Picnic at Willow Creek

Today did not happen at all as I had planned. We were supposed to go hiking with Sam and Olivia, Elizabeth and Houston, and my mom in Mt. Tamalpais. But apparently that was not meant to be. First off, Rachel has been sick since Monday, and while I was hoping that she would feel well enough to go with us, it was clear by Wednesday that she would be sitting this one out. Then this morning when I woke up, Rachel let me know that Olivia had emailed last night and Owen was running a fever and that they probably wouldn't be coming (by the way, they planned the trip). And sure enough, when I checked the emails, they had sent another and wouldn't be going. Well, I was already feeling a little sad that Rachel wasn't coming, so at this point I didn't really have a whole lot of motivation to make the 2 and a half hour drive to the coast, but Houston and Elizabeth were in, and by this time my mom would have been on her way over  (I assumed). Then she called and said she wasn't going to be able to make it. If I thought I wasn't motivated before, I was definitely not feeling the hike now, but Houston and Elizabeth were still in, so I was too. I had Rachel call them anyway because maybe hiking with Bill and the kids wouldn't sound quite as exciting as what we had originally planned (again, maybe). Well, I guess they had made other plans, so I decided to concede defeat.

Five minutes later, however, I was strategizing. One of the things I was excited about was using the State Parks pass my parents got us for Christmas. I really wanted to use it at some place I hadn't been to before, but at that point, I just wanted to use it. So I came up with a plan: a picnic (with the food I had planned to use on our hike, the focal point being a summer sausage log Rachel bought me because she knows what brings me pleasure) at Folsom Lake. Plus, we could bring the kids' bikes and Meghan could get some more bike riding time in. Once school's back in session, that time's going to be drastically reduced. Rachel wasn't really feeling up to it, but she also wasn't feeling up to spending another day in the house, so she, and her pie shaped box of tissue, came along.

At this point in the narrative, the faithful reader may be trying to reconcile my stated plan to picnic at Folsom Lake with the title of this post which places the location of said picnic at a place called Willow Creek. I planned to go to Folsom Lake, Beals' Point to be precise, but as we made our way past the Outlets on Folsom Blvd, I saw a California State Parks sign for Willow Creek on the other side of the road. I had noticed that sign on several occasions and had been curious about it. I knew it was on Lake Natoma (which is a little bit nicer since September 25th--see Highlights Since September pt 2), and I knew I've ridden by it on my bike once or twice, but that was it. In a moment of dharmic clarity I realized that I could both satisfy my curiosity and attain my aforementioned goal of using the State Parks Pass at a place I hadn't been before with a simple U-turn at Blue Ravine.

Needless to say, I made the U-turn.

Willow Creek was no Stinson Beach, but it was a nice little place. It crossed a bike trail and turned into a parking area with a car top boat launch. Further down there were two covered (and wheelchair accessible) picnic areas. We parked next to one of the covered picnic tables and saw these native Californians:

To get this shot I had to creep up to an outhouse and peek around it, and I had to do all that in front of an old guy parked in his car next to the outhouse. I was sure he was thinking I was trying to get some shots of his wife on the toilet, but he didn't say anything (nor did he stick around after she got out). I wanted the shot because Abby'sworking on a California scavenger hunt type project and as I alluded to earlier, the California Valley Quail is the state bird of California (I'm working under the assumption that the quail in the photo are California Valley Quail mainly because they were in California, in the Sacramento Valley, and I don't know of any other quail species. I hope her teacher is no amateur ornithologist).

While I was stalking birds, my family was busily devouring the food that I had prepared and in fear of missing out on the sausage log, I left the birds and the outhouse and went back to the table.

Here's the covered picnic area and the family. 

Here's the fare (at least what was left after I got done)

As you can see, to go with the summer sausage I brought a nice mild cheddar cheese, a sliced baguette, some Ritz crackers (for the less refined).

\

I also brought some Sour Patch Kids for which I had to sacrifice a christmas box of See's candy (a whole other story that involved Christmas exchange gifts and my nephew Jace) as well as two varieties of M&Ms and an assortment of mini candy canes.

After lunch it was time for the girls to ride their bikes (Lennon chose the DS over actual physical activity). Meghan decided that off road riding is every bit as exciting as any other type of riding. (I may have a mountain biker on my hands!) Here's a pic and a couple of short video clips. When you look at these, keep in mind that she got the bike on Christmas, and I took off the training wheels yesterday. (Yes, I am very proud of my girl.)

Meghan and some off road action

Look at that smile.

 

s

I'd say that for the most part, Meghan is telling the bike where to go. And as for Abby, I don't know. Maybe she's been downloading the Bangels to her mp3 player. Maybe she was just helping Meghan practice concentrating, no matter the distraction.

That's the State Parks pass proudly displayed on our windshield.

We also spotted a cool island that was just begging us to take the canoe out and explore. Here it is:

Afterward

By the way, Bear Grylls is no longer my ultimate hero. He has been replaced by Jeremy Wade, the guy from the Animal Planet show "River Monsters." He and the show play the fear card much too strongly, but he catches some awesome fish. And it's the only fishing show that Rachel will watch. I bring this up because over the course of the day today, we watched all 7 episodes of the second season.

