Presidents' Weekend Monday

SUMMARY: Big Sur and Monterey.

UPDATE: Tuesday Feb 22, 10:30 a.m. See below.

Set the alarm *again* (merely 7:00 this time) so that my seester and her husband could pick me up at 8. We drove down the Coast Highway (Hwy 1), loving the scenery, stopping to briefly explore various places, geocaching as we went; had lunch at a restaurant they like (Nepenthe) wayyy down the coast, then turned and beat feet back north, had hot fudge sundaes at Ghirardelli's on Cannery Row, then home again.

I am really really sore from yesterday's hike. Must. Get. In. Uphill. Shape.

Some brief highlights from the day:

We skimmed through the old Fort Ord, passing its decrepit buildings, trying to find our way to--

--the [relatively] new Fort Ord Dunes State Park. We got out, read all the signs, looked at the view and the ice-plant-covered dunes, and then continued south.

What better scenery could one imagine for geocaching in?

There wasn't yet a profusion of flowers, but small samples of what is to come could be found almost everywhere we stopped, like this Indian Paintbrush.

The Big Sur coast speaks for itself.

I mean, really, how many geocachers get this kind of view?

I mean, I really do, I really mean, how awesome is this for a geocaching background?

UPDATE: Really needed to show the Point Sur Lighthouse. It's no longer manned but still shines and its location on a dramatic outcropping of lava is amazing.

We even found one at Cooper's Cabin--the oldest remaining building on the Big Sur coast, UPDATE: (at Andrew Molera State Park) near Pacific Grove.

There, to our surprise and delight, we also found Monarchs fluttering everywhere! As one young kid explained to us with enthusiasm, these butterflies are trying to make babies.

The only California poppies we saw in bloom:

Is this the most amazing setting for a restaurant that you've ever seen? We sat at the table in the right bottom corner.

We had a tasty and filling lunch, browsed in their intriguing gift shop, drove an hour back up the coast , drove past Pebble Beach to Asilomar to round out our geocaches for the day to 10, then continued to Monterey and Cannery Row where we just HAD to visit Ghirardelli's for the usual.

Strolling back among the hotels and shops, we spotted this guy out in the water among the kelp--and of course I had left my 400mm lens in the car, so this is a very cropped in, crappy photo, but he is recognizable: California Sea Otter.

Then home again by sometime after dinnertime, and then work work work on photos, give up on finishing tonight, and post these three summaries. At some point in the future, there will be more photos from all the trips!

Presidents' Weekend Sunday

SUMMARY: Climb Mission Peak

Don't I whine about how I hate getting up to an alarm for dog agility? OK, so today it was 5:30 instead of 4:00, but at least I wasn't looking at a 2-hour drive and a long long weekend. Instead, it was time for me to climb Mission Peak for my very first time.

This is a popular hike because of the view and the exercise. It's only about 4 miles to the top, which is over 2500 feet above sea level, and the hike starts at about 400 feet.

This is part of our Bay Area Ridge Trail project. Our original plan was to do a bunch of shuttling back and forth, but Plans Changed at the very last minute.

I drove about half an hour out to Ohlone College to meet everyone at 7:00.

Mission peak around 6:45. It was chilly; not freezing, but the breeze had a bit of a bite.

We were on the trail by about 7:35. Everyone's fresh and rarin' to go: Eight people, 7 dogs (belonging to only 4 of the people).

I take up my usual position at the rear of the pack--not deliberately, but for a variety of dull reasons.

About 2 hours into the hike of steady uphill (fairly gradual, thank goodness), we can actually suddenly see the little pinpoint top of the peak in the distance. Now it feels like we're getting close. Tika and Boost spend their time going back and forth between the lead dogs and checking up on me.

Just before the last steep push to the top--Lo! A picnic table and ***restroooms***! The crowds rejoiced! And the crowds also stood in long lines while the dogs scouted for food.

Then there's the last, very steep, with occasional rocky scrambles, to the very peak. And there are a zillion other people pushing for the top or already on their ways down. As I said, a popular hike.

