Category: Uncategorized

I thought I might do a brief blog on our current life in terms of scheduling our stays and getting to where we need to be, etc. I will try not to venture into TMI, but you can let me know via e-mail or comments whether I need to work on my editing skills and/or if I’ve neglected a topic of interest.

As you may know, we use the website http://www.trustedhousesitters.com to look for house sits. This is a membership-based website, so you pay an annual fee to either post a listing looking for house sitters or create a profile as house sitters or both. Everyday we receive 2 e-mails with the latest house sit opportunities. We can look at these or logon to the website or app and filter by dates, locations, pet types, etc to identify potential house sits. When we see something that catches our interest, we open the full posting, note the number of applications already received (We tend not to apply to those who have already received 7 or more replies, as we feel like home owners are likely to do the most thorough reviews on the first few respondents.), and read through the posting to see number and types of animals requiring care and other home care duties required. We also always review whether the sitters need a car since we do not have one and would only want to rent one for a very short sit in an area that we were very interested in. Sometimes the sit requires a car, and if the home owners provide one, we apply for those as well.

Once we’ve applied, if the home owner is interested, we may be confirmed right away but usually we will have an interview with the home owners via phone or Skype so that we can all see if we might be a good fit. These arrangements are all trust-based, so it’s good to get a sense of each other before committing formally on the website. The website also provides a contract template, and we have signed a few of those for home owners as well when asked. We recently had a phone interview with a home owner in Virginia while we were doing our San Francisco house sit and did a Skype session with a home owner in DC while we were en route to Iowa from Austin.

We currently have our schedule complete through 3/25/20 and then a commitment for a return to Oakland in late May/ early June next year as well as a return to Scotland next August.

Here’s our house-sitting itinerary as it stands today:

July 2019. Auckland, New Zealand

Aug 2019. Auckland, New Zealand/Hamburg, Germany

Sep 2019 Hamburg, Germany/Derby, England/Little Hampton, England

Oct 2019. Denver, CO

Nov 2019. Sun Prairie, WI/Atlanta, GA

Dec 2019. Atlanta, GA/Winchester, VA/Incheon, South Korea

Jan 2020. Incheon, South Korea/Walmer, England

Feb 2020. Walmer, England/Austin, TX/Washington, DC/Tubac, AZ

Mar 2020. Tubac, AZ

Late May- Early June. Oakland, CA

Aug 2020. Thornhill, Scotland

As you might surmise, there is a great deal of travel planning that is needed to make this work. There are often air flights needed to get us to the right country or state but for house sits in smaller towns there may also be additional bus or train trips needed to get us from the airport to the correct cities. Then if we can’t walk from where we land to the house, there may be a taxi or Uber ride as well. Bob is the go-to person for our travel planning. He could create a job for himself in the travel field should we ever stop traveling and land somewhere.

We are planners, so we have our flight or other modes of transportation purchased months in advance; however, nothing can prevent the occasional curve ball. We got dealt one of those, as we were preparing to leave San Francisco. On the morning of our departure, we learned that our flight on American was cancelled due to storms the prior day in Dallas. None of the offered alternatives (all red-eyes that would get us in the morning after the time we were to pick up a rental car in Austin for a drive to Iowa) were going to work, so he got us on a Southwest flight and got the American flights refunded. We were to have flown through Phoenix on the way to Austin but ended up flying through Denver and got a lovely shot of the snow-covered mountains on the way in.

We had a very fast one day in Austin before we picked up our remaining belongings from friends who had stored them in their garage for a month. Thank you Bobby and Margaret! I was amazed we got everything in our rented Chevrolet Equinox, but Bob packed well.

I was excited to be traveling by car for a bit so we wouldn’t be at the mercy of airlines, but it seems to be road construction season on I35 so we didn’t have quite as much control of our time as I thought we might.

We have been in Iowa for the past few days enjoying time with relatives, celebrating a retirement, and imposing on family now to store our stuff until we decide our next official steps. Much thanks to Bob’s sister and brother-in-law, Cheryl and Jody, for once again letting us keep our stuff at their house!

On our first full day in San Francisco Bob and I walked from “our” home in the Portola District down to Oracle Park, home of the Giants and then further into downtown to the Civic Center Plaza with lots of governmental buildings before walking back to “our” home mostly along Mission Street.

It was a great walk on a beautiful day and Bob got a photo to share with his nephews and brother-in-law to remind them of a prior baseball trip.

Public art piece

On Thursday evening of this week, Bob and I moved across the bay from Oakland to San Francisco to do a brief house sit for a couple who are getting married in Oregon while they are away. Their dog is in the ceremony, or at least accompanied them, so we having been caring for their house and their sweet, friendly cat Frankie. There was no adjustment time needed for this cat. She took right to us, and she’s been very easy to love right back.