Meghan on two wheels

If you saw the post from a couple of days ago called "Meghan takes out her new wheels," then you saw a picture of a very angry Meghan after she opened her new bike on Christmas morning. Well, she was actually really excited at first, but then she saw the training wheels on the bike, and as we all know, big girl bikes don't have training wheels. The grimace on her face disappeared when we told her that the training wheels can be taken off, and she has been after us since then to take the training wheels off.

We were reluctant to take them off, but today Meghan's persistence paid off. I took her to a school parking lot where we would have lots of space, took the training wheels off, and after a few nervous minutes (on her part), here's what happened:

 

 We're so proud of our girl!

Here's another one:

 

One funny thing that I tried to get her to repeat on the video was that, as she was riding around and I was telling her to try and avoid steering straight into such obstacles as cars, light poles, and the only section of fence--about 5 feet long--in the entire parking lot, she told me "I just go where my bike tells me to go." It was cute.

And here's an outtake:

 

I guess that's where the bike told her to go.

Highlights Since September

I was looking back over our photos and just thought I'd put together a highlight reel of a few of the cool things that we've done since September. (This is Bill, by the way. I figure it's time to figure out this blog thing.)

Update: Rachel helped me figure out how to reset the post date so I can put the posts in chronological order so I'll leave new ones (new in the sense that I just made them, but old because they happened during the summer and we're just now getting to posting them) up for a little while and then put them back on the date on which they occurred. 

Highlights since September: the final chapter

It all started with the REI used gear sale. I found a 300 dollar backpacking tent (the Rei Quarter Dome T3) for 30 bucks. I bought it, but it had some problems, including a 2 inch rip in the rain fly and a missing pole. I went back to REI and found a vestibule for another REI tent that had some poles that looked similar for 10 bucks and was going to buy it, but when I explained the deal to the employee working the used gear sale, he marked the price down to 99 cents. REI is the best!!.

The pole wasn't the right size, but after some creative problem solving and some dremel work I had a working pole system. (I also used some seam sealer--actually quite a bit of it--to fix the rip in the fly.

Now that I had an awesome backpacking tent, I wanted to put it to use and that's where the idea for a Thanksgiving break backpacking trip began.

The plan was further aided by the fact that due to some contract negotiations between my school district and my union, we got the whole week of Thanksgiving off.

Speaking of vacation time, The one goal I wasn't able to accomplish this summer was to take my family on a backpacking trip. For the last two summers we've been able to do an overnight backpacking trip, so I really, really wanted to keep the tradition alive. In fact, I wanted to kick it up a notch; I wanted to make it a 3 day trip instead of just an overnighter. I started researching places to backpack and decided upon Point Reyes.

The plan was to start Monday November 22 at the Point Reyes Hostel, camp at Coast Camp, about 3 miles out, hike to Wildcat Camp the next day and then hike out to the Palomarin trailhead on Wednesday.

We invited a bunch of people, but the only ones crazy enough to go along with us turned out to be Sam and Olivia who brought along Isabella and Ava and Olivia's sister Julia as well as Lennon's friend Sam (who's one of my Webelos).

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. During the week before the trip, the forecast continuously changed, giving us hope, crushing it, offering up more hope. On the Sunday before we left, there was like a 90 percent chance of rain on Monday, but Tuesday and Wednesday were perfect, so we decided to start on Tuesday at the Palomarin trailhead, hike to Wildcat Camp and then hike back out the following day, and that's just what we did.

The sky was clear and sunny, but it was super windy on the way there. The views were Awesome!

We didn't know it when we took this picture, but the beach in the photo is Wildcat beach right by our campground.

Meghan enjoyed the view.

Lennon used the rest stop to practice his Avatar pose.

Here's the kids playing on the top of a hill.

This was the view looking back the way we had come. That's Alamere Falls a little above and to the left of the middle of the picture.

We didn't start out with Sam and Olivia, but they caught up to us at camp and they brought a friend:

The horse and its owner didn't actually arrive with Sam and Olivia. The guy rode right into camp, got off his horse, walked up to me and started showing me pictures he took. While he was talking to me, the kids all went over and started petting the horse. I thought it was all pretty random and crazy, so as soon as I could break away, I grabbed my camera and started documenting.

After the guy and his horse left, Sam and Olivia told us that they had met the guy on the trail and had talked to him for a little while then, so it wasn't as random as I had thought--but it was still a little crazy.

We checked out the beach as the sun was setting. Abby used the time to vandalize the beach:


Rachel and I used the time to pose for a cute couple photo:


The sunset was pretty awesome:


It got pretty cold after the sun went down, so we all went to bed pretty quickly. Because we went to bed so early and because of my weak bladder, at around 2 AM I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I decided that I would take the camera and go out in search of raccoons. (One of the things that I had read about camping at Point Reyes was that you had to be careful because raccoons were all over the place. I was excited at the chance of seeing one).

As you will note, there are no photos of raccoons. I was unsuccessful.

