my friend chris diersen made that picture. i don't know which i like better, the title or the rainbow colors. something about it makes me inordinately happy.
i'm even happier to report that chris has agreed to send me a print! and he didn't even make me feel bad for my shameless begging ways.
i was searching for hiking destinations near sacramento when i found that. isn't it an awesome sight? too bad it's almost entirely private property. access is available but very limited. there's a $35 fee and, worse yet, the hiking is conducted in groups.
still, i would like to go for the north butte summit one day. hopefully with a few good friends to make the group situation more bearable.
i found that on my way to the post office back in august. it was lying there in the middle of the road. i nearly got ran over while taking that picture. anyway, i'm posting it for rachel, who only thought she saw a boob.
i finally got the xti back. they fixed the original problem, but then they broke something else. i had to send it in for repair twice. i was out of commission for over three weeks. and now my camera rattles. i am forever hateful of the canon people.
please refrain from telling me that i should get a nikon. doing so would cause me to focus all my hatred for canon into ruining you.
that's the 3:58 pm snapshot of this google map. it's being updated by a concerned ucsb student. jg and i are keeping a close check on the map as well as the news. needless to say, we are very uneasy with the fire's proximity to our ghetto cabin.
i'm actually pretty bitter with the media coverage of the fire. why is so much of the news about oprah and the celebrities in the area? what about the regular folk? why aren't their houses equally news worthy? i am secretly hoping that the fire hits all the famous properties.
saturday jg and i hiked eleven miles from palomarin beach to wildcat campground (pdf map) and back. my friend april and her boyfriend max joined us on the hike. they came all the way from sacramento.
raise your hand if you're a dork
jg in conifer tunnel
it was a new trail for all of us. we met at the trail head at 10:45 am. the parking lot was flooded with cars and horse trailers. it worried me until started the hike. i don't know where everyone went but i was glad to share the trail with only one other party of hikers.
raise your hand if you're missing a pillow case
map reader
that's pelican lake, i think. we passed by all manners of waterholes and ponds that are not on the map. at bass lake we heard hollering and splashing. turned out there was a rope swing and people were taking turns plopping into the water.
jg looking back toward alamere falls
that's the only decent shot i took at the highest point of the trail. the view was expansive and i wanted to break for lunch there. except there was no shade. there was a nice long bench but it was taken over by one of those terrible greedy hikers. she had her gear spread out all over the bench while she sat cross legged in the center. i was very tempted to shove her over the edge.
traffic
we ended up in a shady spot on the beach below wildcat campground. it wasn't ideal in terms of scenery but it did have a nice un-whored bench. after lunch we went milling along the water. it was a well deserved break after 5.5 miles of hiking.
i pestered everyone into doing jump shots. it was a ridiculous idea but they humored me. april had the most fun, i think.
the leprechaun
bull kelp hair
we began hiking back at 2:30. with less than three hours of day light, we moved as fast as we could. by we i mean everyone except me. i stopped a lot to rest my feet. my toes were so sore that i considered taking my shoes off and hike barefoot. needless to say, i took no pictures. i didn't touch the camera until we were within half mile of the parking lot, when we breaked to watch the sunset.
the farmer
team nerd
solar flare
we made it back to the parking lot with light to spare. we immediately headed over to san rafael for dinner.
happiness inside the big lime building
it was jg's idea to go for cuban cuisine. the restaurant is called sol food and there was a line out the door. thankfully it moved right along. the food was excellent, i think. i was too exhausted to even chew. i remember enjoying the fried plantains though.
my fried cod on melamine special
good company
april and max headed home after dinner. on the way back to sf jg and i took a short detour to conzelman. the moon was rising and the the sky was the clearest we've ever seen. it made for fabulous sight seeing.
that's me and jg in patricia's green having dessert coffee. our lunch date routine has resumed for three weeks. we've been hitting the same joints so there isn't much for me to complain about.
domo sushi
this is our second time at domo. we even ordered the same plates we did last time. pretty decent food for a trendy little boutique restaurant. the service could use a lot of improvement though.
jg has implemented our weekly lunch date routine with blue bottle coffee. we ended up at this kiosk for the last two dates. i hate standing in line with a bunch of yuppies to order over-hyped coffee. i make jg do it while i try to look act indifferent from across the alley. if the drinks weren't free, you'd never catch me near these people.
jg and i went looking for nudibranchs at moss beach saturday. i got the idea from quest last week when it featured this one guy's pictures.
neither of us has ever seen a nudibranch in real life. i was hoping to see just one. as advised by the friends of fmr, we timed our visit half hour before low tide. we took our time snooping around. we even followed an organized group of serious tide poolers.
jg at north pools
the mass at south pools
unfortunately, we did not find one single sea slug. we did find a few neat things, most of which we've seen before.
bleached coralline algae
matcha rock in bed of seaweed
giant green anemome
sticky tentacles
baby starfish
we found the tiny starfish floating bottom up. we put it back right side up but it didn't move for a long time. playing dead, i hope.
jg with ochre star
that's one of the only three adult starfish we found at the reserve. it was covered with sea grass and jg nearly stepped on it. we didn't realize how big it was until jg brushed the grass aside. we must have killed a lot of smaller sea life in that area by walking on them.
sculpin
i don't remember seeing a fish like that before. it was only about two inches long and it was constantly darting around. neat to watch but very difficult to photograph.
lone pelican
i didn't realize how many birds were overhead until we were done tidepooling. pelicans were flying by us in small flocks. they appear to outnumber the sea gulls.
that's me in my standard outfit. the back half of my skirt was completely soaked in that picture. as wonderful as puffy skirts are for hiking, i don't recommend wearing them to tide pools.
over all, fitzgerald marine reserve was disappointing. i got my hopes up from their website and that one guy's flickr set. to be fair, it's not the worst tide pool we've ever seen. if you go, bring your own information. don't rely on learning anything at the ranger building, a 4x8 hut with a guy too busy counting money to answer questions. and of course, don't wear a puffy skirt.
