Hiking Viking!
Last weekend I went on a lovely hike with someone very dear to me. We went to a place quite near to Palo Alto, and though it was very popular and full of people, it was still very, very pretty.
I have a brainful of flowers and plants I still need to ID; I am slightly miffed with my inability to recognize at least the family of most of the interesting plants I saw. There were maybe a dozen or so that were familiar to me at least to the family, but I've a long way to go, and a lot to learn. I'll probably approach this as I do fish; look at a lot of 'em, remember the cool ones, look 'em up, and hopefully learn about them. I hope I'll start pinning down the Latin names.
I saw things that I thought were orchids, but my planty ignorance had me thinking there were no orchids in sub-tropical climes. Um. I'm wrong. I probably saw several different orchids; there are many in this area.
I saw a group of plants with no green bits. I don't think they were groundcones, but I'm really not sure.
Also - FINALLY - I saw the native giant Trillium!! I have been wanting to see it for ages. It's very, very pretty. It's also much larger than I thought it'd be.
I got a few flower macro shots, but they're all a bit overexposed. I need to learn the manual settings of my camera.
Next time I go, I want a helmet with horns, a pointy metal bra, and a beer stein. I shall be the Hiking Viking! Yeah, okay, I'll probably never do it. But how cool would it be to start a hiking group all decked out in their Viking best and go traipsing through the woods, disturbing all the normal people?*grin*