The next morning I went down to the beach and took some pictures of the pretty scenery:
This one's looking out to the right.

And this one's looking to the left. There's the falls.

Meanwhile, back at camp:
We were waiting for our jetboil to cook us up some omeletes in zip lock bags. The jetboil does awesome at boiling water, but we learned on this trip that it's not so great when you try to do anything more fancy.

Here's a picture of the tent that started it all.

While playing next to the campsite, the kids found an assortment of deer bones.

We decided that before hiking out, we should go on a little adventure and try to walk along the beach to Alamere Falls.

Here we are, on our way.

We made it:

Lennon found a dead crab,

and I found a crabby girl:
In her defense, she had done a lot
of walking in the last couple days and she did a great job. She just had her moments.

The rest of the girls did great.

On the way back to camp I saw evidence of what I had failed to find in the middle of the night:
Raccoon tracks. They were there. They just didn't want me to see them.

After lunch we started the hike back:

Meghan was happy again and flying up the trail.

We passed a lot of nice vistas, like this one:


I haven't really commented on Lennon and Sam (the friend, not the uncle). Aside from annoying the girls occasionally, they spent most of their time finding things to interest themselves and they were awesome hikers. They led the trip back. Here's a couple of shots of the manly hikers:

At this point, Ava and Sam the uncle were able to catch up with them.

On the hike in, we passed a bunch of puddles and I looked for newts (something else I had read about), but we didn't see any. At one point, we passed an older couple who asked us if we had seen the newts in a puddle further back on the trail. We hadn't and I was a little sad that we had missed them. I was hoping that we might see them on the way back, and we did.

As we were nearing the end of the hike, we found ourselves split into four groups. Lennon and Sam Keller were in the front (Sam had some business to take care of at the trailhead--or more specifically at the bathroom at the trailhead); Rachel and Julia went after the boys to kind of keep an eye on them; I walked with Meghan, Abby, and Bella; and Sam, Olivia, and Ava brought up the rear to make sure that no one got left behind.

The girls and I had fun.
We enjoyed the vistas,

and the flowers

and crossing a bridge

And before we knew it, we were back.

But, even though we had been walking all day, we weren't done yet. We loaded into our vans and headed for the Point Reyes Lighthouse. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of the Elmer Lighthouse Curse. Apparently, Sam and Olivia have tried to visit the lighthouse a few other times, but it has always been closed.

This time was no exception. We did get to see the lighthouse lit up from a distance and that was cool.

We were also able to reenact a photo that Rachel has when she visited the lighthouse with some friends and posed for a picture in the jaws of a whale skull. Each of the kids followed in their mother's footsteps and here are the pictures:

Definitely a highlight.

highlights since September pt 5

My mom bought this book about hiking opportunities around Georgetown (the city in California, not the University in DC). One of the hikes was supposed to lead to the crash site of a world war 2 era B-17 bomber. That sounded pretty cool, so on Saturday, October 16th, we headed out in an attempt to locate the wreckage. Unfortunately, neither the directions, nor the maps in the book were very clear. We did manage to find the parking area, despite some uncertainty on the way there, but we started off on the wrong trailhead.

Having to cross over this log a few hundred feet in was our first clue that we might not be on the right trail.

We may not have been going in the right direction, but we did get to see this really cool tree:

That's my mom (blue backpack) and Rachel (yellow shirt) in the bottom left. (The cool tree, by the way, is in the center.)

Once the trail dead ended, we walked back to where we started and found the right trail. (The folks who built the trail decided to put the sign about 50 yards from the start of the trail.) Anyway, we quickly found this cool looking mushroom:

This is typically what they do to trees that block the trail:

I thought I'd take advantage of the photo opportunity.

In this shot, Lennon is pointing a shotgun shell cartridge he found at me. It was very intimidating. It also gave him the idea for a hiking game in which he (and later Abby as well) would set "traps" for the "enemy" along the trail. As the game evolved throughout the day, these traps took the form of different geometric designs drawn in the dirt with sticks and lest there be any confusion, they narrated their trap setting in very minute detail.

We missed an unsigned Y intersection and therefore never got to the plane wreckage, but because of our oversight, we were able to see a lot of pretty scenery, as can be seen in the following shots:

In this last shot, Rachel may not fit the definition of "scenery," but I like to look at her, so here she is.

We also came across this abandoned ranch house (when we later realized that we were not on the right trail, we turned around and retraced our steps, and only then did we realize that we had been trespassing on private property when we came to the ranch. Oops.

We ended up hiking for a LOOOOONG time, but the kids did great, especially Lennon and Abby who continued their crazy game for hours. In order to try to save some time and some mileage, we left the trail and cut across country. When, after a while, we were starting to wonder if we were ever going to get back to a landmark that we recognized, we found this place that we had stopped at on our way out in the morning, so we knew where we were and we knew that we were pretty close to the car. Boy were we happy.

Shortly after reaching this point, we saw the intersection we had missed earlier in the day. It was pretty obvious going back towards the trailhead, but not so obvious when walking away from it. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to try it again some other time.