Last week Mary and I went to downtown San Jose to walk around Christmas in the Park (see above). They have a lot of the same decorations each year, but the trees are all different. It was pretty chilly so we both really enjoyed a Mexican hot chocolate. It’s kind of like hot horchata with chocolate in it. It’s pretty yummy. For more pictures see Christmas in the Park 2007.

The rest of last week was rather uneventful. I went up to Berkeley nearly every day to work with Nate since he’s heading out of town for the holidays. I did have lunch with Ron and Steve in Mountain View on Wednesday. After lunch Ron and I went to Tide House to check out some Yuletide brew. THey don’t seem to make it anymore. I tried their current holiday brew, but it wasn’t very good. Saturday was pretty normal. I played basketball and Mary hiked Mission.

On Sunday, Mary and I went to Pinnacles National Monument. We hiked a loop starting at the Bear Gulch Visitor Center which included Condor Gulch Trail, High Peaks Trail (Steep and Narrow section), Rim Trail, Bear Gulch Cave Trail, Moses Spring Trail and Bear Gulch Trail. The total loop is about 6.1 miles. We saw a couple condors in the distance while hiking up the Condor Gulch Trail. We stopped for lunch on the Steep and Narrow section of the High Peaks Trail. While we were there, we had a really nice fly-by from a condor. For more pictures, see the Pinnacles and Condor galleries.

On Monday, Christmas Eve, Mary and I took a drive up to Berkeley. I needed to get a PC from the office so we decided to make a day of it. We planned to eat at a New Orleans restaurant there, but it was closed. We ended up at I. B.’s Cheesesteak. After lunch we walked along a street fair on Telegraph Ave. After our walk, we hit Cafe Strada for some coffee, then headed out. Before driving home we stopped in Emeryville to look for Espie, one of the falcons born in San Jose this past spring. She had been spotted there for the last couple weeks. We managed to find her and had a nice visit. More pictures in San Jose Peregrines 2007. We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner at Mary’s parents.

For Christmas Day we went looking for falcons in San Jose. We tried a couple new locations, such as the Five Wounds Church. We didn’t find any falcons, but we did see a nice red-tailed hawk on top of the church (picture left). After striking out downtown, we headed to Don Edwards. We were checking out a burrowing owl when a large bird flew by. We’re pretty sure it was a golden eagle, but I didn’t manage to get a picture. The park gate was closed, so we walked out and around the boardwalk. We saw a white-tailed kite at the bend in the road and a black-tailed jackrabbit along the boardwalk. Now we’re ready for a nice, quiet dinner at home.

Happy Holidays!