Meet Frankie.

Our San Francisco “home” is in the Portola neighborhood which is in the very southeast section of the city. It’s known as the secret neighborhood with its own public radio station. It has a lot of schools and the main retail street, San Bruno, has a number of mostly Asian groceries and restaurants– the real kind with occasional English subtitles. As with the rest of San Francisco, if you walk outside with your eyes open you’ll see serious hills and if you walk more than a few blocks you’ll feel them whether your eyes are open or not. DISCLAIMER: I am not advising anyone to walk outside with their eyes closed!

Portola Branch Library

One of the highlights of the neighborhood besides all of the schools and a great rec center down the street from us is the huge John McLaren Park. At 313 acres, it is the 3rd largest park in San Francisco after Golden Gate and Presidio. Pretty amazing for a city to have so many large parks.

Just a brief rant, but I don’t think when the parks post signs for people to pick up after their dogs that they mean for them to then drop the dog’s poo back down in the park just because it’s bagged. We see this fairly frequently.

In our walks north (and steeply uphill) from where we are staying, we have noticed a large green space which consists of a golf course as well as a cemetery. We walked close to the entrance to the cemetery on our walk to Lake Merritt last week and thought we might go back and explore. Before you think we’re morbid, the cemetery was designed by Frederick Olmstead, the same gentleman who was the architect for New York’s Central Park and DC’s capitol grounds. Docent-led tours of the cemetery are conducted twice a month. Mountain View Cemetery has 226 acres, and what appears to be every type of burial option imaginable. It also has what is even marked on our Google map as Millionaires Row.

It is always bittersweet to leave our adopted pets as we move on to our next house sit. These four are quite the charmers.

Spot in the cat tree with Rubie looking on.

In other news, one of my must-haves when traveling is a good book preferably the kind that killed part of a tree. (Maybe if I say it that way I’ll get over my need for the real thing.). Anyhoo, when we are outside of a vicinity where I have a library membership, I will look for Little Free Libraries in neighborhoods. Rockridge has a bunch of them, so I was happy to have finished my current book, Darling Girl (written by Terry Watkins a friend of a woman in Bob’s book club — I recommend it) so that I could drop it off and pick up another. I found March by Geraldine Brooks. Can’t wait. Also looking forward to picking up a library book when we swing thru Austin next week.

Bye for now.

Bob and I, along with our canine walking companions, have recently perambulated (impressive, right?!) around two additional bodies of water, termed lakes for ease of reference and to continue a theme from a prior blog, though the term is not accurate for either. However, if you’re willing to indulge a bit of poetic license, the following is a mostly pictorial summary of the latest two episodes of Pecks Walking the Lakes.

On Sunday, we ventured out without the puppies for a 3.8 mile (one-way) walk to the McLaughlin Eastshore State Park which is a narrow strip of park and wildlife refuge along the San Francisco Bay shoreline of the East Bay. It was a unique park in that it is, for the most part, a walking path between the road and the protected land along the shoreline on both sides of the narrow peninsula that juts into the bay.

We discovered the lovely community of Emeryville on the way.

On Tuesday, we used our home owner’s car (with her permission) to drive to the Lafayette Reservoir for a lovely walkabout with the energetic (ah youth!) Spot and Rubie. This is an amazing wide, paved path around a water storage reservoir (boating allowed but no swimming) that accommodates walkers, runners, and bikes. If it had been in Austin, there likely would have been scooters too. As you’ ll see it’s in a lovely area.

In our pursuit of lovely walking destinations both with and without canine companions we have recently visited two lovely lakes in the local area. The first one, Lake Merritt, is a large tidal lagoon (thank you Wikipedia) in the center of Oakland. It is visually impressive but also impressive in that it was the US’s first official wildlife refuge, designated in 1870!

It is about 2.3 miles (thank you Google Maps) from where we are staying. Bob and I had a good walk to and from there yesterday as well as around the lake (3.4 miles). Here are some scenes from our first CA episode of Pecks Walking the Lakes.

Episode 2 of Pecks Walking the Lakes had us venturing out closer to “home” with Rubie and Spot leading the way to Lake Temescal, a small reservoir not quite a mile from the house. It is the central feature of the Temescal Regional Park. The paths around both lakes we visited were being used by walkers and runners which is always good to see.

As soon as Bob and I knew we would be in this section of Oakland, we knew we had to visit the Berkeley campus. A couple of days ago we walked just over 2 miles north from “our” house to the campus. One of our first sights was the student union where we realized (how did we not know this?!) that the U of Cal refers to the Berkeley campus. We weren’t sure what campus we thought it referred to, but we definitely didn’t think Berkeley. So now we know if any of our college teams play the U Cal Bears, they are playing Berkeley.

