April 26, 2009

Sunday in the City ²

by Wendy • featured, My Minds Eye/Photography, Traveling Bites

I am here in the beautiful Bay Area!  I just love breathing in the ocean air and feel the cool air flowing off the bay.  Even thought John has my heart, I left part of it here in San Francisco when I moved to Houston 12 years ago.  Whenever I come back ‘home’ or to my old stomping grounds, I just enjoy every minute of it.

I am here for a conference that starts tomorrow, so we figured we could cram some site seeing in this afternoon.  We ended up visiting this incredibly beautiful Catholic cathedral that had just been built.  I will have to find the website that talks about the design but I believe it’s supposed to represent both Noah’s Ark and the ships that Jesus took when crossing the sea of Galilee.  Phenominal architecture.  And I am so disappointed in my photography skills on trying to capture it’s symbolism and grace.

It was breathtaking.  The photos that I took did not do this building justice.  I really do need to find a better lens.

After the cathedral, we walked around the lake for a bit until we found the Bonsai Gardens.  That was actually a lot of fun and quite interesting.  There were several miniature trees that were from the 1800′s.

After our walk we headed to Whole Foods and then onto Rubio’s for shrimp tacos.

Now, I’m sitting in an incredibly quiet house.  No noise.  No tv’s on.  No baby monitor.  No background radio on.  Just the occassional distant foghorn of a ship.  I can almost feel the stress melting away.  I didn’t realize how tightly wound up I was until I came into the quiet peace of my parent’s home.  It’s like I want to just curl up and let all of this California goodness sink in…the air…the stillness of night…the smells.  But, tomorrow I start two days of conferences, meetings and classes with members of the fire service and with loved ones of firefighters who have died in the line of duty.  It’s going to be a great two days but I know it’s going to be highly emotional, even if those emotions are kept on the inside.  I need this peaceful protection of my parent’s house to keep me grounded and to keep me rested.  That way I can continue to do my work…which is tough, tough work.  I love it but sometimes it can also be draining.