomomys monticola) and as we stood and watched it (for at least 10 mins) it started coming out further and further, grabbing blades of grass and eating them right in front of us.

One more state park checked off my list; time for lunch!!!  Nepenthe it was and for those of you not familiar with the area this is the place to eat if you are in Big Sur.  I've now been twice, once for dinner and this time for lunch and both meals were incredible!  I had the reuben and it was easily the best one I've ever had, and I eat them frequently.  Theresa and Steve had paninis while Megan tried to enjoy her arugula salad, sans arugula!  We got to eat outside on the patio with a magnificent view of the ocean.

Once lunch was over we continued our journey north to Point Lobos.  We walked around the coast to the beach and then back to the Whaling Station, which was unfortunately closed by the time we arrived (after 6:00PM).  The clouds started rolling in so we didn't stay here too long but still long enough to enjoy it.  Steve got to see his seals up close (he'd been looking for them from the moment he got to Cali), as they were covering the rocks on the beach.

It was a long, exhausting day but well worth it.  We had managed to see three state parks in one day, an absolutely perfect day for hiking the most gorgeous areas on the west coast.  On Sunday Steve and Theresa drove 17-mile drive, stopped in Carmel and then came by the aquarium.  We finished up their Monterey trip at the Cannery Row Brewing Co. watching the Red Sox on ESPN...as every perfect weekend should end!  

It was one of the best, most active Monterey weekends I have had yet and it was great to catch up with my friends.  Having the chance to enjoy where I live was a vast difference from stressing over the Relay for Life or training for a marathon.  

Life is good...

Getting Caught Up (Part I)

Well I'm way overdue on telling you about one of my best weekends here in the great state of California.  My friends Steve and Theresa, old Fish and Wildlife colleagues from St. Pete came into town Thursday, May 19th.  They flew into San Fran Wednesday night, spent Thursday morning hiking around Muir Woods and walking over the Golden Gate Bridge and then came south in the early evening.

We spent Thursday night watching the Bruins defeat the Lightning 2-0 and then went back to my apartment to catch up a bit more and they crashed early due to the jet lag.  Friday was an exciting day in the big city of San Fran...They had tickets to Alcatraz for the 9:10 boat but since I had recently been to the Rock I passed on this opportunity.  Instead I got some breakfast at Mel's Diner (yummy biscuits and gravy) and then headed to Chinatown.

Welcome to Chinatown!

I had never been to Chinatown before and I'm glad I got the chance to spend the entire morning there.  San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest outside of Asia.  The people, the stores, the random items for sale, food, you name it; everything was all quite the experience for me.  I even walked out with a couple of souvenirs!  As I walked up Grant Ave. and finally reached the outskirts of Chinatown I saw North Beach just across the street.  I was standing in between China and Italy!!  I just thought it was pretty cool to be standing in between two completely different cultures, only one block apart.

Anyone for some chicken's feet?!!

After Chinatown I walked to Nob Hill, poking in and out of stores I clearly couldn't afford to buy anything in and then had lunch at a sandwich shop.  After lunch I dropped the car off at a garage near the stadium (AT&T Park) and then met up with Steve and Theresa.  They had a blast on the island and once they grabbed some food we shot up the street to the Transamerica building.  For those of you unfamiliar with this it is the largest building in the city.  It looks like a giant pyramid and is 850 feet tall.

The pyramid is located near the Church of Scientology building which we of course had to venture in to.  It was just about as weird as you would have expected but told the history of how it came about, the room covered with quotes and even a big picture of John Travolta's head!  They then wanted to head into Chinatown so Steve could try to find an Alcatraz shirt that he didn't find on the island...he also did not find one here, FAIL!  After looking in a couple of stores we took off for the stadium because it was extremely important that we get there early so we could get a San Francisco Giants snuggie, the giveaway for the first 20,000 fans entering the game!

I walked in and immediately started jumping on their couch...

You might laugh at the fact that we headed down early for a snuggie, and to be honest I haven't even taken mine out of the bag yet, but I have never seen lines this long to get into a ballgame.  We were almost 1/4 mile away from the stadium and once we started moving it took us over a half hour to get in.  We got our snuggies and then toured the stadium a bit since it was only 5:30 and the game didn't start until after 7:00.  As we were walking around there were several sketchy old guys trying to buy peoples snuggies off of them for $10!  The game was great and the Giants managed to pull off a good win in extra innings.  Overall it was a very productive day!