Our house owners had left us a section of the local paper that listed things to do in Berkeley. From this we learned about Sather Tower, the university’s campanile and most recognizable symbol. It is the third tallest bell and clock tower in the world and currently contains a 61 bell carillon that plays at designated times during the day.

We read that the public is able to go up in the tower, and we decided to do that once we got to campus. For $4 each we were able to take a short elevator ride and then climb a few stairs for these gorgeous views.

We had also read about the beautiful Morrison Library on campus, and since we’re always interested in checking out libraries (no pun intended) we decided to look that up as well. The Morrison Library was built in the 1920s and has wood-paneled walls, Turkish rugs, and cushy chairs. It’s open to the public (though no photos inside) and is the kind of place that makes you want to pick out a good book and read for a spell. It is located within the larger Doe Memorial Library.

Finally, the tag line for the Visit Berkeley campaign is “Everyone’s a little Berkeley,” which I think is a lovely thought. So go be a little Berkeley today.

Greetings from Oakland, CA, more specifically the Rockridge section of Oakland. Bob and I really haven’t spent any time in the area prior to this house sit though Bob had a brief visit with his nephews and brother-in-law on their west coast baseball trip a few years ago. (Cue Bob story/joke/wish about having a big bat or being winked at by some blonde.). I’ll probably get to hear one of these jokes in a bit as Bob returns from today’s Oakland/LA game.

I’ll just stick with discussing what we are learning about Oakland this go round. First, courtesy of Wikipedia, you should know that Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County. It is the eighth largest city in CA (home to many large cities). I believe that many people think of it as the step sibling to San Francisco (which I believe I first heard of thru the Rice-a-Roni jingle, but I’m old and not from these parts).

Also courtesy of Wikipedia, Rockridge is the residential and commercial neighborhood in Oakland bordered by Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, Oakland Hills, and 51st Street.

Anyhoo, for us, the most important part of Oakland is the great home owners for whom we are house sitting and these four cuties —

We have been enjoying getting to see Rockridge while walking the dogs. We started out with each of us walking one dog with separate harnesses but have decided we prefer taking turns walking both of them on a shared leash as they walk so well side-by-side and actually walk us when they get going.

The other thing that we love about this area are the beautiful craftsman style homes and all the gorgeous flowers. I try not to creep people out by taking photos of their homes, but I’m not as restrained about the plants and flowers.

All for now!

We are not in Tucson any longer, but we had a lovely stay and have plans to return. Our last few days in Tucson had us catching up with friends, getting some much needed haircuts, touring a big Cave, and going for one final hike (for this trip). Oh yes, and being “gifted” with two hummingbirds from Taj, the hunter.

In 2016, we house sat in Green Valley for 3 months. We met up with that couple (the humans not the dogs we cared for) for lunch and got caught up with their travels including an upcoming one to South America. They were kind enough to ask us to sit for them during that trip, so from late February to late March of next year, we will be caring for their new home in Tubac (a little south of Green Valley) as well as their dogs Molly and Maya.

We also had dinner with the woman for whom we did a 2.5 week house sit in July of 2017. We had a great visit with her after getting a tour of her newly-renovated house and getting reacquainted with her dogs, Dot and Raina. It was great catching up, and we hope to visit with her again when we are back in the area next year.

We also made time for a trip to the Colossal Cave just outside of Tucson proper. We had a fun tour and a little picnic on the grounds.

On our last full day in a Tucson we had a great hike to the Romero pools in Santa Catalina State Park. This was a challenging hike with some good elevation changes. While we were pleased to see that there was actually water in the pools, the scenery on the way is what really made the hike great.

We have had so many good hikes in Tucson, but yesterday we got to Sabine Canyon Recreational Area, a lovely park which we had not explored on our prior visits. It is a national recreational area in the front range of the Catalina mountains.

It was a lovely Sunday, so the parking lot was crowded when we got there about 11:30 but luckily it’s a big park so our actual hike was not busy. We asked about recommendations for a scenic hike at the Visitor’s Center. They recommended the Phoneline Trail which is 5.5 miles one-way, uphill. It did not disappoint. While the uphill was not too challenging, the skirting of the mountain with just a drop-off on one side kept us alert.

It reminded us again of the beauty of the mountains and the appeal of the desert cacti. See what you think.

At the end of the trail, we walked down to the shuttle stop. After a quick snack at this lovely way station, we walked the 3.7 mile road back to the Visitor’s Center. We had seen others doing this during our hike, and it provided another lovely perspective of the park. The only automotive traffic on it is the park shuttle which only runs every 20-30 minutes.

We didn’t see any wildlife during our hike but then were surprised by this guy once we were back in the Visitor’s Center.