Fleet Week’s Blue Angels final day flying. Seen from atop Bernal Hill. Oh what a beautiful day!!

I dont think that once in the last 20 years, have i seen an entire week (yes i mean 7 whole days!  and it is still going now!!) with incredible weather during Fleet Week.  Usually we get a couple days, but (as in last year), the fog came in right around the time they started flying and only were able to do one trick and pass over the bay before having to call it.  Some years, they dont even fly.  If they cant see their plot points it is very dangerous as well as if it is too foggy, we cant see them.  This week though, none of that issue as you can see below.. It was maybe the most beautiful weathered Fleet Week in the last 2 decades!  It was really awesome.

Blue Angels doing their loop-de-loop over SF bay. Thank heavens they use the smoke or i’d have never been able to capture it on my iphone!

One of my favorite members of the Blue Angels team… FAT ALBERT!

From atop Bernal Hill at the top by the Microwave tower. the little speck in the sky fat albert leaving scene of the fly by!

Oh what a view!

That speck up there is not a plane, but a beautiful Red Tailed Hawk.

Neighbor and his boy were enjoying the sites at the top too. They were very nice.

Hey hey hey!

Oopsie… a little bit of trouble atop the tower. I dont know if the girl who was running on the roof of the tower got arrested or just warned. Note… should never trespass on city govt. property while hundreds of people are there watching.

whoops. another guy being talked to by the popo. i saw him later though so they let him go. yea.

pretty steep up here at 436 feet up.

while we are here, lets check out our 49ers! Candlestick is just to the left of the bluff.

I hope you enjoyed the photo recap.  I know we dont have the best view to see all the exciting flying, but i personally think that 1. the views of the city make it worthwhile!  And 2. not having to fight the traffic makes it all doable!

Photos of Ashland Oregon’s Lithia park

From my family reunion. Beautiful work McClaren sure does. This park though much smaller still has the quaint wonderland feel that his claim to fame Golden Gate Park has. Really lovely! Could get lost here for days!

Typical walk to go to the store…. Welcome to my neighborhood of Bernal Heights.

I decided that i would take some photo’s of what i see when i walk to the store.  It is about 8-10 blocks away and down a huge hill to get to.  So i take my time when at all possible.

One of the first things i come across upon my descent is one of my more favorite houses… the “red house” as i call it.  It sits on a strange triangular piece of property which makes this house a little unusual.  And totally adorable!

You can see the red house and its strange property shape here by looking straight ahead beyond the bushes and shurbs.  There is a walkway on both sides of the house and i am about to show you the left walkway next.

…shortcut stairs to Virginia Street.

This is the view from the middle of the path on the way down.  Notice our beautiful Mount Sutro lounging in a little fog….

 

 

After going down, one has to come back up.

And this is now where i introduce you to my little park… the Eugenia Steps….  These steps are great because, first, they are wonderfully cared for by a caring neighbor who takes pride in his work (birdie told me that there was nothing but weeds until he had gotten ahold of it.  Now it is really clean and well tended!  Thank you sir!)  We start at the bottom looking up in this first photo

Now we are looking down the steps from closer to the top.  This is probably about 300 ft. rise from the store at the bottom.

…and because we are so far up there now, it affords us some beautiful views and a place to sit and enjoy them! Yea!

…looking west….

looking north towards the mission.

and on to the last little leg of the steps….

and one last departing shot while the branches of the trees swing apart in the wind long enough to get a photo….

I hope you enjoyed my little tour of my route to the store at the bottom of the hill.  It being so beautiful sure helps the pain of walking up almost 400 feet straight up.  Keeps one from needing a thigh master though!

This is both funny and a little bit disturbing…I ask you… a coincidence?

Go back in your mind to last year.  There was about to be a royal wedding!  What was her dress gonna look like?  How formal was the ceremony going to be? Would they kiss on the balcony?

With Williams and Kate’s wedding, we all discovered a very traditional (yet with little touches of modernity added in there for good measure, like instead of a horse drawn carriage to bring Kate to the ceremony, they chose to use those AWESOME cars instead! and of course the 2 kisses!)

Not a one could have predicted this though.  Who would have thought that it could have been so SO similar?  Could something this crazy be a complete accident?  You tell me!

Personally, i think it is not too crazy of a concept to model a royal wedding after Cinderella.  Every little first discovers princesses through Disney and later (if they are lucky), through beauties like Diana and Kate.  It sure makes it that much easier to plan if you have an outline in color already made up for you!  Aah… maybe it is just a fluke….  I just dont know.

Weekly Photo Challenge 1/4/2012: Arrange

I actually did a post about how crazy it is that some poor minimum wage retail worker actually spends their quiet shop time (or maybe that is another employee’s lone job!) laying out each and every gummy fish and worm so that they are arranged in a very she-she type display!  I bet their candy aint cheap if you are paying for someone to do this!