Can you find the stadium?

Getting closer... 

And we made it!

Big Sur International Marathon

I ran the Big Sur International Marathon yesterday, May 1st, 2011.  What a race it was!  It was very difficult with rolling hills, slanted roads and an out and back course but it was also one of the most surreal races in terms of scenery.  I've talked about how unbelievable the Big Sur area is before, but I got an entirely new perspective from my feet instead of being in my car.

The race started at 6:45 and I was lucky enough to get a ride with my landlord's friend.  The alternative was taking a shuttle that was leaving at 4:30; this bus was instead leaving at 5:30 and probably saved me!  There were a lot of people talking after the race about how they had to wait forever for a bus out in the cold at 4:00AM so I'm grateful to have not experienced that.

After warming up (it was a bit brisk in the AM) I headed for the starting line but unfortunately couldn't make it up to the first wave of runners in time so I stayed back in Corral B.  Our 2nd wave of runners left 3 minutes after the initial wave and we were off!  Not even a mile up the road, probably only 1/2 mile we hit the first hill.  With the crowds and the hill everyone had a very slow first mile.  The crowd eventually worked itself out, for a little while anyway.

Due to a part of the highway that fell into the ocean on Rte 1 near the Bixby Bridge this course was altered from the original course.  Instead of starting south of Bixby and ending in Carmel we had to do an out and back starting at Carmel Village/Rio Road.  After talking to a lot of runners after the race the consensus was that this one was actually harder than the original, normal route.  The normal route does have one brutal 2 mile hill (~560ft elevation) but after that it's the rolling hills we had to run; only thing is that we had to run those hills twice (fun, fun!)  The out and back caused a bit of congestion but it wasn't too big an issue.  There were several other races going on (9 mi, 10.6 and 21) so we were always running past people coming the other way.

There were a lot of bands on the side of the roads entertaining us; everything from rock to reggae to a piano player to drums.  My greatest memory was coming down one of the many hills after running through Carmel, past Point Lobos and finally seeing the ocean.  I looked at the girl next to me and both of us at the same time, mouths dropped were in awe of what we were seeing.  The ocean crashing up on the shore with the green hills (mountains in New England) jetting out into the water.  It is one sight that will never leave my mind.

I've gotta give the race credit for the amount of water/gatorade/GU that was offered along the course.  It obviously helped that it was out and back but there were aid stations everywhere.  The weather was perfect; 70 and sunny, no wind or precipitation and even got hot by the end.  I did not have any issues with my knee or achilles that had been acting up over the last few weeks but only had pain in my toes, especially as I was running on the slanted portions of the road.  I was actually running with my left foot pigeon-toed at times.

I felt pretty good through mile 20, I'd say maybe even up to 23 when I started cramping up just a bit in my hamstrings but not bad enough to stop forward progress.  I started taking longer strides to stretch them out mid-stride and that helped.  By mile 24 I was feeling great and getting excited for the finish line but then at mile 25 I hit the final hill.  It was a hill with a very good incline, especially after running for 3.5 hours and it went on for 1/2 mile.  It was the longest 1/2 mile EVER!  And once I got to the top (practically crawling) I was pretty done but cruised in and eventually sprinted for the big FINISH sign staring me in the face.  I finished with a smile, tried to raise my arms for my picture but couldn't get them too high up, with the clock reading 3:41:19 (official time.)

My attitude at the end of this one was a 180 from my first marathon.  I felt great when I finished (outside of being sore/dehydrated), I had hit the time I wanted almost exactly, and was psyched that I had just finished one of the greatest marathons in the United States.  It is said that this is one of the top 3 races in the US along with Boston and New York and even though I've never ran the others I completely agree that this race is something every runner should experience.

The rest of the day was very relaxing, especially since I wasn't at work.  I got to watch the Celtics get their butts kicked, relaxed at home and then finished off the night on Carmel Beach with some new friends I made that morning.  With a bottle of champagne and a beautiful sunset we celebrated our fine accomplishment of finishing the Big Sur International Marathon, 2011.