sudden saturday skylark
Woke up to blue skies and birdsong and decided that I was up for a summer day. Dressed in kahki shorts and sandals and a tshirt. Course, it was too cold for summer, so I wore a brown cozy vest; Christinerini said - at noon lunchy brunchy - that I looked like a camping bear. ::grin::
Wandered home and found myself switching sandals for sneakers. Drove up and over to redwood park (3 more weekends of free parking! :). Walked along in the sun, until I got into the shade of the redwoods and bay.
Saw: 3 tow-head girls decked out all in varying shades of delicate, fluttering pink - between 3 and 6 years old, carrying/dragging huge sticks, that they stopped swinging wildly and slamming around energetically when they started to question the man with goatee who was "resting" his parrot on a sign after his long walk; dyke after dyke after sporty dyke couple walking the other way - finally realized they were wearing matching shirts and stopped my trail-polite cruising long enough to see that the shirts spelled out c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e -- there is a dyke walking group in Oakland? With shirts? probably. Saw a dad-type on a tandem byke with a kid on a dirt bike racing ahead and the back of the tandem is a wee bike with a littler kid on it. Awww.
Stopped and drank at every water fountain - metally and cool and felt about 9. The smell of the shade, mud and creek and bay and the occasional blossomming apple bursting into sunlit edges and walked and walked. Walked to the end of the trail seeing very few people after the celebrate-walking-dyke-crowd, except for some art students painting and sketching in the shafting shade and light.
Almost at trail's end, passed a couple; man said: if you have enough water, the summit's beautiful! Had no water, but was feeling all warm and good from walking, not ready to turn back yet - what summit? And found a bend at the end of the end of the trail - never bothered to go that far, because there's a clear fence - "end of trail". Well, magically, around the bend you can hike up and up and up the side of the canyon - up and up and up and out of redwoods' cool and into dusty madrones' peeling sunshine. Very sweaty work. Could hear one knee creak a little with every upward push. No people on this wee windy trail. Just me and my sweat and counting meditative numbers in my head.
At the top of the steeeeep incline, was another parallel trail. I didn't have a map, but luckily, and oddly, there was a cop in a cop jumpsuit who had jammed his atv into the turn in the trails and was trying to free it, and he gave me some vague directions and I set off on unknown trail. After walking a little more, I realized that a)I was thirsty and b)my ankle (the one I sprained in January) started to say ow. Picked up a stick, turned my ass around when the switchbacks started to tilt steeply upward again, and walked back to the steep down (atv gone by now) and walked down with walking stick (smoothed the end with my knife - I love my knife, as I have mentioned repeatedly - and love that my knife was in my pocket)down, down and back through cooling afternoon and the heavy scent of old apple trees in blasting blossom in the edge shade of third growth redwood and bay and some scrubby live oak.
Walk back seemed no time at all, but I finally did look at a map and I went on a 6 mile little tromp this afternoon. Wheee!
Wandered home and found myself switching sandals for sneakers. Drove up and over to redwood park (3 more weekends of free parking! :). Walked along in the sun, until I got into the shade of the redwoods and bay.
Saw: 3 tow-head girls decked out all in varying shades of delicate, fluttering pink - between 3 and 6 years old, carrying/dragging huge sticks, that they stopped swinging wildly and slamming around energetically when they started to question the man with goatee who was "resting" his parrot on a sign after his long walk; dyke after dyke after sporty dyke couple walking the other way - finally realized they were wearing matching shirts and stopped my trail-polite cruising long enough to see that the shirts spelled out c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e -- there is a dyke walking group in Oakland? With shirts? probably. Saw a dad-type on a tandem byke with a kid on a dirt bike racing ahead and the back of the tandem is a wee bike with a littler kid on it. Awww.
Stopped and drank at every water fountain - metally and cool and felt about 9. The smell of the shade, mud and creek and bay and the occasional blossomming apple bursting into sunlit edges and walked and walked. Walked to the end of the trail seeing very few people after the celebrate-walking-dyke-crowd, except for some art students painting and sketching in the shafting shade and light.
Almost at trail's end, passed a couple; man said: if you have enough water, the summit's beautiful! Had no water, but was feeling all warm and good from walking, not ready to turn back yet - what summit? And found a bend at the end of the end of the trail - never bothered to go that far, because there's a clear fence - "end of trail". Well, magically, around the bend you can hike up and up and up the side of the canyon - up and up and up and out of redwoods' cool and into dusty madrones' peeling sunshine. Very sweaty work. Could hear one knee creak a little with every upward push. No people on this wee windy trail. Just me and my sweat and counting meditative numbers in my head.
At the top of the steeeeep incline, was another parallel trail. I didn't have a map, but luckily, and oddly, there was a cop in a cop jumpsuit who had jammed his atv into the turn in the trails and was trying to free it, and he gave me some vague directions and I set off on unknown trail. After walking a little more, I realized that a)I was thirsty and b)my ankle (the one I sprained in January) started to say ow. Picked up a stick, turned my ass around when the switchbacks started to tilt steeply upward again, and walked back to the steep down (atv gone by now) and walked down with walking stick (smoothed the end with my knife - I love my knife, as I have mentioned repeatedly - and love that my knife was in my pocket)down, down and back through cooling afternoon and the heavy scent of old apple trees in blasting blossom in the edge shade of third growth redwood and bay and some scrubby live oak.
Walk back seemed no time at all, but I finally did look at a map and I went on a 6 mile little tromp this afternoon. Wheee!