Along the Guadalupe River to Lake Almaden

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday.

(Dang, the Merle Girls were with me the whole time and I never took their photos. Silly Human Mom.)

New Year's Eve in the Sierras

SUMMARY: Hike drive drive drive and then arrive.

went for our usual Friday walkies; friend's illness dragged her down a bit this week but we still covered 3 miles and it was a beautiful morning to be out.

Looking back under the bridge at reflections in the Guadalupe River:

Even for my dinky point-and-shoot, Mr. Mockingbird was willing to hold still briefly.

Boost played much leashie.

Despite our current cold snap, the Fremontodendron (flannel bush) shrubs each had one big flower on the west side; go figure.

The buds are beautiful, too.

The four-hour drive on a holiday Friday was just about perfect; only one or two spots where I briefly had to slow below the speed limit. What a pleasant start for the weekend.

Coming into Sacramento, looking across the wetlands:

At 2000-3000 feet, sprinklings of snow; at 4000 feet, actual snow; at 5000+, wow, snow snow snow!

It's like driving into a Christmas postcard! I hardly ever see snow any more, maybe once a year if that, and its beauty lifts my spirits so high that my whole body can feel it.

Coming over the summit at Donner Pass (although every time I come through at this time of year, I think of those poor souls in the Donner Party who happened to try to pass in a year when the snow came earlier than ever and fell to a record depth--so this is nothin'!).

Although it wasn't snowing during my drive, I began to wonder whether I'd know where to turn, since many of the signs past the summit were obscured by snow stuck to their fronts.

But I arrived, got here, and had to immediately pull over and take a shot of this fairytale house nestled among the snowy trees. Thomas Kincaide got nuthin' on me!

And here's our home away from home, with MUTT MVR alongside.

And looking in towards the front--they got a little drift, and always the most interesting icicles!

And here we are, just before midnight, snuggled in front of the fire.

Happy 2011, everyone! Today it's snowing snowing snowing! Will be an interesting weekend.

Walkies and This Weekend

SUMMARY: Guadalupe River walk and USDAA trial.

For this week's Friday walkies, we strolled (fairly briskly) 2 miles along the Guadalupe River Trail from the percolation pond under Highway 87--

--alllll the way to Almaden Lake Park, where the view with Mount Umunhum (with its well-known radar station) in the background caught my eye.

The section between the two is level, paved, and mostly very very straight:

Just a few touches of fall color here and there. Oh, and Tika and Boost.

Here's walkies friend's "I've had plenty of periodic cancer scans, thenk yew very much" t-shirt for this week:

This weekend won't be nearly so laid-back. Nunes Athletic Field's last USDAA trial of the year is also our last of the year--not because there aren't trials, but because I really am cutting back and the idea of two months off appeals greatly to me now (although the dogs get antsier by the day). Six runs (per dog) on Saturday, five on Sunday (or six, if we Q in Steeplechase).

Training we've done? Pretty much NO. THING. Weekly class, of course, where actually Boost is doing better at running and less at inserting refusals or runouts, but still knocking bars. Tika looks great; as usual, her contacts are fast and perfect at home and in class. What will they look like this weekend? Prediction: Slow and accurate or fast and fly-off, as usual.

Sooooo, what titles could we get this weekend?

• Tika needs 1 Standard Q for her Performance Standard Bronze (15 Qs). We have 2 chances. Prediction: We'll get it. She's Qed 8 of the last 11 at the last 6 trials.
• Tika needs 2 Jumpers Qs for her Performance Jumpers Bronze. We have 2 chances. Prediction: 50-50. She's Qed 12 of the last 16 at our last 9 trials, so she'll probably get one of those Qs.
• Those two would complete her Performance Championship Bronze! In just over a year! She likes Performance.
• Boost: Pleeeeeeeeze could we get jumpers Qs and SuperQs? two chances at each. But still need a bunch of both before we approach titles.

So now, as the sun sinks slowly in the west, I bid you all farewell until Sunday night or Monday. Hope you all have as wonderful a weekend among friends and furry companions as I plan on having!

Autumn Hike

SUMMARY: Friday morning scenery, with dogs.

Not quite as stunning scenery as some of those Colorado blogger photos, but there is a lot going on here in San Jose, too.

Most weeks, I do Friday walkies with the Merle Girls and a friend who's battling cancer in various ways, including trying to live a healthier, more active life, and by laughing at what she's been through. (Her dog, Sparky, and my Remington went through cancer at the same time way back when.)

We usually hike along the Guadalupe River Trail above or below Lake Almaden, and then on to Los Alamitos Creek Trail. This week, we started at the lake.

Climbing plumbago--beautiful blue (although, yeah, invasive).

Somewhere along the way, Boost picked up a little blue flower on her left shoulder and carried it all 2.6 miles. Does that mean she's single?

The trail is level and paved and winds among civilization and nature.

The autumn flowers are finishing up, like this buckwheat.

And like this horridly invasive nonnative yellow thistle.

Some other kind of grass. Everything glowed in Friday morning's light.

There's always a way to practice 2o/2o contacts.

Spits and spots of autumn foliage along our trail.

And more dried vegetation with the creek running behind.

I think I take photos of the leaves of this kind of tree every autumn; such rich reds.

What lovely dogs you have, ma'am.

