Small Thoughts for Small Minds

On Friday last week, I found it necessary to go to Long Beach, CA, this week. As always, I look for the brew pubs…

Only two brew pubs in the Long Beach area, both of which I’ve been to before. But I didn’t want to venture very far from my hotel because I’m a mess with directions and traffic and such. And drinking doesn’t really help that…

So, the first night (Monday) I went to Belmont Brewing Company. It’s got a great location on the beach, overlooking downtown Long Beach and all of the cranes in the Port of Long Beach (and if the air is clear, the Port of Los Angeles, as they are side by side…)

The beers are mediocre, but I’ve got to support the brewpubs when I can…

They had a one-off brew on tap, called something like "Hop Head Red". Kind of one-dimensional and a bit immature. (The Cascades hops were unsupported by sufficient maltiness and it had a bit of a "grainy" taste like a very young beer.) But, not a bad beer for a hop head like myself. I had two. Plus their Full Sail Pale Ale, which is not worth the effort…

But, I sat outside, enjoyed the beautiful weather, a very nice artichoke ravioli and the sunset over downtown Long Beach:

Once I was done with dinner, I had to walk on the beach for a couple of minutes, just to say I did it…

Here’s a picture from the water side as the sun continues to set over the city and the port:

These pictures were taken with my cell phone, so the quality isn’t stunning, but I think the concept is clear…

After our little hike, Dyson got into some serious Men In Black action. (Well, before and after his nap.) He put together his costume and wanted me to take his picture.

So I did.

Keira decided to join in the fun, so she went and got some water pistols and gun-like toys and put on a black dress and sunglasses. She said she was WIB (Woman in Black). (I’m not sure how the clog sandals fit in the theme, though…)

After a bit, she got tired of that and just wanted to "vogue". Check out the ‘tude…

Then she was wandering about outside and came across Seamus and decided he needed some lovin’. She carried him around for awhile, sat with him, wrapped him in a blanket and babied him…

I’m not sure how much he enjoyed it…

On Sunday we hiked up to the Appalachian Trail. (I know I said we would do it on Saturday, but the sky was threatening to get ugly, so we put it off.)

We went up to the Fullhardt Knob shelter. It was approximately 1100 feet up, and a about 5-6 mile round trip. Our little troupers walked the whole way, though Dyson made it clear that he wasn’t happy walking down. (He told Kel, "I won’t tell Daddy if you carry me." when they fell behind Keira and myself.)

This will be mostly a photo post….

Here we are at the start of the hike. All fresh and full of excitement.

At our first break, we’re still going strong…

Keira was on the look out for nature. She asked me to take a picture of this flower (plus bug):

On this particular hike, there are very few grand vistas. This was the best I could find, of the adjacent ridge:

While we were taking a bit of a break, I saw these cool berries:

We spotted a few other flowers, but this isn’t really the best time of year for wild flowers…

Dyson found a rock that reminded him of the Superman symbol, then he decided it was his beard. In his right hand are his stick friend (Sticky) and his pinecone friend (name?). Over the course of the hike, he acquired (and lost) many friends, including several different sticks, rocks, leaves and acorns…

After a break for lunch (and plenty of complaining about not wanting to go any further) we hiked for about five minutes and got to the shelter at the top. We hung out there for about 30 minutes, Keira wrote an entry in the shelter’s log book and Dyson repeatedly jumped from the top of the picnic table, in between sword battles with Kel and myself.

When we headed back down, Keira and I started running. We got a ways ahead of Kel & Dyson, so we stopped and climbed on rocks for a bit.

Dyson saw us and had to climb on the rocks as well. Kel said he was too young and it was too dangerous. He, of course, had a fit. So I agreed he could climb up on one small rock if I was there with him. He was happy…

Dyson really started to get grumpy on the way down, but it was intermittent. Here he decided that he wanted to be the one to carry the back pack. As you might guess, that lasted about two minutes…

Dyson decided this pile of dirt was a horse. Those are his swords he’s swinging about. I think he was Indiana Jones or Zorro…

After this, Dyson went into full bore whiny mode. But, he made it! (And it wasn’t that he didn’t have the strength or energy - when we got home he was bouncing off the walls. For awhile at least, then he fell asleep watching Men In Black.)

Keira was in a fantastic mood on the walk down. (She had gotten pretty bad in the last quarter of the walk up.)

Barley was probably the hardest hit. She’s not in great shape and she’s got that heavy coat. And, yes, we gave her as much water as she would drink at each break…