With only a few weekends left to post Random Shots of
Beauty, I figured it was time to go back into the photo folders and find some
of the pics I decided to put away for a rainy day. And since it’s been raining for almost five
straight days around Monterey County, this seemed like a perfect time to open
up the rainy day file.
We’ll start with this one from a remote area of Carmel
Valley:
A somewhat nondescript oak tree that my son and I
encountered on a summertime bike ride; it’s not remarkably different than any
other of the thousands of oak trees around here. It was only upon closer inspection that my
son said, “Hey – what do you see on that tree trunk?”
To our eyes, it kind of looked like the tree was looking
back at us. It was very Wizard of
Oz-ish.
Continuing on the “slightly surreal” theme is this shot from
my 11-year-old daughter’s favorite trail running area in Point Lobos State Reserve:
It’s not very often that you encounter a whale skeleton on
your evening run. At least not that I'm aware of.
*
One final note from the weekend: my wife and I had the
privilege of seeing the Blind Boys of Alabama in concert on Friday night – and if
there’s any better way to kick off the Christmas season, I’d be amazed. They played a set of their gospel classics,
plus some gems from their wonderful holiday record, including this tune that may be our
family’s unanimous selection for favorite holiday song of all time.
Blind Boys of Alabama, “Last Month of the Year” (click to
play):
What my running has lacked in quantity lately - and believe me - there's a lot lacking - it has more than made up in quality; case in point is this weekend's Random Shot of Beauty:
A scene from a sunset 5-miler I took with my 11-year old daughter in Point Lobos State Reserve this week. It occurs to me that I've never done a photo tour of this area, which is one of the most spectacular in all of the Monterey Peninsula. Perhaps some day I will ... but in the meantime, to make up for the past few weekends of Internet silence, here are some bonus shots from the same run.
Low mileage, beautiful scenery, and magic moments with my daughter - this is the kind of training I could really get used to.
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A couple of brief notes before an equally brief post ...
1. Thanks to everybody who commented on my Christmas cookies and entered the VIVOBAREFOOT book giveaway this week. The winner is Adelyn, who I've already contacted via e-mail.
2. I'm taking a brief digital siesta after this post, but I hope to be back by the end of next week to officially close out 2011.
And now your Random Shot of Christmas:
The town Christmas tree in Carmel, CA, as seen a couple of hours ago this evening.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
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We're taking advantage of yet another beautiful Monterey weekend to take the family for a day hike, so I'll make this brief:
Five Fingered Pesci, contact me - you've won the Natural Running book! To everybody else, the book is available for $13 from Amazon.com - unfortunately, it's not available on Kindle yet - and it makes a great instruction manual if you're working on your minimalist form.
*
Now for this weekend's Random Shot of Beauty:
View looking south toward Carmel Bay and Point Lobos, as seen from Jacks Peak in Monterey, taken from a trail run that I'll describe in more detail next week.
Have you ever reached into the pocket of a jacket you haven't worn for a while and discovered a little bit of money there? Well, that's sort of what happened to me this week - except instead of money, I found something leftover to give away. I'll explain more in a second.
But first, let's get the CamelBak Groove bottle winner announcement out of the way: Toshi Moshi, e-mail me your contact info - you've won! Thanks as always to everyone who played, and special thanks to CamelBak for sponsoring the giveaway.
Now for the surprise giveaway: you know how there's that little pile of stuff in the corner of your bedroom that you're meaning to do something with someday, but never seem to get around to it? (Because everyone has a pile like that, right? Um ... right?) Well, this week I finally got around to going through my stuff, which tends to contain a lot of gear that I'm preparing to test and review. That's when I found a leftover La Sportiva Hobnail kit that came with my Crossover GTX shoes, which went unused since we don't see a whole lot of ice or snow here in coastal California.
