On Folsom, far, far, from SOMA, is Klockers Blacksmith & Metal Shop. Started by Fred Wilbert but given it name by Finnish emigrant named  Edwin Klockars. Obviously Edwin Klockars was not the name he was born with as real Finnish first names have to sound like Disney characters such as Mika or Heikki or Kimi  and the last name has to end with "nen" like Hakkinen or Kovalainen or Raikkonen); but, anyway, the shop is now run by Tony Rosinelli. Tony still makes tongs
that are used to clear cans from jammed conveyors.

Inside the shp is like a movie set of an old  blacksmith shop. 

Including machine tools (some of the very few that haven't been sent to China!) and a stove.

While above the shop Tracy Taylor Grubbs holds Salons.

This has been a great year for Poison Oak – atleast in Portola Valley. I'm not sure if that is the good news or the bad news or, maybe, no news, but, the Poison Oak is turning red and it is easy to see that it is everywhere. At the edge of our backyard:

 Along the side of the trail

On fences;

It is an amazingly beautiful plant even though it is sort of scary. I've caught it enough to worry that I may have brushed up against a plant (bush? vine?) when I walk by.

But this time of year – this year when it is so distinctive – it just looks great!

A couple of weekends ago, Richard Taylor and I did two day hikes in the Sierras. They were totally different from each other and each was a typical Sierra hike.

The first hike was more of an afternoon wander at 8600 feet on a soft, balmy afternoon. Really. One of those wondrous afternoons that the High Sierras serve up only a dozen days a year and only if you have been very good. The goal was the Little-Devil's Postpile, an alleged  geologic wonder that Richard had visited as a teenager on a Ranger guided trip.

We started the hike at the western end of Tuolumne Meadows on a warm afternoon with the temperature in the high 70's and,
skirting Pothole Dome on our left, followed the basin for the Tuolumne
River downstream for three miles. The first part of the trip through Tuolumne Meadows was almost flat.

At the end of Tuolumne Meadows – which, when I was about 16, I was told was the world's largest alpine meadow and I now read is only the largest sub-alpine meadow in the Sierra – the Tuolumne River drops through a resistant layer in a gentle canyon.

We followed the river through almost flat layers of rock

until got to the Little-Devil's Postpile. I wandered around looking for a good shot and didn't think about getting a record picture until later. If you are really interested, there is a picture here.

By the time we left, the shadows were getting longer and the backlighting was getting more dramatic, 

and we walked back up river passing quiet pools and lengthening shadows.  

My quintessential memory of the Sierra high country is walking through a high meadow on the way back to camp after a full day of walking around. The air is warm and soft and civilization is a thousand miles away. The reality is that this kind of afternoon is unusual enough that each one is memorable.

And this was one of those days. As we walked – wandered – back to where we started and the car, we were looking up at Unicorn Peak and Cathedral Peak. A couple of classic "horns"  that stuck up above the glaciers about a 1,000,000 years ago.

As we finished the walk, the sun was going down but it was still in the 70's. At the end, we came on a herd of deer. We counted 18 deer and all of them seemed to be bucks. I have never seen that many deer in one place, let alone that many bucks. It was a great end to a typical Sierra walk.

That is the question our vast following here on the web must have been asking.  Alas, we were unexpectedly stranded without internet access.  And it often seemed so close!  While our hotel in Venice had internet access, we have an older computer that could not connect with their system.  They even had an older system but our computer did not have a strong enough wifi receiver to make it work.  Ahh, the challenges of travelling in the internet age!

Since our last post we've been to Venice, returned to Florence, seen Tracy off to her workshop on the Spiritual and Art Practice, and Richard off to Pisa where he writes this on the hotel PC (with its European keyboard) shortly before heading back to SF.  Much ground to cover and little time.  In short:

Venice is wonderful, marvelous, amazing, and many other over the top positive adjectives.

Light, color, sky, architecture, art, and history are some of the dimensions of the above.

We got to spend an afternoon and evening with the Grubbs-Rider clan!

St.Marks is a wonder of the world.

The Biennale was so wonderful Richard dropped all plans to sightsee and spent all day for for two days at the show.  The exhibition spaces alone were incredible and much of the art just amazing.

On the day we left we saw a separate exhibit, Infinitum, that knocked our socks off.

Food highlights were our first italian pizza, lemon-basil gelato, and a seafood-green bean salad.

Technology caused Richard a small heart murmur when the GPS on his iPhone told him his train was headed to Rome instead of Pisa – fortunately it corrected itself before more serious health consequences ensued.

Pisa has a botanical garden that allows you to photograph the leaning tower emerging from jungle vegetation much like a Mayan temple at Tikal.

There you have it!  There may be some more reflective posts after a few days.  We shall see. 

Thanks for reading!

     Today we broke out of the museum pattern and spent the day
wandering around town.  Our initial
destination was the produce (and meat, and fish, and grappa) market at San
Lorenzo.  It is a massive hall that
dwarfs the SF Ferry Plaza.  It is
always a wonderful thing to look at fresh produce and is even better when it’s a
just a bit different as it is here. 
Everything was gorgeous!  In
one shop we spoke to a very helpful young Florentine who hails originally from
Oregon.  She is in school here and
says the job market is way better than Oregon.  We made or way home zigzagging through town succeeding in
keeping most of our shopping to the window- variety.  We had a bit of rain today which blessedly dropped the temp
below 90.  It made walking about so
much more pleasant (there may be a short essay on the heat in a later post).

Dinner tonight was again wonderful.  Nice simple bruscheta with the ripest
melt in your mouth tomatoes you can imagine, an anchovy salad, and a slow
braised beef with peppercorns and various secret ingredients.   We’ve been asked if the meals are
expensive and the answer is yes, but only because everything in Florence is
expensive!  The prices we’ve paid
have been reasonable by Florence standards.  We’ve found most places through our guidebook and we’ve
limited ourselves to places that are a 1 or 2 on their 4 point scale.

Tomorrow we are off to Venice where we hear things are even
more expensive than Florence – we shall see!