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dweniusOn Friday, Anne's brother John and nieces Jill, Erin, and Kerry showed up for a week's stay in wet, windy Berkeley. Nina is in heaven, a house full of people to play with! Later on Friday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rwx came by briefly, and we all sat around passing Calvin from person to person and prepping for the weekend.
On both Friday and Saturday night, I went out to see the Steve Kimock Band play at the Avalon Ballroom in SF. Sadly,canetoad chose to stay home with her broken toe and house full of people. Probably for the best, given that there wasn't really any place to sit down inside the Avalon, but I missed her terribly. The venue, to my surprise, is the actual, historical, Chet-Helms-and-the-Family-Dog Avalon Ballroom of 60's legend, re-opened after 30 years (that must have been one hell of a noise complaint). It is a great concert space, with high ceilings, carpeted floor (must be hell to clean), a powerful sound system, plus a balcony in the back and along the left hand side. It holds maybe 1,000 people? In the very back of the room, the sound was a little boomy/muddy, but I spent most of the shows about 10 feet from the stage (wearing flat frequency response earplugs), and up there the sound was just fine.
SKB had a slightly different lineup than the last time I saw them; Jim Kost, a high school pal of Steve's, sat in on keys, playing mostly vibes and Rhodes piano styled sounds. He didn't really step out and solo much, but the additional tone colors were a nice addition to the music. Also, Alphonso Johnson returned on bass after a year's hiatus. Rodney Holmes on drums and Mitch Stein as "the other guitarist" were solid as usual. Actually, "solid as usual" does a disservice to Rodney, who almost always sounds like three people playing three different drum sets. The band was in peak form, and Steve was relentless, finding new themes and rhythmic contours in songs he must have played 2,000 times. The first set on Friday was only five songs, but clocked in at 2 hours. Utterly monstrous. On Saturday night I went with brother-in-law John and ex-cow-orker Dave. Dave is a full-on SKB convert, ever since I dragged him to a show last Spring. John also had a great time; it was a very different kind of show than the ones he attends with his daughters! The band played for 45 minutes past the curfew on Saturday; we didn't get home until about 3. For me, that was 12 hours of standing and dancing spread over the two nights, which is about 12 hours more than I have done since um...March. A persistent lower back ouchie followed me around on Sunday, only going away in Bikram this morning.
On Sunday, we slept in, then headed up to Muir Woods national park to look at some middle-aged (~1,000 years), middle sized (250 foot) redwoods. I have to say, after a 40 minute drive, it feels pretty damn far from the city, but if we got up on top of the mountain, I also know we could have seen the GG bridge and the SF wharf very close by. That's one thing to love about Marin.
The highlight of the trip, as it turns out, wasn't the redwoods. There is a creek running through the park, and we saw three coho salmon churning upstream on their spawning run. The first was sitting in water I could have walked across without getting the bottom of my jeans wet; exposed to the air from the mid-dorsal up, skipping and splashing across the rocky bottom. It was a magnificent fish, probably 15 pounds or more, about 20 inches long, and as it skittered across the rocks we saw the deep, deep red iridescence of its flanks. It had scars on its hooked nose; our best guess was that it had already managed to travel a couple/few miles from the ocean. When it got out of the shallows into a tide pool, it rested, gills heaving. Two miles of hiking later, but as it happens, downstream from where we saw the first fish, we just missed seeing a pair of coho make their way up a small set of rapids. We saw them, more energized than their predecessor, darting along the bank, unaware that the shallows ahead would be a lot more difficult. I could have followed them up the creek all day, but the park was closing and the boy was tired, so we packed up and headed for home.
