Wildflowers and Women of the Night

Staying true to my style, I’ve spent the past several weeks doing what I do best: hiking, running, camping, and exploring new places. And I’ll get into that soon. But perhaps the biggest excitement recently: Owen bought an adventure motorcycle! I haven’t ridden with him yet, but eventually we will ride “two up” and hope to take it to some wild places.

It’s been awhile since I posted, and we’ve been on some sweet adventures. Back in March (wow, it really has been awhile) we finally headed south, way south, to Death Valley National Park. We left at the bright hour of 3am, Owen’s idea, and drove through a desert sprinkled with Joshua Trees and little else. Total no man’s land. We arrived at the park late morning and met up with Doug, a friend from high school living in LA now. Saturday we did the driving tour of the park with a few pit stops for short hikes. Typical weather in Death Valley in the spring is a pleasant 70s-80s but we happened to choose the weekend the temperature climbed to over 100 degrees, which nearly set a record. So some of our short hikes turned into run out of the car, snap a photo, run back into the air conditioned car. At Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, it was brutal. I felt like I was being thrown around in a clothes dryer- somehow the wind made it even hotter. To make matters worse, Owen decided to wear jeans and drink barely any water. Lesson learned there. That night we headed to higher elevation and camped at Wildrose Campground, tucked into a canyon up in the mountains. We had a “lady of the night” experience: some woman tried to come into our tent in the middle of the night! I guess she was just disoriented in the dark and had the wrong tent, but we were all a little shocked when we realized what was happening.

Owen dragging at Badwater Basin (that's a salt flat!)

Feeling better

Hiking to our lunch spot

Sand dunes in Death Valley

The next morning I was waiting for the bathroom and who walks out of it but Tori, someone I had gone to school with back in New York. She’s living in the Bay Area too now- what a coincidence! That day we hiked Wildrose Peak along with two new friends, a couple from Texas who had been traveling the West Coast the past few weeks. I think they were jonesing for some conversation with other people. On the way to the top, we had an impromptu snowball fight. Who would have guessed that one day we’d be in a 100 degree desert, and the next day we’d be in the snow?

Charcoal kilns

At the summit of Wildrose Peak

Our little car doing some off-roading

Another weekend we took Dave, one of my college friends, camping. We went to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, tucked into the Santa Cruz Mountains near us. He’s a relatively new camper, and it was really rewarding to see how basic stuff like making a fire and cooking s’mores was so exciting to him. So exciting, in fact, that he decided to burn all our leftover marshmallows and empty beer bottles to see what would happen. We created a monster! Owen was in charge of the food for the weekend and he outdid himself: we feasted on hot dogs and sausages cooked over the fire for dinner and breakfast burritos the next morning with bacon, eggs, cheese, salsa, onions, and peppers. I think Owen was a backcountry chef in his former life.

I was grateful to see two other friends from high school this spring. Maureen’s visit was relatively short but we did sneak in a pretty gnarly trail run at Wunderlich County Park on a rainy Saturday morning. Kristen visited just last weekend and we gave her the grand tour of the Bay Area: the ocean, the mountains, and San Francisco. The highlight of the weekend was our trip to Pescadero State Beach. Kristen and I saw something/someone swimming in the marsh, and went back and forth about 10 times (it’s an animal! no, it’s a person snorkeling!) before we realized it was, in fact, an animal. Many animals actually. I’m still not sure if we were seeing sea lions or harbor seals, but we watched them swimming and playing for about an hour. 

Wish I could claim credit for building it, but we just found this fort on the beach

Seals? Sea lions? You tell me.

We saw more marine activity on our day trip to San Francisco, and this time I knew what they were: sea lions. They were actually kind of scary; they barked at each other and tried to push each other off the piers. Even scarier yet was our Uber ride across the city: we got dropped off at Lombard Street, known for its steep, hairpin turns. I should’ve been expecting steep streets on our way there, but nothing could prepare me for what we experienced. At several points I was certain we were going to roll right back down the way we came. Later that day we took a boat ride out to Alcatraz, Island, previously home to a federal prison, and actually had a very enjoyable afternoon taking an audio tour, enjoying views of the city, and browsing the gardens.  

View of SF from Alcatraz

One weekend, Owen and I spontaneously decided we wanted to go camping. Now, normally that wouldn’t be a problem. But in the Bay Area, if you want to sleep in the woods for a night you have to make that decision months in advance and reserve yourself a spot. I scoured the interweb and luckily found the one place in the Bay Area that was first-come, first-serve at Castle Rock State Park. Owen and I thrive on first-come, first-serve, and snagged a backcountry tent site with no problem. I spent the weekend photographing wildflowers, and Owen spent the weekend trying to push me ahead on the trail.

There is also that thing I do 40 hours a week…I can’t believe I’ve been with San Mateo County for over four months now. Last week I drove out to the coast for a field visit and spent the morning hiking in the hills and walking along the beach with my coworker and her dog. I really can’t complain. 

All in a day's work