Yesterday's wedding

The wedding cost me $670 and five days and here's what I got out of it:

• To explain myself to Will
• To play an important role there
• Some flirting that soured
• To see how it is to be a college kid with good friends
• Many hugs from my kids
• Expressions of well-wishing from others
• Time on the beach with Maggie
• Some mediocre dancing
• To have Rachel put makeup on me
• To put a boutonniere on Sam and on Ben
• To experience feelings of generosity
• Some time with Will and Cassie before anybody else was there
• To see my kids efforts to put me at ease (wish they didn't need to)
• To attempt to bond with Cassie's mom
• A sweet thank-you note from Cassie and Will
• A name tag that has my name spelled right
• To spend time with all of my kids
• To provide my support for something I can really get behind
• Practice on social interaction. Time with other human beings.
• One West Coast Swing dance with a somewhat drunk Rachel.
• Some pretty good french toast
• Some decent pictures of redwood forest
• A review of humboldt county as a place to live
• A personal talk with Rachel
• Time alone with Will
• To see Maggie dripping with thick mud
• A picture of Maggie lying in the ocean

Avenue of the Giants

Arrived yesterday in Arcata for the wedding. On our way here, Maggie and I stopped at will, and one of our stops was a state rest stop a bit more than an hour south of Eureka. Beyond the grassy area set aside for "walking" dogs, a steep rocky slope led down to a creek. Maggie and I scrambled most of the way down, when she balked at a particularly scary-looking rock outcropping, and I had to find a less scary way down for her. Once we got to the creek, she did her usual belly down into the water, then we waded around, exploring the area. We broke some sticks together, as we often do. Maggie sniffed at a rock sticking out of the water. I picked it up and threw it in a near-vertical arc to make a big splash nearby. Maggie excitedly tried to bite the splashing water. She was so funny that I did it again, and we spent the next fifteen minutes playing with rock splashes.

Later we followed Avenue of the Giants, for the quietly joyful beauty of it.







This morning Maggie got herself muddier than ever before at the City of Eureka's marvelous Sequoia Park, where the mud was thicker then any she has encountered before. No pictures of that, though. Later we walked most of the length of clam beach, which was full of unfamiliar smells for maggie, as she has only been at ocean beach once before. She got tired enough that she put herself to bed, early.

Playing with food

Lately I don't find appeal in very many of the goods that I find at the grocery store. So I am not well stocked with variety of food and am a little bit challenged sometimes to figure out what to eat. Today, I threw together what I had and it turned out quite well. Cooked some macaroni. Meantime, poured a can of tomatoes, a can of tomato soup, and most of a bag of slightly wilted spinach into a frying pan and and get it simmering. This is stuff that was left over from when I was buying everything, it's old. When it is going pretty good, pour in some frozen corn and continue simmering. When everything is sufficiently saucy, mix in the macaroni, turn off the heat, mix in a few pecans, and grate over the top some white cheese that was melted from being in my back pack during a hike, so it needs to be used right away. Put on the lid till it's nicely melted, then serve with some very fresh mushrooms that have been lightly sauteed in butter.

Bald eagle

Been spending a lot of time on Skyline Boulevard lately. I use that route to get to most of the parks that Maggie and I walk, which means we're driving it several times a week. Several days ago as we were rounding a corner not far from Chabot observatory, a bald eagle flew across the road only about fity feet up. Flew across and was immediately gone. Barely time to register.

dog days ;)

Okay, it's not dog days, it's just really hot. Yesterday when I invited K. to bring his dog with Maggie and me for a walk, he warned that the dogs would be in danger of heart attack walking in such heat. So we went without them. Of course, I selected a very shady route. Up redwood road to the main entrance to Redwood Park, where the "developed" parts are, requiring a dog to be on lead. Maggie had to do leash manners for over half a mile before she got to be free. But the on-leash part was the easy part of the walk -- near the stream where it's shady, there are stops for water, and the path is flat.

