If you visit, be sure to not only walk to the top of the tiled steps, but go up the next set of steps across the street, up into a small wooded area. That’s where the awesome view is supposed to be.

I thought I’d put a few outtakes/extra pictures from the celebration here — the party was too gorgeous not to.

By the way, all issues of Off Switch are now available online (for free!), so if you have a few minutes to spare, I highly recommend leisurely browsing through them — it is a wonderful magazine, full of great articles and beautiful pictures.

It always astounds me at how quickly peonies change their bud shape. It’s almost surreal.

The next day, they were all open and a gorgeous hot pink color…

Two days later, they expanded even more but began losing color…

And two days later than that, they turned completely white and the petals fell…

I couldn’t bear to throw them away (does anyone else ever feel like this?), so my husband had to eventually dispose of them for me. I’ve been on the lookout for more, but haven’t found any (good ones) yet.

I really wanted to visit China Camp State Park just for the small historic shrimping-fishing Chinese village still open to the public. In the 1880s, the village hit its peak population (~500 Chinese Americans — which, for such a small area, is astounding) but due to increased immigration restrictions and anti-Chinese sentiment, the population dwindled dramatically by 1920s until it eventually closed. One resident, Frank Quan, was born and raised in the village in the 1920s, and still lives there today. (In fact, he runs the diner that sits in the village now, and does the cooking himself!)  The village sits on the coast of the San Pablo Bay, among popular hiking and biking trails that run throughout the park.

Step 1: toast the dry ingredients (oats and almonds) at 350F for 5 minutes. Stir them around, then continue toasting for another 3-5 minutes. Pour into a large bowl.

Step 2: melt the butter, honey, vanilla extract, and brown sugar over low heat, stirring occasionally until fully dissolved.

(Clearly, a spatula would have worked best to flatten the granola, but we don’t have one. So we kept it real and used our rice scooper.)

If the granola is too crumbly as you cut it, stick it back in the fridge for another 30 minutes and try again. Otherwise, enjoy!

PS: There are tons of other ingredients you could add instead (like chocolate chips, blueberries, dried coconut) or remove (peanut butter, etc.). This recipe is prime for improvisation.

We’d never much explored Marin County and the north bay, so we decided to make a weekend of it. It’s beautiful, but so surprisingly different from the south bay/peninsula/San Francisco. So much less populated and congested. I was amazed to see that by 8pm, the bustling downtown areas of the major cities were effectively shut down. Even restaurants! (On the plus side, that meant that parking was always very easy to find.)

Some places visited:
Tiburon ~ Mill Valley ~ Larkspur ~ Fairfax ~ Sausalito ~ San Rafael
the Hummingbird Cafe // Fairfax, CA (very highly recommended!)
Fat Angel Bakery // Fairfax, CA
Fish. // Sausalito, CA
the Depot Cafe & Bookstore // Mill Valley
China Camp State Park // San Rafael, CA

It’s not often I say that there’s a must-see place or restaurant in a city, but I will say it here — if you’re in Sausalito, you must stop by Fish. restaurant. The prices are a bit $$$$ (don’t be fooled by Yelp’s rating of “$$”) but seriously, it’s worth it. The food was AMAZING. The seafood was so fresh and the fries, despite being unsalted and unseasoned, were somehow extremely tasty. It has its own free parking lot (huge boon, because parking can be hard to find in Sausalito). And the view! The view cannot be beat. After you finish eating, you can walk along the wharf and shoreline to admire the boats and yachts.

PS: For these pics, I had rented the Canon 6D. I was hoping for a mini, cheaper 5D mkiii (what can I say? I have lofty dreams) and while it’s not, it’s still actually pretty great. The focusing is not as good as the mkiii but definitely better than my 5D; its low-light ability is clearly superior to my 5D and on par (if not slightly better?) than the mkiii.  And I’m happy with the results it produces – so I’m thinking this might be my next camera.  We’ll see!

Really, we just go to Big Sur for the views. Even on a hazy day, it’s still gorgeous.

Oh, Santa Barbara. The food was so good. One of our favorite places was Andersen’s in downtown – amazing brunch foods and pastries.  Any place that gives you free pastries as an appetizer for brunch is a-okay in my book.

I haven’t had much of an appetite for brunch recently but revisiting these pictures is making me rethink it. (You probably wouldn’t guess from this blog, but breakfast/brunch is my least favorite meal of the day — I usually wind up getting savory lunch foods during brunches. But on the rare occasion that I get breakfast foods, it pops up on the blog. It’s just more photogenic, I guess!)

Andersen’s Danish Bakery
1106 State Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101