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Chinese!
Started Chinese classes tonight (at City College of San Francisco). As my friends know quite well, I am fascinated by languages. The tonal nature and character complexity of Chinese will present an interesting and unique challenge. We'll see how it goes...

BOOK REVIEW - Never Eat Alone
3-Stars
Very good book, but strays off topic at times.

BIG SUR / CARMEL WEEKEND
The natural beauty of Northern California never ceases to amaze me, and this past weekend was no exception. Janet and I took an impromptu drive down the coast, with no clear idea of what the weekend would bring. As is typical of our jaunts together, the trip brought with it some adventure, a lot of laughs, and plenty of memories. The highlight of the weekend was a 20+ mile day-hike in Big Sur along the Pine Ridge Trail to Sykes Hot Springs.

The funniest part of the hike occured before we ever hit the trail. After a late start, we hastily ran over to Safeway to get some last-minute provisions. It was an incredible frustrating shopping experience, however, as Janet and I had never seen a worse food selection at any supermarket! After scrounging around for any alternative to meet our upcoming sustenance needs along the trail, we left the store declaring that it was the 'worst Safeway ever!'. Exactly as we were making that profound statement, we both turned around to realize our problem - we were in a drug store (Long's Drugs - which explains why there was little food and a lot of household goods), and the Safeway we sought was actually next door. Ooops...

After that experience, the adventure was ready to begin. The trail for the Pine Ridge Trail begins innocently enough just off of Highway 1. Once we cleared the initial coastal fog on our way inland, the vistas that were afforded to us were nothing short of spectacular. We were reminded on many occasions of the dramatic scenery that we had been lucky enough to experience along the El Choro trail in Bolivia. The length of our trail combined with our late start forced us to finish the last hour of the hike in the dark (of a total of 9 hours). It was a challenging and rewarding hike, which should be good preparation for my upcoming ascent attempt of Mount Whitney.

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