Actually, one last note: we took the boo and his mighty, mighty McLaren Techno XT stroller along, and it ruled, particularly after we, against Annie's better judgment, left the cement paving behind. It navigated the narrow path with a minimal amount of assistance; I did help out by carrying one end when we encountered runoff sluiceways (big ones), an uphill step or two, and some particularly root-filled passages, but the stroller performed like a champ and hit the pavement with nary a wheel wobble nor squeak. Highly recommended for offroading parent types.
rwx came by briefly, and we all sat around passing Calvin from person to person and prepping for the weekend.On both Friday and Saturday night, I went out to see the Steve Kimock Band play at the Avalon Ballroom in SF. Sadly,
canetoad chose to stay home with her broken toe and house full of people. Probably for the best, given that there wasn't really any place to sit down inside the Avalon, but I missed her terribly. The venue, to my surprise, is the actual, historical, Chet-Helms-and-the-Family-Dog Avalon Ballroom of 60's legend, re-opened after 30 years (that must have been one hell of a noise complaint). It is a great concert space, with high ceilings, carpeted floor (must be hell to clean), a powerful sound system, plus a balcony in the back and along the left hand side. It holds maybe 1,000 people? In the very back of the room, the sound was a little boomy/muddy, but I spent most of the shows about 10 feet from the stage (wearing flat frequency response earplugs), and up there the sound was just fine. SKB had a slightly different lineup than the last time I saw them; Jim Kost, a high school pal of Steve's, sat in on keys, playing mostly vibes and Rhodes piano styled sounds. He didn't really step out and solo much, but the additional tone colors were a nice addition to the music. Also, Alphonso Johnson returned on bass after a year's hiatus. Rodney Holmes on drums and Mitch Stein as "the other guitarist" were solid as usual. Actually, "solid as usual" does a disservice to Rodney, who almost always sounds like three people playing three different drum sets. The band was in peak form, and Steve was relentless, finding new themes and rhythmic contours in songs he must have played 2,000 times. The first set on Friday was only five songs, but clocked in at 2 hours. Utterly monstrous. On Saturday night I went with brother-in-law John and ex-cow-orker Dave. Dave is a full-on SKB convert, ever since I dragged him to a show last Spring. John also had a great time; it was a very different kind of show than the ones he attends with his daughters! The band played for 45 minutes past the curfew on Saturday; we didn't get home until about 3. For me, that was 12 hours of standing and dancing spread over the two nights, which is about 12 hours more than I have done since um...March. A persistent lower back ouchie followed me around on Sunday, only going away in Bikram this morning.
On Sunday, we slept in, then headed up to Muir Woods national park to look at some middle-aged (~1,000 years), middle sized (250 foot) redwoods. I have to say, after a 40 minute drive, it feels pretty damn far from the city, but if we got up on top of the mountain, I also know we could have seen the GG bridge and the SF wharf very close by. That's one thing to love about Marin.
The highlight of the trip, as it turns out, wasn't the redwoods. There is a creek running through the park, and we saw three coho salmon churning upstream on their spawning run. The first was sitting in water I could have walked across without getting the bottom of my jeans wet; exposed to the air from the mid-dorsal up, skipping and splashing across the rocky bottom. It was a magnificent fish, probably 15 pounds or more, about 20 inches long, and as it skittered across the rocks we saw the deep, deep red iridescence of its flanks. It had scars on its hooked nose; our best guess was that it had already managed to travel a couple/few miles from the ocean. When it got out of the shallows into a tide pool, it rested, gills heaving. Two miles of hiking later, but as it happens, downstream from where we saw the first fish, we just missed seeing a pair of coho make their way up a small set of rapids. We saw them, more energized than their predecessor, darting along the bank, unaware that the shallows ahead would be a lot more difficult. I could have followed them up the creek all day, but the park was closing and the boy was tired, so we packed up and headed for home.
Actually, one last note: we took the boo and his mighty, mighty McLaren Techno XT stroller along, and it ruled, particularly after we, against Annie's better judgment, left the cement paving behind. It navigated the narrow path with a minimal amount of assistance; I did help out by carrying one end when we encountered runoff sluiceways (big ones), an uphill step or two, and some particularly root-filled passages, but the stroller performed like a champ and hit the pavement with nary a wheel wobble nor squeak. Highly recommended for offroading parent types.