And here we are, finally, and it's only 9:50! My uphilling muscles were hurtin' pretty bad by now, but I did manage to walk up the last few stones to pose with the Merle Girls at the doohickey atop the peak. (You can look through the little tubes to see various sights.) Beyond me, to the northwest, is the city of Fremont and then the San Francisco Bay, then the coastal range.

We all relaxed for a bit, snacked on our lunches, enjoyed the views in all directions. Off to the east, could actually see the snow-topped peaks of the Sierras out beyond the far range of mountains, but they're almost impossible to see in this photo--that's a long way far off (couple hundred miles?).

Then it was time for... Group Photo! All the dogs are visible but you have to kind of work at it. Today it's a papillon, a smallish mixed breed, four border collies, two aussies, and Tika.

Also, it was time to get moving again. I could see the dogs' breath as they exhaled, so it's still pretty chilly, and all that sweat from the last 10 minutes of steep assent is cold cold COLD against our bodies. But we timed the day perfectly--just as we start down, the sun comes out! (So we didn't have to do the hard hiking in the direct sun.) And it's only 10:15. [I'm looking at the times on my photos, and I thought it was an hour later...but, dunno, the earlier photos have the correct time.]

Going down is very hard, too hard, on my wonky knee, and I get slower and slower and am hurtin' by the end--not great pain, but the knee just isn't working right any more. It takes us almost 2 hours to get back down the mountain as a result. But we make it in one piece, do our verbal high fives, and head home--and the dogs (all of whom covered about twice as many miles as us feeble humans) just collapse and sleep.

When I get home, I discover that I have a nearly flat tire, so the rest of the afternoon is taken up with taking care of that. And then I have to do a few chores and important other things so that I can get to bed and rest up for Monday's adventure.

Presidents' Weekend Saturday

SUMMARY: Cosumnes River Preserve

UPDATED: Tues, Feb 22, 10 a.m. (see below).
What a great weekend! Very busy, exhausting, still sorting hundreds of photos, but here are glimpses of the whole thing.

On Saturday, I drove with my parents out to the Sacramento delta area near Elk Grove--the Cosumnes River Preserve, where I went a couple of weeks ago but didn't get enough of. This time I had a borrowed 100-400mm telephoto lens, hoping to get some better bird shots. And my mom's a long-time bird watcher and my parents both love exploring and nature, so I invited them along.

We left around noon, drove 2 hours out the Preserve. Looked at some birds there. Drove along some of the roads in the preserve at various locations--this area is intriguing because of cooperation between the Preserve and private landowners. A lot of the land that is farmed during the summer is left fallow and even flooded during migration seasons to make up for so many thousands of square miles of the Central Valley marshlands lost to development and farming.

We saw so many different birds! And, when sorting my photos at home, I discovered more that I didn't even know that we'd seen. After sunset, we stopped for dinner and then headed for home--essentially spent about 8 hours in the car with just a break for dinner. With my additional half hour to my parents house and then half hour home at the end, that's a lot of sitting.

I still have tons of photos sort through, try to make clearer, crop down to a reasonable view, and so on, but here's a taste.

Dad and Mom  with MUTT MVR at the Cosumnes Visitor Center, ready for anything.

So many birds in every direction! Snow geese in the background here.

Pintail getting out of Dodge.

This kestrel didn't like us stalking her. Every time I edged the car forward 15 feet, she'd fly 15 feet farther down the wire and go back to watching us. We did this for about 10 minutes.

We saw Sandhill Cranes! Lots and lots of them! Not many very close, and it was overcast and a bit dark, but, yay!, cranes! This one has bands and a transmitter of some sort. UPDATE: I reported this bird sighting online and got this response: " That crane was marked during my study of wintering ecology of sandhill cranes and was captured as an adult on Oct. 15, 2007. We found it on its nesting territory during summer, near Likely, Calif. It has been observed wintering at the Cosumnes River Preserve every year since."

The sun sent beams out from behind the clouds onto the farmers' fields and Mount Diablo in the background.

And then it was night. Time to get home, pack the car, and get to bed for Sunday's adventure.