Saturday December 14, 2013 Monte Rio CA.
My plan was to do the van mechanicing today, but
I was hoping it would be a little warmer today to put the new exhaust manifold on my van. Ok, so it was a little warmer, but when I looked outside this morning, it was all white with frost, so that didn’t look too encouraging.
Marty and Patti came by for a visit around eleven AM and we sat around and shot the bull for a while.
When they left, a little after noon, the sun was just starting to come out from behind a big redwood tree and just starting to shine on my van. Ok, I’ll work on it tomorrow.
Today, I might as well go down to Monte Rio for a little kayaking. I got down there around 1PM and put my boat in the water. On the way down from Guerneville, I noticed quite a few fishermen type cars and trucks parked along the highway for a nice day of fishing.
I wasn’t planning to go far today, as it was already a bit late and the sun was only going to stay up high enough to shine onto the river for a couple hours or so.
The river was nice and flat and the water level here indicated that the river’s mouth was still open.
Here is the view just below Monte Rio as I started down the river to Villa Grande.
I passed this egret along the way. It looked like it was getting some sun and doing a little preening.
I made it down to the Villa Grande hole and sat around for awhile before I headed down stream some more. Ok, I’ll just go a little ways, down to the Sheraton beach area, which was only about a half mile down below the Villa Grande Hole.
This is my view of the Villa Grande Hole, looking down river.
Tis picture is looking from the Villa Grande Hole down to the Sheraton beach area, down the river as far as you can see in this pic.
I made it down to the Sheraton beach area and this is as far as I went today. I sat in this area for a bit then headed back up the river to stay in the sun.
My view where I turned around for the day, looking down the river.
The sun was still out nice when I returned to the Villa Grande Hole, so I sat around and enjoyed it for awhile.
This is the view looking across the Villa Grande hole, up stream. Nice, eh?
From here, the sun was already behind the hill as I paddled up to Monte Rio.
This is my view as I paddled over to the launch ramp at Monte Rio. I had my boat out in short order and went on home. 
It was about 3:30 PM when I got home and the sun was already down behind the mountain to the west, but I wanted to at least drain some water out of the van radiator so I’d be ready to work on it tomorrow morning in the cold.
I drained the radiator enough to do the work I needed to do to put the new exhaust manifold on tomorrow and that was about it for the day.
The rest of the day was mostly a nap while I waited for the house to warm up.
Had a another nice day.