To my amazement, this is the one hundredth post that I’ve done since I started to blog last January. It seemed to happen so fast. I guess it really is true that time flies when you’re having fun. Thank you to everyone who reads and comments!

We just got back from a four day trip to San Francisco, which is about six hours south of where we live. We knew that the weather was predicted to be “interesting”. Little did we know. But first, here’s a really special photo my husband took before we left. I was out running errands, he went to get the mail and saw this little grey fox snoozing in the sun right out in the driveway of a house across the street. He got the camera and he/she was still there. This is one of the best shots. Pretty cool.

As anyone who has cats and dogs knows, they figure out pretty quickly when something is up and the humans are going away. Some get anxious and some, well, don’t.

When we left, the ocean looked like this:

We speculated on where we might see snow on the mountaintops and maybe even on the road. I figured Rattlesnake Pass between Laytonville and Willits.

Wrong. This was almost an hour north in Redwood Country, where we rarely see snow on the coast.

Mmm, it’s getting heavier and right down to the road.

It’s a….Winter Wonderland!

Snow, snow all along the route. Laytonville and Willits were covered with snow. Really beautiful and an unusual treat for us coastal northern Californians where the average temperature in January is 55F.

But we got to our room at the Emeryville Courtyard Marriott and had this killer view of San Francisco at sunset. And the Golden Gate Bridge.

Notice the clear skies. So we had nice weather, but cold, for what we came down to do: Family visit, the Yves St. Laurent show “Style”, at the de Young Museum and the Afghani treasures show, “Afghanistan” at the Asian Art Museum. A bonus at the de Young was an absolutely knock-out show of geologic forms, “Systematic Landscapes” in a variety of media by Maya Lin, who designed the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington D.C.

We got in a stop at IKEA, too.

Of course we took advantage of the culinary richness of the Bay Area, eating Thai (Boran, Solano Ave., Berkeley), Ethiopian (Addis, Telegraph Ave., Oakland), Italian (Pasta Pomodoro, Bay Center, Emeryville) and seafood (Sea Salt, San Pablo Ave.. Berkeley). At the Sea Salt Restaurant, I couldn’t an unexpected opportunity to try the legendary drink Absinthe for the first time. There were three choices and I went for the St. Georges, which is distilled in Alameda, right down the road from Berkeley. It was…..amazing. A little goes a really long way. We found it at a, hate the name, BevMo and indulged in a bottle, which ought to last a couple of years depending on how many artist and other friends care to try it.

And, since David had accidently put his cell phone through the washing machine and our contract was up next spring anyway, we went to an Apple store and got iPhones. Absolutely revolutionary devices. Effortless to use. Intuitive. More stuff than you ever thought you’d want to do. The procrastination possibilities are almost endless. And the phone works just fine, too.

The trip home yesterday was in rain, hard rain and pounding, monsoon-like rain. We were glad to collect the collie boy and kick back for a quiet evening.

I’m going to take next week off and celebrate the holidays with family. Mongolia Monday will return on the 29th. Before we left, I got this photo of Michiko snuggled in her chair amongst some garlands that I’d draped over it.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!