It’s been awhile since I last posted, and I’m totally
blaming this on Owen. It’s hard for me to hunker down and write when he’s home, and with him
being in full-on job search mode the past few months, he’s been home... a lot. I
finally had time this week to churn it out though, because Owen went on a motorcycle camping trip to Big Sur to celebrate…his new job! He
starts working at Nio, an autonomous car company, at the San Jose office next week! So, what have we been up to the past couple months?
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Owen's setup in Los Padres National Forest |
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View of Big Sur from the fire roads in Los Padres |
A long, long time ago (aka November) Owen and I went to
Pinnacles National Park. It’s the newest national park, just a couple hours
south of us, and has these sweet caves you can hike through. We explored them
during the day, then went back for seconds and checked them out at night.
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The caves at Pinnacles National Park |
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Someone's pumped to go spelunking |
For the long Thanksgiving weekend, we were originally
planning on backpacking on the northern CA coast with our friends Dusty and
Brian. In the interest of staying alive (think impassable trails at high tide,
sneaker waves, and swollen creeks) we headed south instead, to Joshua Tree
National Park. We spent a wild three nights there, exploring a desert oasis,
climbing the jumbo rocks, testing out Brian’s new truck off-roading, and
shooting guns in BLM land. We even got Thanksgiving leftovers from a couple
camping near us! We also got kicked out of our campsite one night…we shared a
site with someone because the campground was full, then he went rogue the next
day for an unidentified reason and kicked us to the curb.
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Joshua trees and jumbo rocks |
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Owen top roping at Joshua Tree |
Back in December, Owen and I went on what I like to call a
microadventure: motorcycle camping on a week night. There’s something about
sleeping outside, then going to work the next morning, that makes me feel like
I’m getting away with something. After my baby wipe bath and ample body spray,
my coworkers had no idea I’d been camping the night before.
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The bike was loaded down with our camping stuff |
December was a good month: Owen and I got to spend one
glorious day with Madeline! She visited with her boyfriend Evan, and we joined
up with Will, another college friend. The five of us went on a whirlwind tour
of the Bay Area in one day: we got lunch in the Santa Cruz mountains, hiked
amongst redwood trees, watched the sunset over the ocean, and capped it off
with extreme gluttony- bread bowls then Ghirardelli sundaes in San Francisco. Needless
to say, Owen and I were not hungry until after lunchtime the next day.
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Butano State Park. Photo cred- Madeline |
I almost never run short races, because clearly I like being
in pain, but recently I ran an 8K up in Marin County north of San Francisco.
For a race that short, it packed in some of the most epic scenery I’ve
experienced in a trail race. I also ran a 5K “prediction run” which means we
predicted our finishing time before the race, and the runner that finished
closest to their prediction won (no watches allowed). I was way off my
predicted time, but I finished second in the race!
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Rodeo Beach Trail Run |
We returned to the motherland (what I fondly call NJ) for
Christmas. We were eager to experience true winter weather and we got it: the
temperature hovered around 15 degrees. I had to wear two pairs of pants to hike
outside. Two! We had some much-needed friends and family time and finally got
to meet Owen’s nephew, Antonio, who just turned one.
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Dressed up as a greaser and "bad Sandy" for a 50s themed NYE party |
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Braving the cold with Kelli and Mom in New Hope, PA |
For MLK weekend in January, we planned an impromptu trip up
to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Lucky for us, our friend Evan lives not too far
from the park so we had a place to crash and a host. Even with last minute
notice, he got us El Salvadorean food one night and took us to a game night. Crater
Lake was so beautiful that you could literally just “point and shoot” and all
the photos came out amazing. During our hike along the lake’s rim, we tried
glissading (sliding down the snow on our butts) and even used our hiking poles
as makeshift ice axes to self-arrest as needed. Luckily, we never needed to put
it to the test: we were able to stop before smashing into the trees at the
bottom.
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Crater Lake was incredible |
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Owen in post-glissading bliss |
Last weekend, we went to Yosemite National Park to celebrate
my birthday. As Madeline kindly reminded me, I am now closer to 30 than 20.
Yikes! I wanted to see the park in the winter, blanketed with snow, but the Sierras had been seriously lacking in snowfall so I wasn't sure what to expect. We lucked out and found snow: we hiked out to a snowy sequoia grove. Mission accomplished! We also spent a good bit of
time searching for fireplaces and falling asleep in front of them. It was the
perfect birthday weekend.
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Hiking underneath a sequoia tree |
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Tuolumne Sequoia Grove at Yosemite |
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We found a fireplace you could sit inside! |
I celebrated my one-year anniversary at San Mateo County recently. Work is going well- I'm going to be working on a watershed restoration project, which will hopefully allow me to get out in the field a bit more. I did a site visit a couple weeks ago with an engineering geologist who was drilling some super deep soil cores, and he insisted on getting a photo of me pretending to operate the drill.
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Don't worry- I'm just pretending to operate this drill |
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I'm excited for the coming months and for the days to get longer. If you call us and our phones are off, it means one thing: we are out in our playground in the woods, running or riding down some dirt road, chasing the next view.
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