Author: Rebecca J Hogue

  • Vacation Day 2 – Calaveras North Grove Trail

    Since we awoke to a stove the did not work, and we didn’t want to use our pots on an open fire, I had to get creative with breakfast. Fortunately, I had purchased some fuel tablets to use as fire starter: they could also be used to heat a pot of water. The process was slow, but we…

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  • Vacation Day 1 – A comedy of errors

    June 3, 2015 I found myself sitting at the campsite, slightly drunk after enjoying a glass of wine, thinking what else could go wrong? When we were packing, I figured we didn’t need the old matches that were in our camping kit. We had a nice lighter; however, I didn’t realize that the lighter was…

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  • Sailing

    Sailing is something that both Scott and I enjoy. Back in Ottawa, we spent several years racing sailboats. It is in part how we learned to communicate effectively early on in our relationship. It takes a lot to of communication to effectively race together! Last summer, we decided to try out sailing with the America’s…

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  • Tourist food and ‘fine dining’

    We are up in Yosemite for our anniversary and finding ourselves wishing we had booked a condo with a kitchen rather than a hotel room. We tried twice to have a ‘nice’ anniversary meal (first at the Wawona Inn and then at the Ahwahnee Inn) – both times we were thwarted by mediocre food passed…

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  • Not exactly how we planned it

    Last month Becky moved to California (yay), but last week everything changed. Last Thursday, Becky was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is blogging about her experience at http://bcbecky.com. This is not exactly the journey we had planned, but we are grateful that we are living in the same city, and that the weather here is…

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  • Portola Redwoods State Park – California

    We explored a new State Park today – Portola Redwoods State Park. It is about an hour drive from our place. Unlike the trails we have hiked at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the trail we hiked here was much less flat. There were not as many big trees. When we looked into the history…

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  • South San Francisco Bay Rides – Coast and Hills

    When we first moved to the San Francisco Bay area, I found myself looking for nice places to ride. I’ve found a few routes that I enjoy – most of which are no more than a 90-minute drive from where we live (in Santa Clara). This morning we road what I call the Coast and…

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  • Camping in Northern California (South of San Jose) – Part 1 Pinnacles National Park

    We recently went on a short camping vacation (5 days, 4 nights). Since we didn’t make reservations in advance, and it was perhaps the busiest camping time of the year (the first week in August), our options were somewhat limited. However, this was our first experience with camping in Northern California, so it was to…

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