Howdy everyone and happy weekend!

First, please allow me to apologize for my absence. But  (as is generally the case with my disappearances from the interweb) my excuse is that I emerged, instead, in the actual world.

I’ve been on vacation in the great state of California with my amazing girlfriend – sipping wine in Napa Valley, climbing steep hills in San Francisco, and dodging hungry wildlife in the Muir Woods.

Anyway, before I get back to your regularly scheduled programming, I thought I’d leave you with a few pictures (the internet equivalent of the slideshow your neighbors force you to sit through when they come back from their… thimble collecting trip… to… Yugoslavia).

We started out in Calistoga, a town north of Napa. The yellow flowers are actually mustard. (The wine from this vineyard tastes like hotdogs). Want a wine related story? Bam. How ‘bout Terroir.

Then, on our drive down to San Francisco, we stopped in the Muir Woods. It’s like a fairy tale in here, and I kept thinking of something I wrote for the Friday Fictioneers as we were walking about – The Mill in the Kip.

We wrapped up our week in San Francisco. Check out Alcatraz (that seagull is a guard there).

Anyway, you can expect to see photos from the trip (and our cool new camera) popping up here and there. Just fair warning.

But first, I have some Friday Fictioneer business to attend to.