Memorial Day 2010
I went hiking this morning with Kate, one of my old co-workers from Lush. We went to Henry Coe State Park in Morgan Hill. It's a huge park, but it isn't very popular because it doesn't have massive redwoods to shade the trails or delightfully cute wildlife. (Seriously, every time I hike there I see a snake. Ugh, snakes. Today was a striped garter snake.) When you hike at Henry Coe, you're hiking through grassy hillsides in the sun. It's really pretty in the spring, when the hills are covered in wildflowers, but the rest of the year it's not nearly as exciting.
But we went, because it was close and we didn't want an all-day hike. We managed 4.8 miles in under two hours, which was a really great pace. Of course, there wasn't much elevation change, which made the hike pretty breezy. Most of the hills have gone golden, but patches of green plants were visible the higher into the hills we got. There were still some flowers out. I saw quite a few tiny purple irises, columbines, California poppies, Scarlet Pimpernels, lupines and tons of others that I can't identify. They didn't form carpets of color, but they were scattered prettily over the hillside.
We were back home by 2pm so we could hang out with our menfolk. Seanie and I ended up spending most of the afternoon fretting over his car, which kept refusing to start up on him. I suggested that the battery was dead, but he and his brother (they were talking on the phone) thought this suggestion was ludicrous and ignored me. So we charged his dead battery, and he poked and prodded and took readings with a voltmeter. It was all quite dull, but what can you do?
Oh, it was my Mom's birthday today, too, so we bought her a German Chocolate Pie from Marie Callender's. They pretty much skimped on the pecans - I couldn't find any in my slice - but it was good.
But we went, because it was close and we didn't want an all-day hike. We managed 4.8 miles in under two hours, which was a really great pace. Of course, there wasn't much elevation change, which made the hike pretty breezy. Most of the hills have gone golden, but patches of green plants were visible the higher into the hills we got. There were still some flowers out. I saw quite a few tiny purple irises, columbines, California poppies, Scarlet Pimpernels, lupines and tons of others that I can't identify. They didn't form carpets of color, but they were scattered prettily over the hillside.
We were back home by 2pm so we could hang out with our menfolk. Seanie and I ended up spending most of the afternoon fretting over his car, which kept refusing to start up on him. I suggested that the battery was dead, but he and his brother (they were talking on the phone) thought this suggestion was ludicrous and ignored me. So we charged his dead battery, and he poked and prodded and took readings with a voltmeter. It was all quite dull, but what can you do?
Oh, it was my Mom's birthday today, too, so we bought her a German Chocolate Pie from Marie Callender's. They pretty much skimped on the pecans - I couldn't find any in my slice - but it was good.