When we got to chown trail, we went up. It's still mostly shady, as you are in the middle of redwoods, and it's all switchbacks so it's not as steep as it would be if it went straight up, but definitely more challenging than the flat part next to the river. It was cool enough to be tolerable, especially with somewhat frequent puases. Turned right when we got to French trail, went along it only until we hit Fern, and then went back down. By the way, the Fern trail does have a lot of ferns. That's only a little more than a mile of off-leash for maggie, so not as much as usual. But boy was she ready for that fountain that the women's club installed in the middle of the park. She soaked her feet in the container that catches the water, drank her fill and also tried to splash some onto her belly. She didn't move away until I started "helping" her by splashing her a little.

So then along the stream trail again. stopping now and then to talk with other people enjoying the quiet and shade of the place. One group was very interested in my dog and accepted some education about dobermans, which I offered based on some misconceptions that were expressed. Which I used to think myself. Maggie was very well behaved on leash, I think mostly because the heat was taking most of her energy out of her. The day was cooling off just then, and by the time we were done it was around five.

After a bit of a sit-down, I called K. again and asked whether he wanted to take his dog with us to the marina. He did, and we stopped by the ?seabreeze? on the way, which the dogs always appreciate because they get some fries. By the time we got to the marina, it was cool enough for dogs to romp in full energy, and that is what they did. Dobermans unleashed! The two of them had an intense and lengthy romp and tussle together, resting almost not at all during the three rounds we did. By the time we left, I believe Maggie was actually tuckered out, something that doesn't happen very frequently.

Went over and worked in the garden at S's, hung out for a bit using the hammock and the hot tub and enjoying company. When we came home the bedroom was too stuffy and I had been enjoying being outside so much that I set up the air bed and memory foam outside and slept out there. Yes, Maggie's crate was out there, too. Way too noisy though.

This morning's walk was much worse as far as heat goes. We attended a group hike led by C., who usually goes for five miles minimum and often eight to ten miles. Today only about four, mainly because the heat was taking it out of all four of us people and the dog too. We started around nine, but the sun was already hot and there was not much shade along the route selected. We started at the stream train parking lot of Tilden, went mostly downhill along the bay area ridge trail until we hit the big springs trail, then followed it till Vollmer Peak trail. Stopped at a campground for water, as everyone was running low. Vollmer included somewhat shady parts for part of the way, thank god, as it was almost entirely uphill for that last leg. I was very happy to go to an air conditioned building afterwards.

And today I messed around a little bit with Owl.

Hike at Leona

To get to the Leona staging area, you turn off Keller onto Campus and then immediately right into the "Ridgemont at Skyline" parking lot. The staging area is at the back of the parking lot. Just down from the staging area is a small pond, a great place for a dog to splash around, although Maggie actually prefers streams, as larger bodies of water seem to make her nervous. Luckily for her, Leona Canyon Trail follows a small stream much of the way, and she had many opportunities to get wet and muddy. We also ran into a park ranger, who asked me if I knew the name of the trail, and two different dog walkers. The second dog walker had two dogs enthusiastic for a run around with Maggie for a good five minutes. Poison oak intruded on the trail relatively little. The trail itself, a dirt road, winds consistently upward until it ends at a parking lot of Merritt College. There we turned back and returned to the trailhead, a total of 2.6 miles.

