We are puzzled by what our transmission is doing and what’s actually wrong with it.

21 February 2009: This woman was strolling along the beach, one of many who were using it for their morning play or exercise. The picture didn’t really come out how I wished, but I liked the way she was reflected in the watery sand.

21 February 2009: I like purple. You can really see the thick, succulent vegetation, which crawls over the dunes and somehow manages to cling on. This is a survivalist plant, and looks beautiful too.

21 February 2009: The dunes were covered in these tough-looking, lovely flowers. I don’t know what they are, but I know that somebody’s going to tell me Real Soon Now. I want to say sea holly, but I don’t know. Either way, they grow in sand.

I became an American citizen on Tax Day, in a triple snarf: a historic landmark designated to three different historic registers. I couldn’t have been more delighted. The structure in question was the Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland, and while none of us had a really stellar camera, you can easily see why it was [...]

21 February 2009: We were aiming for SLO, but stopped here, at Pismo Beach, because it was dark and the fog was coming in. A short walk had me right down at a large, open beach. It was busy with people walking their dogs or children, a play beach, surrounded by dunes, rather than spectacular. [...]

20 February 2009: We cut inland where the land became softer and green. I remember spotting this road, cutting through the fields, and thinking it might be fun on a motorcycle.

20 February 2009: After a while the builders of highway 1 must’ve gotten tired of skirting the coast and instead burrowed through it. We have a little sticker inside the RV with our height on it. This helps us to not have panic attacks when we see heights printed on bridges and tunnels. ;)

20 February 2009: As we left the gentle bay at Refugio the coast became rockier and more wild. But it doesn’t come much wilder than this little display of geologic might. I last saw this kind of thing in Nevada, where it looks like the rock just folded up. Of course, that’s exactly what did [...]