Christmas Hike in SoCal

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So. what better way to take a break from all the holiday hullabaloo than to get out in nature and get some fresh air?  Of course, here in Southern California the air hasn’t been so fresh lately with the huge Thomas fire bringing air quality to lows not seen in years.  But the winds have pretty much shifted so the monkey took off for the hills. Kongo is fortunate to live adjacent to the Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation area and loves to take advantage of the dozens of nearby scenic trails.  On this brisk day he pretty much had…

Surfing Christmas in San Diego

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Okay, the monkey gets that the weather is indeed frightful for most of the country.  Kongo spent last week in New Jersey with icy roads, snow, and starting off each morning scraping winter junk off the windshields so he has sympathy.  A lot of sympathy.   Sort of. But today in San Diego it was 72 at the Ocean Beach Fishing Pier and the monkey captured how a lot of residents in America’s Finest City spend their time while less fortunate baboons are caught in blizzards.  Read on.

Kongo Buys A Tree

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Kongo’s youngest son and daughter-in-law arrived from Boston yesterday and after dropping their bags the expanding troop heads off for the annual Christmas Tree Hunt at the Kiwanis lot a few miles from Kongo’s house.  The trees here are always nice and the proceeds go to a good cause.  This year Emily gets to pick out the tree because she told this mournful story about how her family has a fake tree each year and she can’t ever remember actually picking out a tree that somebody else cut down for her.  Scotch Pine or Blue Spruce?  So many decisions.

A-Z Photo Challenge: The Letter X

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X is for National Xmas Tree Kongo fretted about this week’s photo challenge for over a month. I mean, what can you do with the letter X? X-ray, Xylophone, Xi, Xenophobia, or a bunch of Scrabble words that have no accepted definition other than that they are in the Scrabble dictionary? Kongo was almost reduced to taking of picture of the office Xerox machine when the holiday decorations in the cube farm outside his office inspired him. So, after work at the height of DC rush hour traffic, the monkey drives from Herndon down to the National Mall, sharks for…