Moonlight Classic

Last Night Emiliano and I drove to Stocton to see the Moonlight Classic, a drum and bule core extravaganza. When we left Santa Cruz around 3:30 the fog was burning off in our section of town. When we got to the other side of 17 we saw the tep rise to 100. 100 in Los Gatos! As we continued or journey north east we saw temps as high as 109! When we arrived in Stockton it was 108. Good thing there was shade in the stadium.

The performances this year were great. The blue devils were awesome as usual. The mandarins were cool. And a group I'm not sure I've seen before, the blue coats, had a great drum section. There were some weird things this year like air mattresses being used as props. Whatever! In general it seemed like the level of creative performance form the groups was down. I didn't notice as many fun and flashy things from the bands, but the color gards were great! If you've never seen a drum core performance and check them out on you tube and then go see one. It's a show unlike any other.

LYME

Over the past few months I have been experiencing more symptoms. Aside form the daily pain, I am now having neurological symptoms. I am forgetting things, having a hard time remebering, and normal activities are getting challenging. I keep bumping into things, my typing, spelling, and writing are getting sloppy. I'm tired every day even though I sleep about 10 hours or more every night. This is not fun.

Thanks to a very generous donation form Natalie (squirrel), I was able to go and have another visit with Treya Palmer, a Naturopath in Sonoma County. She told me a year ago that she thought I could be getting Lyme and this time she said that I have it. This would explain my symptoms and why they are getting worse.

I suspect I got it at Camp Cazadero in May of '06 while I was working as a naturalist. Shortly after that I started getting arm and neck pains, and getting really tired. I thought I was just getting burnt out from my job, but I haven't felt not tired since then.

Treya has me on a whole bunch of supplements some of which are antibiotic and antibacterial. I'm also getting acupuncture from our friend Karen. Emiliano and I have been working hard to get me tested and treated through our insurance, but it is a slow process. We've dropped off my blood at a lab in Palo Alto and hopefully they will be able to provide us with a positive test result so that I can get on antibiotics and get rid of this yucky thing.

There is a documentary out right now about Lyme and the medical and political climate surrounding it. We have seen it and it is very interesting. It likely won't be in theaters for long so please go out and see it asap if it is playing near you. It's important with this film to get large numbers of viewers in the theaters so that the associated industries know this is an important issue. Check it out at www.underourskin.com

Big Sur

Our 1 year wedding anniversary was on June 14th. We went out to dinner at the Crow's Nest which is where we first met in person. We had a yummy dinner and Emiliano even wore a shirt with buttons, just for me.


Our real celebration was treating ourselves to a vacation in Big Sur. June 17th -19th we went camping at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park campground. Emiliano had never been there so I took him on a tour of all the best places. We stopped many times along the way to check out the view from the road. He loved it!


Then after setting up camp we went for a walk in the nearby Big Sur River. The Water was so clear and refreshing. Later we made a yummy dinner over the fire and slept with a thousand stars above us.


The next morning, we made breakfast and went for a drive south to look for the famous sand dollar beach. We made numerous stops along the way to enjoy the scenery. One of the stops was at Julia Pfeifer Beach. We walked out a quarter mile to a lookout where you can see a waterfall that spills off the cliffs onto the sandy beach. That was so beautiful. By the time we finally got to Sand Dollar I was really tired. We had lunch in the back of the truck and walked out to get a good view of the beach and check to see if it would be surfable. It was foggy and windy and I was getting progressively slower so we headed back.







We decided instead to spend the afternoon at Pfeiffer Beach because it was clear and sunny and warm. The beach was much closer and I was able to rest on the beach while Emiliano went and explored sand dunes (he found an awesome knife in the sand) , rocks, and tried to collect grains of the purple sand for me. My brain is getting so foggy I didn't even realize that I had been to this beach before until I saw my feet in purple sand and then I remembered building sand castles with Hosanna and the crew.



For dinner we decided to treat ourselves to very overpriced burgers and fries and Nepenthe. Seriously, $7.75 for fries? You've got to be kidding. But the view is amazing. Even so, I recommend that you treat yourself if you have never been there. It's a one of a kind place. After that it was back to camp for showers and hanging out by the fire.



The next morning we packed up and headed into town looking for brunch and decided to indulge at the River Inn restaurant. We had amazing food out side on the patio. Then Emiliano ordered a morning beer and we headed down to the river where they have chairs in the river for you to sit in while you enjoy your drinks. Awesome! We had planned to stop and hang out at the beach at Andrew Molera, but it was SUPER windy there and the weekend crew was rolling in so we called it quits for this trip and decided we would just go back later this summer. We're hoping to take a group of people with us and maybe get two or three sites for everyone.

It was a perfect way to celebrate being married for one year.