Traveling, home

Had a pretty interesting conversation with Mike at the marina. I was telling him about the completely appealing cottage in the forest that I visited yesterday, and he was telling me about his impatience for the end of June, when he will be free from his lease and able to leave for his van trip around the country with his dog. I egged him on by saying he doesn't have to wait for the lease to be up as long as he has already paid the rent. Of course, that goes against the grain a bit to pay for rent for a place unless he is living there, but then it goes against the grain to keep living there when he wants to be going, doesn't it?
Anyway, listening to him talk about how confined he feels in a house and how much he wants to loosen his ties to other people, be a bit more disconnected, made me feel a bit better about not having done anything toward my daydream of traveling around with my dog. 'Cause I don't have a desire to get disconnected; I'd rather be increasing the number of connections I have with other people, even though I don't want to get overly entangled with anyone either.
I have a significant yen for home, which I think will require me to plunk down somewhere and stay there for a while, get tangled up with a particular area. I don't think I want to do that in Oakland. Would rather do that in a woodsy part of Northern California. Preferably close enough to Rachel and Ben to see them fairly frequently.
That would narrow my options, which is good, but the remaining options look difficult. Housing is expensive everywhere in California, and the more beautiful parts are no exception, even though there are no jobs in those parts :) So here I am having found this wonderful place to live, but the rental cost is almost twice as much as I'm paying now to share a place with a guy who keeps his shit in heaps all over the house. (Much rather he'd get it together and put it in his own room). I have some fantasies about how I would generate some income in an out-of-the-way place such as Guerneville, but don't know how realistic my fantasies actually are with rent being as high as that.

And this afternoon I took an employment test at Berkeley Unified School District.

Another hike with Maggie

Went to Redwood Park again, this time starting at Redwood Bowl staging area. Took the West Ridge Trail to Fern to French to Tres Sendas back to West Ridge Trail and return. The West Ridge Trail is just a dirt road for its entire length in the park, but all of the other trail are footpath types. The French Trail is all through Redwoods, so very peaceful, hardly even any birds. Once you get past the Mill intersection, the ups and downs become quite steep, the shrubbier trees become fewer, and the poison oak becomes minimal. The heart of the Redwoods comes at the intersection of Star Flower trail and French, where Redwoods are almost all you can see. The entire trail was 4.09 miles, and since much of it was steep, it was reasonably challenging. Maggie was wearing her backpack with some water in each side, and she came home reasonably calm and able to bed down without a lot of fuss.

Number of dogs met on the trail: about ten. horses: two, on Fern.

HIke with Maggie

Hiked in Redwood Park today starting at Big Bear staging area. Took Toyon Trail to the West Ridge Trail to Baccharis Trail to Dunn and the Monteiro to Golden Spike, a total of 3.92 miles. The weather has been cool, so seemed comparatively easy.
The Toyon Trail, a fairly gentle, narrow, sheltered uphill, needs poison oak abatement, although not as badly as Chabot's Buckeye Trail, which still has the worst poison oak intrusion into a trail I've seen. The juncos were active in the shrubby trees, and one had fallen dead on the trail.
Once we reached the West Ridge Trail, a repurposed fire trail, we had fairly level and unsheltered walking. If the sun had been out, it might have been overly warm, but we were walking through a thick fog bank, and as we neared Baccharis Trail, we passed through a grove of eucalyptus that caught the fog and rained on the trail below, creating mud. Upon leaving the grove we were again on a dry trail, proving the rain in question was caused by the trees.
The Baccharis Trail was wide, gentle, often sandy and sometimes rocky. We continued through mostly shrubby trees and eucalyptus until we got a little way down the Monteiro Trail, where a grove of redwoods broke the trend. As we descended out of the fog on this wide, less gently sloping trail I sometimes walked backwards to alleviate the effect on my knees.
At the Monteiro/Golden Spike junction, I was confused, as the map showed the Golden Spike extending in both directions when we intersected it; instead there was only a downhill, and I wasn't sure if that was the westward or eastward direction. I guessed eastward and continued on Monteiro, and after a while we saw another, unmarked trail leading off to the left. I'm guessing that was the eastward part of the Golden Spike trail, but didn't go that way.
The Monteiro Trail descends all the way to the road near the Piedmont stables, and we picked up the Golden Spike trail there. As we followed this narrow, sheltered trail, we could see and hear the road for most of the way back to the car. The entire walk took about an hour and a half at an ambling pace.

Maggie weighs 54.6 pounds this morning.