Watery Wednesday #161 - Pacifica, CA - November 7, 2011

Pacifica. California is a beautiful spot on the northern California coast between
San Francisco and Half Moon Bay.  It is a small community of only about
40,000 people, resplendant on a sunny day with beautiful ocean views,
great seafood, fishing, surfing and a Mediterranean climate.  As often as not,
however, Pacifica is foggy and is famous for its annual Fog Fest.

The houses often seem to dip into the sea and, as a matter of fact, eroding
cliff sides have been a problem.  Real estate has crumbled into the ocean,
causing great headaches for owners and city engineers.

I am participating in

Watery Wednesday #161 -

check out the site and add your own watery photo to

join in the fun!

Watery Wednesday #149 - My Area of Northern California - July 20, 2011

Well, I said farewell to my friend, Meaux, at 5:15AM at San Francisco International
Airport.  It's been a busy two weeks and we had a wonderful time.  We ate at a
variety of Asian restaurants - Thai, Sinaporean, Indian, Japananese and Chinese,
feasted on seafood and I did some cooking as well.

We managed to fit in a three day visit to my son and his wife in West Sacramento and
just spent a lot of time taking in the lovely scenery in my own area - when the summer
fog didn't interfere with visibility!  This is the time of year when fog is heaviest.  I really
don't mind it much - after all, that's San Francisco - except when I'm driving!

I took this picture of the Pacific and the pier in Pacifica on a wonderfully sunny day.
The location is less than five miles from my home and my son fishes from this pier, on
occasion.

About 8AM, my phone rang and I was delighted to hear the voice of my dear friend, 

Werner Bernhard, a forensic toxicologist at the Legal Institute of Medicine in Bern,

Switzerland.  He was calling to tell me he will be attending the meeting of the 

International Association of Forensic Toxicologists in San Francisco the end of 

September here in San Francisco and wanted to know if he could stay a few days with

me afterwards!  How wonderful!  I first met Werner in 1995 at another meeting here,

showed him about the city during his stay after and we have become dear friends.  I've

visited his home in Switzerland twice, his son has spent a month two different summers

here and become a friend of my son, Jeremy, and Jeremy has, subsequently, been a 

guest of the Bernhards in Switzerland twice for two lengthy stays.  It is just amazing how

friendships develop and prosper!

I am participating in that wonderful meme, Watery Wednesday #149 -

check out the site and add your watery post!

A Visit to Nick's at Rockaway Beach, Pacifica, CA on Friday, July 16, 2010

I was at Joanne Olivieri's ( aka Poetic Shutterbug ) at 9AM Friday morning for our expedition to Pacifica and a morning of photography.  We were out to find daisy fields and breathtaking ocean scenery I had chanced upon a couple of weeks ago.  Of course, I had not bothered to map the location when I was there and I was only guessing at its whereabouts.  Also, as is so often the case in Pacifica, we were greeted with morning fog that resembled some eerie twilight zone episode.  Regardless, we were in great spirits, finding everything humorous, and drove up and down streets, commenting on houses, landscaping, and wondering why we saw no signs of human life ( could entire blocks have been transported to outer space by visiting aliens and were we to be next? ).

At long last, the gods saw fit to end our search and, around a corner, there it was - daisies growing wild and  the ocean - and the fog was lifting.  There were a few cars parked there and I'm sure people wondered at us, cavorting about with cameras, taking pictures gleefully ( future blog posts ) and trying ( not successfully ) to capture seagulls in flight.

All that activity worked up an appetite and I decided we should visit one of my favorite restaurants and one Jo had not eaten at in several years.  In the days before my job loss,
Nick's at Rockaway Beach was a spot I frequented.  It was about halfway between my home and Terra Nova High School which Alex and Jeremy attended and, any time we ate there, we were always waited on by their classmates.  Now they've been out of school so long, no one from their era remains but the wait staff are still Terra Nova students are Pacifica old timers.  The restaurant, with its adjoining motel, sits just a few feet back from the ocean and it is especially fun on a stormy day when waves crash against the sea wall. 

It was actually a very calm ocean day - this is the same area where I got those wild ocean pictures during that big winter storm this past January, if you remember my blog post from back then. 

Opened in 1927, Nick's, operated by a Greek family, has an incredible menu of wonderful dishes, excelling in seafood items and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Jo, who is totally obsessed with Belgian waffles ordered them today and declared them supreme among all she has eaten.  I, of course, chose what I normally always eat, their famous fresh Dungeness crab sandwich, with tomato and avocado.  They serve it on grilled sourdough bread and it is fabulous. I always have their eggplant french fries to go with it.

Dungeness crab sandwich ( fresh ) with tomatoes & avocado on sourdough bread

Joanne Olivieri, is my dear friend, blogger, fellow poet, photographer, mentor, and jazz lover -we met five years ago when I attended my first Sony Holland concert.  She was a personal assistant for this fabulous jazz diva and Jo and I have been friends ever since.  It's funny how things happen in your life.  It was Jo who helped me get started in blogging and, without her help, I would probably never would have gotten "Life's Journey" published.  She is a treasure. We share a lot of secrets that throw us into a frenzy of laughter.

This mango colado looked good but my budget did not allow me to indulge this time.

A portion of Nick's great menu

The interior of Nick's

I did splurge on a glass of the house chardonnay!

We had a wonderful few hours together before returning to our computers and the weekend tasks ahead of us. 

Pacific Scenes, Watery Wednesday & Wordless Wednesday, July 7, 2010