Le Deluge -- Part 2

SUMMARY: A wee bit o'rain and even loud noise from sky.

San Jose's average rainfall is about 15" a year. We've had 3 years of drought. This year we seem to be making up for it in an odd sort of way. Like, remember back in October when we got 3.5" of rain in a day?

This week they're saying 5 to 10 inches of rain over maybe a 7-day period in the low areas around the San Francisco Bay and two or three times that in the mountains around the bay area. As of about noon today, we'd had 2" in the last 2 and a half days. Most of it last night and this morning, I suspect.

We have a one-day USDAA trial this weekend. Boost's next chance to complete her MAD (with that one elusive Jumpers Q). We need to be practicing our bar-knocking drills. But--

 

So hoooold on there, Baba Looey, I'm thinnin'--not today! Maybe not all week! A series of storms are supposed to keep drenching us repeatedly through the weekend. It's raining again now. This is also a little scary; we have these "average" rainfall figures, but they're based on just about 100 years of history and who knows whether that's really normal?

There is a street in San Jose named Dry Creek Road. Nice winding tree-lined road below grade along which luxurious homes nestle, alone surrounded by the usual right angle grids of basic suburbia. Know how it got that way? So much rain in a single week in the winter of 1861-1862 that "most of the valley filled with water," and when the waters subsided, the creek had changed course. (ref) We've not had anything quite like that since, although a couple of winters came close. (Read a bit more about that flooding here.) I sure hope we don't have anything like that again, since most of us don't have flood insurance in this valley. No big rivers go through here, just really small ones that mostly you can wade across in several steps.

Oh, sure, Alviso--which has subsided below sea level because of all the water sucked out of the aquifers--floods more regularly than anyone would like, and downtown San Jose, which is right about sea level and right near the end of the Guadalupe where it meets the bay, has had flooding problems off and on. ("The Guadalupe River flooded downtown San Jose and Alviso in 1862, 1895, 1911, 1955, 1958, 1963, 1969, 1982, 1986, and 1995." (ref)) But not the rest of us in the rest of the valley.

Oooh--just had some thunder and lightning! Very rare for this part of California (and most of California). Boom! Dogs jumped up and barked. I did same thing my dad did when I was a child--explained what thunder and lightning are and how they're a natural part of the world and that thunder is loud but harmless. That seemed to satisfy them for the moment.

When the rain quit for a while midday, I stuffed the Merle Girls into MUTT MVR and headed down the road a bit. The air is SO CLEAR around here right after rain! Washes all that grody polluting crud right out of the sky. Climbed to the 5th story of the Kaiser medical center parking garage for some photos.

To the west, Mount Hamilton hid behind clouds but the foothills glowed green in the sun. And look at that stunning blue sky!

 

To the northeast--more or less towards the bay in the far far distance--the puddles in the former sprawling IBM complex are reminders of how much of this valley used to be seasonal wetlands. (Property was supposed to be developed into mixed-use retail & residential; all the old buildings were torn down after a failed fight to preserve the main building as an historic structure (read some here); then--Bust!) The light rail sweeps by in the median of highway 85.

 

To the southwest--oooh, OK, better hustle, the Santa Cruz mountains (coastal range) are still enveloped in rainclouds. And it's moving this way.

 

We hustle over to our favorite park where we can get away with off leashedness. I throw the frisbee a bunch; the dogs are delighted to be out and about and moving, although Tika takes frequent breaks to go exploring. Boost is all frisbee, all the time. When the dogs are far and away out after the frisbee, I can hear thousands upon thousands of tiny crisp pops, of air bubbles rising from the grassy ground as the water seeps in or the tension on the water breaks as it's absorbed--very interesting to hear. Like what you hear on a beach right after a wave has washed across the sand and receded.

The dogs are sopping with rainwater and mud but are tired and happy. (Happy at least til we get home and I have to hose them down. Ewwwww--don't get me wet human mom!)

We get home just as the rain begins again.

Autumn, Winter, Spring, and a Nice Brisk Walk

SUMMARY: California's an odd place, season-wise, but we still love hiking the Guadalupe River Trail.

In how many place in the world can you have: A tree brilliant with autumn color, a snow-covered mountain in near-freezing temps, and daffodil stalks rising from the chilly soil? Fall, winter, spring, all together.

Dogs and I want for a 4-mile stroll along the Guadalupe River Trail this morning. Temps not over 50F, and a chilly nip in the air, but the sun and the birds were out.

For all of today's photos, go here; below, just a few choice doggy ones.

Along the trail, the dogs are eager to check out all the smells and yet want to keep moving; all these stops to snap photos are quite an infringement on their activity.


I'm including this one because I hardly ever get a shot of just how curly Boost's tail really is. Dang Border Collie tail is usually in its droopy working position.


Tika just loves being in the water. I hadn't realized it until we were at the beach this summer. Doesn't matter that it's below 50 and cold; she became mondo frisky after sneaking into the lake.


But her thick absorbent husky-like fur will take hours to dry. Does she care?


Amazing that one can point and say, "What's that over there?" and the dogs will look.


This tree's red berries stood out brilliantly among the more muted surroundings. No idea what the tree is. Even the dogs stop to admire it.


Meanwhile, this is about as decorated as the front of my house will get this year; Happy Holidays. Peace on earth.