Still more Mooi Marin

It's pretty clear there's no end to the mooi in Marin, but I'll keep blogging about it anyway.  So:  Took another hike this weekend, this time a total of about 8 miles round trip (couldn't have done it without Felix's trusty loopfiets, or Talia's trusty legs), each mile more gorgeous than the last.

Go West young man!

Wildflowers were everywhere.

 The ring on the surface of the water is what appears after a gray whale does a quick sounding.

Stopped for a quick picnic lunch.

Gorgeous land, sea, sky.

The beach in the distance is on the other side of Bodega Bay. Might be wadeable at low tide.  We'll go camping there this summer.

Elk!

At this point the sand got too soft for the bike, and soon after we decided to turn back, about a mile from the point itself.

This photo was taken about 5 hours into the hike.  The stamina of both subjects is amazing.  Felix and I had spent the last mile or so playing "run over Dada's shadow," a game that he found endlessly amusing and which gave me a blister.

 I don't know how one gets to this beach down below, but one day I will.

Finally, we arrived back at the ranch from which we'd departed. Still functional in some sense, though I think the buildings are used to tend to the elk, not cattle.

Golden Gate Bridge, part 2

Happened to have been next to and under the bridge yesterday:  beautiful from that vantage point, too, and even more interesting.  Turns out there are tons of surfers, windsurfers, kitesurfers (see the second picture, below), and the like playing in the currents underneath the bridge.  Also turns out the entire thing was built right over an old (Civil War) fort.

Never been here, probably never would have been, but was meeting a friend from out of town.  Tourists are sometimes quite worth following.

More Mooi Marin

From a recent hike in the hills beyond our house (shades of Ithaca!):

Not sure I've seen a photo in which we look so much alike.

Aren't they just the cutest?

Golden Gate Bridge

One of the very great advantages of living in Marin is that you have frequent excuse to cross that most beautiful of bridges, the Golden Gate. It never fails to thrill me (or, for that matter, Talia and, most of all, Felix). But I realized the other day that for all those crossings not a one of them has ever been by foot, or at least not by my feet. So I walked it, and here are some photos therefrom:

The tiny boat in this picture is a sea kayak.

Sutro Tower, another beautiful--to my eyes at least--SF landmark, as seen between a pair of the bridge's cables.

The view up from a cable juncture.

One of the towers, the magnificent towers.

A door into one of the towers.  Forbidding....

A popular jumping-off spot:  guaranteed to finish you and, if the tide is going in the right direction, you may be sure your body will never be found.  Wikipedia claims it's the most popular spot in the world for this particular activity.

Ouchie Plants

Woe is me:  I have poison oak.  I think I got it last week when Felix, during a hike, suddenly announced he needed to poo.  Diaperless, nowhere near a bathroom, I took him off trail to do his business.  He, apparently more wise to the local flora than myself, decided he didn't want to drop his pants and sit in those bushes, so we went back to the trail.  And now I live with the consequences.

For my European readers, likely unaware of this plant's very existence, I can only tell you it is worse, a thousand times worse, than the stinging nettle.  The nettle, as my fellow tuinierderen will attest, is a worthy adversary, a sort of loyal opposition, satisfying to pull up, a tireless campaigner, quite capable of delivering a nasty bite, but in the end you know who has won and who has lost the day's contest.  Admittedly, a serious morning's battle with the stuff will leave your fingertips tingling for quite some time, but that's the worst you can expect by way of lingering effects, a feeling of constant incipient numbness.

Not so the poison oak, oh no, not so.  This plant wars from the shadows, it seeks to break your will to fight, and to do so it will attack women and children and ankles and calves and thighs and the backs of your knees alike.  Not for it the steely, warlike darts of the nettle, no, no, it relies on chemical warfare, on poisonous, tenacious oils that continue to wreak havoc long after the defenders have given up the fight.  Do what you will, even a trip or two through the washing machine is no guarantee that you have rid yourself of its poisons.  It is, if a plant may be called so, evil, malaria in comparison to the nettle's mosquito bite.

I do not exaggerate. I detected the first spots a week ago, and every day since then I have been dismayed to discover them spreading and intensifying.  Every day I tell myself it can't get much worse, and every day it does, slowly climbing higher up my legs.  Here a photo of one of the more minor affected areas (though still not for the squeamish):

Evil, I tell you, I am being consumed by it.  Where will it end?