Since there's still a decent amount of winter left in most parts of the country, I figure I should give them away to someone who can put them to good use. If you're interested, leave a comment below and I'll pick a winner at random. I want to make sure they go to a good home, though, so include the city you live in with your comments - and if you live in a place like San Diego or South Florida, go ahead and sit this one out. I'll announce the winner in a separate post on Tuesday night, and drop the hobnails in the mail by the end of next week.
* On to this weekend's Random Shot of Beauty: I took it last weekend, on our family's second consecutive beach weekend in this wonderfully pleasant January. Obviously, the ocean has an incomparable majesty to it, but in my mind it's only the second most beautiful thing in this photo - right behind my 9-year-old daughter:
You all can have your winter weather. I'll take the beach and a beautiful girl any day.
My son and I have to cut our weekly bike rides short nowadays because darkness sets in so quickly - but on our return trip along the beach, we're treated to views like this:
Carmel Beach in mid-November. It's nice to live in California.
“When I get older, I will be stronger – They’ll call me Freedom, just like a wavin’ flag.” - K’Naan, “Wavin’ Flag” (video after post)
Determination is generally a well-respected quality in grown-ups – which is why it seems odd that the same trait in children can often become infuriating.
As usual, it took one of my kids to teach me a lesson I should have known anyway; in this case the instructor was my 6-year-old daughter, and the occasion was her dogged determination to go fly a kite.
She had been bugging me about it for practically the whole summer, but usually at the worst possible moments, like at the end of a long day, or prior to a weekend when we already had several other things scheduled. One such day I finally said to her, “You know what? Go put it on the calendar. Then we’ll be sure to save some time for it.”
Last Saturday, her day finally arrived. (And yes … the writing is adorable.)
It took us a lot longer than I expected to get the first flight off the ground, as the normally reliable winds at Carmel River beach were only intermittently gusty. Eventually I got some decent height under the wings and handed my daughter the reins to keep things under control. So far, no problem.
The point of contention came when she wanted to launch the kite on her own. Since I initially had so much trouble, I figured there was no way my 6-year-old could get the kite to fly – and despite several attempts on her part, she wasn’t able to do it. I finally asked if she wanted my help again, to which she begrudgingly agreed.
We carried on like this for a few more flights: me tossing the kite up and quickly letting out some string, and her running like crazy down the beach to get as much wind resistance as possible. And just as I thought we had the perfect system worked out, my little angel wanted to fire me again.
By this time, we had been out there for a couple of hours, I could tell she was getting tired, and I had absolutely zero expectation that she’d get the kite in the air. So I told her as much, which led to an argument and moping and eventually tears of frustration from my daughter at not being allowed to struggle through something all by herself. The discussion ended with me saying something along the lines of “Fine … go ahead. But don’t ask me for any more help,” or something similarly brilliant.
So she took the kite in her hands, trying over and over to get the thing airborne … and it never happened. Thankfully, she was humble enough to ask for my help again – and even more thankfully, I wasn’t enough of an idiot to decline. We resumed our regular routine that had worked before, and I got to watch her race across the sand with a high flying kite in her wake.
And if I wanted a happy ending, I’d finish the story right there.
As if the first failed experiment never happened, she soon decided she wanted to try it alone again, and the results were similarly disastrous. It was also time for us to leave, news that my daughter greeted with a mini-meltdown. She wasn’t ready to go home, and she darn sure wasn’t ready to give up – but that’s exactly what I was telling her to do. I stood my ground, and chauffeured one upset, cross-armed little girl back home. So back to that determination thing: clearly this girl has it in spades, and just as clearly, it sometimes drives me simply bonkers. What I realized later that evening - and about 6 hours later than I should have - is that her brand of determination probably shouldn’t be discouraged as much as I tried to ... because before I know it, my girl’s going to fly that blasted kite.
** Considering all that I just wrote, it’s probably no coincidence that this song happens to be one of my daughter’s current favorites. And since it was also the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, chances are pretty good that you might be fairly sick of it by now, but I don’t care; it’s still catchy as hell, and I’m still enjoying it with every listen.
