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June 11th – Morro Bay to Santa Monica

Not as much fun as the drive the day before.  Highway 1 merges with 101 for awhile and runs inland, away from the coast.  Saw a lot of produce fields (Dole and Driscoll), lost Highway 1 twice but found it again.  Traffic is crazy but not really that bad, but then again I’m not in a hurry either.

Had lunch in Malibu, probably the most expensive grilled cheese I’ve ever had but it was tasty.  Tried to guess who was in all the expensive cars.

Walked the Santa Monica pier, forgot to take pictures.  After the central coast, Santa Monica beach just isn’t as exciting.  I’m looking forward to the LA tour tomorrow and the San Diego zoo, but so far, I prefer the central coast to SoCal.

My hotel in Morro Bay was next to this bird nesting area.  I could hear them when I got there but it was dark.  Took these pictures this morning, then some oil drilling rigs somewhere between there and here, but that was pretty much it for pictures today.

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Driving:  216.1 miles

Walking:  13,252 steps (doesn’t seem right – must have been a bumpy car ride)

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June 10th – Highway 1 South and Hearst Castle

Highway 1 south from Monterey to Hearst Castle was amazing.  Twisting and turning, up hill and down hill, around every corner another stunning view.  I stopped a lot – to both look and to catch my breath.  A couple places I wasn’t actually able to stop at because of the vertigo.  The road is up pretty high from the shore and it’s awfully close to straight down.  There wasn’t much traffic, so I could pretty much go at my own pace.  Just before San Simeon, there were elephant seals!

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Spent the afternoon at Hearst Castle.  Amazing place.  A lot of the inside  pictures didn’t come out well because of no flash.  I did two of the tours and would definitely go back to do more of them.

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Driving:  128.7 miles

Walking: 12,763 steps

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June 9th – Monterey Bay Aquarium

Not that many pictures – I was too busy looking.  Cool place, the backstage tour was interesting.  I’m glad I went on a weekday, I can’t image how crowded it would be on a weekend.  They had an amazing exhibit about plastics in the ocean.  I bought a reusable bag for groceries…

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Walked along Cannery Row for a while, had a (ridiculously expensive) Ghirardelli sundae for lunch, then headed back to the hotel and crashed for a while.

Driving:  5.5 miles

Walking:  10,509 steps

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June 8th – Half Moon Bay to Monterey

Woke up early (for CA time, normal for NY time).  Headed south on Highway 1 towards Santa Cruz.  Stopped at this little pull off area and found seals!

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Very foggy this morning, I was on the road around 7:30am.  I think I may have missed some of the views because of the fog.  Santa Cruz was a busy tourist town.  Stopped at Safeway (for a toothbrush, so far the only thing I’ve forgotten to pack) and picked up a turkey pesto avocado sandwich for lunch later.  Didn’t spend much time in Santa Cruz, moved on towards Monterey.

Learned the hard way that the first step to putting the top down on a convertible is to tie your hair back.  Otherwise, that was pretty cool, actually.  Never been in a convertible before.  It wasn’t as windy as I expected.

Made it  to Monterey, took the 17 Mile Drive.  I highly recommend it, totally worth the $10.

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Driving:  135.7 miles

Walking: 12,964 steps

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June 7th – New York to Half Moon Bay

Got up late – who’s surprised by that.  Still made it to the airport in plenty of time:

Sunrise in Syracuse, NY

Sunrise in Syracuse, NY

Syracuse to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco.  That second one was tough – just over 4 hours.  Pretty cloudy and I slept some, but I saw what I’m assuming were the Rockies.  And there was a flock of (plastic) flamingos at the end of the Chicago runway, where you wait in line to take off, which made me laugh.

My ride for the next two weeks:

June7_02 June7_08

Yep, it’s blue.  I’m a little bit in love.

Tonight I’m in Half Moon Bay.  Grabbed a burger at a little place next to the hotel, either California burgers are really good or the half a lemon poppy seed muffin at 6am didn’t last long enough.  Then walked down to the beach.

Half Moon Bay:  I was going to match the ‘sunrise in Syracuse’ with ‘sunset in CA’ but I’m pretty much done for the day.

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay

 

Flying:  2,450 miles

Driving: 24.3 miles

Walking:  6,086 steps

 

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It’s all about the Chad

yeah, ok.  that only lasted one week.  updates soon.  probably.

 

meantime:

103371994_crop_650x440

i am disproportionally attached to this gentleman.  Chad Knaus, crew chief of the #48 lowes chevrolet.

(i also seem to have lost the shift key.  I think mr. daniels may have it.)

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Treadmill pic from 2/17

Feb 17th was my first day back at the gym in… more than a year at least.  This is pathetic but gotta start somewhere:

treadmill 2-17

This is also Jimmie Johnson’s fault.  http://jimmiejohnsonfoundation.org/events/jimmie-johnson-foundation-wellness-challenge/

Don’t think I’ll make any of those races.  Planning a local 5k probably, with a long term goal of the Daytona Half Marathon in Feb 2015.  No r and eason I can’t do it, right?

Also went 2/18 and 2/20.  Got all the way up to 2.88mph

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Menu for week of 2/24

Between work, and now the gym, I just don’t want to make the time every night to make new things.  Luckily, I don’t mind eating the same thing every day all week.  So, on Sundays I make all my meals for the week, individually packed and ready to go.

Breakfast:

Pumpkin Refrigerator Oatmeal

  • 1/2 cup oatmeal (should be old fashioned but I have some quick-cook that needs to be used up)
  • 1/2 cup skim milk
  • couple tablespoons pumpkin puree (basically, the can divided by the 5 servings I’m making)
  • packet of Truvia
  • generous tsp of pumpkin pie spice

mix together, refrigerate until morning.  I make all of the weeks worth on Sunday and it’s still good, or even better, by Friday.

Lunch:

Faux taco chicken

  • 3 oz cooked chicken
  • 1/2 cup brown rice
  • Big can crushed/diced tomato (whichever I’ve got)
  • Bag of frozen corn
  • packet of low sodium taco seasoning

I usually just bake some chicken breasts with salt/pepper.  Alton Brown is my hero; the only way I’m able to make edible brown rice: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/baked-brown-rice-recipe.html

Simmer tomato, corn, seasoning while I’m working on other things.

I’m feeling lazy re: fruit this week, so it’s a fruit cup.  Unsweetened applesauce, peaches, or mandarin oranges.

Late Afternoon:

3/4 cup Chobani 0% Plain (big container divided by 5, see a trend here?), 1/2 cup blueberries + packet of Truvia, 1/4 cup Khashi Go Lean Crunch

Dinner:

This is still in the crockpot, so we’ll see how it comes out

I had a sweet potato and a russet potato that need using, cubed into bottom of crockpot, along with a couple of red potatoes and half a red onion left over from last week.  Added two bags of frozen green beans.  Then 6 pork chops topped with Dinosaur Slathering Sauce, maybe 3/4 of the bottle?  Smells good, worried that the green beans will be over done.