Three galleries of photos now up from my recent travels in Mendocino. Two from short walks with the kids into Jack Peters Canyon and up the Big River (the second hike started dry and with even a little sunshine, but a brief downpour caught us on the way back so we came home quite wet), and one of some architectural details from the construction on my parents' next-door neighbor's perennially unfinished house. I mixed in a few landscapes and abstracts of flowing water with the hike shots.

I missed seeing my cousin and her parents (they had Christmas with my parents in Petaluma while I was in Palo Alto) but it was good to see my brother's family again for the several days we were there. Along with the two hikes, we took a few shopping trips into the Mendocino village, but the rain kept us in the house more than usual. At one point on New Year's eve, all five good roads out of town were closed (20, 128, both directions on 1, and the Philo-Greenwood road), we didn't get a newspaper, and even the internet connection went down. We all tried to stay up until midnight for the new year, the kids watching movies while the adults sat around reading (Beowulf for me); Timothy gave up around 10:00 but I think the rest were successful. The storms finally let up the day we left, though continued flooding on the Navarro forced us to take Philo-Greenwood, and we had a beautiful sunset over Marin for our return drive.

Close-up of rebar and foam layers in an under-construction house, Surfwood, Mendocino, California Spillway, Jack Peters Canyon, Mendocino, California Big River, Mendocino, California