A "Capitol" Day

Well, my birthday's coming up just around the corner and I have to say, I'm not too excited about getting even closer to 30 years old.  Sometimes it seems like time stopped for me in my early twenties, yet it forgot to tell the rest of the world.  I don't feel like I should be almost 30.  And I definitely don't look the part either.  It sounds like too big of a number.  Thirty years of being alive.  It just sounds crazy for some reason.  Though I'm in no way saying that being 30+ is old, before someone tries to twist my words. :p  It just seems unreal to me that so much of my life has already passed me by.  Oh well, though, that's just how life happens sometimes, I guess.

Anyway, so back to the last day of my dad's visit from the beginning of this month.  At the end of the first post I made when we visited the mines, I said we'd be visiting the zoo in Oakland.  That didn't happen.  Turns out, I'm more of a fan of going to the zoo than he is, so we ended up starting out the day by traveling to the capitol building up in Sacramento. (or Sac-of-tomatoes, as some Californians refer to it...)

Closeup of the front as we were walking to the doors. 

Inside, looking up into the dome!  Beautiful!

The Everyday Scene

Okay, so before I continue with the last part of my dad's visit from last week, I wanted to share some photos of the area in which we cycle every day.  We mainly stick to a trail that follows Marsh Creek, because there's an entrance located conveniently right at the beginning of our neighborhood.  This little trail reminds me of the one back in OKC that follows Lake Hefner around.  Though it's entirely different in the fact that it has much more twisty turns and the scenery is MUCH prettier.  Then again, the comparison from Oklahoma scenery to California scenery is like comparing apples and oranges!  So that's a no-brainer.

Anyway, here's a little of what I get to see every day while riding.

Tumbleweeds stopped by a menacing gate.

Looking back at our neighborhood from the trail.

Winery in the distance across the creek.

"Miner" Adventure

So my dad arrived late Saturday night.  We weren't sure exactly what we were doing for Sunday, but we definitely knew we were going to go out somewhere.  And that it would involve a camera (well, for me at least!).  We eventually decided on visiting the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, to take a tour of one of the existing mines that were used back in the early 1900s.  Jacques, Erin and I had already gone on this tour back in March of 2010 (wow, I did not realize it had already been 2 years!) but we had yet to take my dad there.  And he's a geologist so he really enjoyed examining the sandstone inside the mine.

Anyway, after looking through past posts to find the previous photos of Black Diamond... I realized I never even got around to uploading them in the first place!  ( I really should have kept up with this blog better. )  So I'll include a couple of those also... but this time around, I was focusing a bit more on macro/close-up captures, since I'd already gotten the gist of the area the first time.

Close-up view of the locked gate at the entrance to the mine.

Small trail of rocks among nature.  This was another macro shot, so it's even smaller than it looks!

Cute photo of Erin & Jacques on the trail towards the mine—from our first trip in 2010.

View from the top of the entrance to the mine, looking out—This was also from 2010.