Family, Holidays, and Adventures

Son Shawn and Granddaughter Naomi on the top of Barnabe Peak.

    Whoa... I have some catching up to do since last writing before Thanksgiving! Over the past several weeks we have gathered with family in various configurations, continued thriving in our camp host gig at Samuel P Taylor State Park, watched water rise and fall in the creek, seen some salmon, and I have embarked on yet another education venture.

    Bill's Trail, which begins in Devil's Gulch, across Sir Francis Drake Blvd. from Camp Taylor at Samuel P Taylor State Park, is the longest, but easiest way to hike to Barnabe Peak, the highest point in the park. It is a beautiful wide trail, with good foot tread and no steep places. The trail was rebuilt only a couple of years ago and the folks who built it and maintain it are very protective of it so it closes during the rainy winter months starting around the beginning of December. I had not gone up the trail yet this season so I was anxious to hike it before it closed for the winter, so after we ran some errands on our day off, Tuesday, November 23, I headed out to the trail. It was a beautiful uneventful hike, but I ran out of time to reach the peak without getting back to camp before dark.

One of the 8 bridges on Bill's Trail.

Another bridge on the trail.

This is a view from the upper end of Bill's Trail looking back down the trail.

And this is a view looking out toward Tomales Bay from the exact same spot as the previous picture.

And this is looking up from about the same spot to the lookout at the top of Barnabe Peak.

Another view of Barnabe Peak and the rest of the trail up from near the end of Bill's Trail.

It is less than a half mile, but a very, very steep half mile that I would not have time for this day.

Looking out toward Tamales Bay from a pile of rocks near the top of Bill's Trail.

    On Thanksgiving we gathered with a total of 12 family and friends for dinner in the San Bruno house Rob grew up in and that daughter Erin lives in when she's not on Angel Island. Erin efficiently organized the meal, assigning various items to each of us. My primary assignments were won tons and lemon meringue pie - neither of which is associated with being traditional Thanksgiving fare. Won tons for appetizers have been a part of our family Thanksgiving for over 40 years. This family tradition began when son Scott was in the second grade and each student was to bring something that was a regular part of their family's Thanksgiving meal to share at a classroom feast. Scott told his teacher that our family always had won tons for Thanksgiving - news to me! He was influenced by the fact that I had been making hundreds of won tons for a Chinese dinner at our church about the time his class was planning for the feast. When I tried to persuade him to change to something that was actually a regular part of our Thanksgiving, Scott insisted that it had to be won tons, and I told him that then he had to make them! They're pretty labor intensive to stuff and I had just stuffed something like 400 for the church dinner! So that Thanksgiving Scott learned to stuff won tons and we have been having them every year since.

Daughter Ruth and Grandson Lukas stuffing the Thanksgiving won tons.

Granddaughters Sophia, Avi and Naomi gathered around a book. 

These cousins love any occasion to get together!

    The two days after Thanksgiving would find me on two different mountain tops with two different groups of family members. 

Me, Elizabeth, Lukas, Tiffany and Paul on the top of Mount Tamalpais.

    On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I and Lukas joined my sister Elizabeth and my nephew Paul and his wife Tiffany to venture to Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County. Rob and I have been up to the top a couple of times, but Elizabeth had not been there. It is a short hike from the upper parking lot to the look out area with spectacular views of the Bay Area. Mt Tamalpais has a special place in my and my siblings' hearts because our father had a tiny cabin above Muir Woods on the side of the mountain before our parents were married, and at sometime they hiked up to the top and we have a beautiful picture of them there. My father of course always regretted that he sold the cabin, but it was way too small to be a home for he and my mother and my two half brothers when they got married.

My parents on the top of Mt. Tamalpais prior to their marriage in 1949.

Paul and Tiffany recreating the picture on the exact same rock on November 26, 2021.

Lukas posing on a different rock.

Looking across the bay to Angel Island and San Francisco.

Looking across Alpine Lake to the area where Samuel P Taylor State Park is located

    

    On Saturday, November 27, son Shawn and granddaughters Sophia and Naomi came to the park to join Lukas and I on a hike up to the top of Barnabe Peak. This would be my first trip all the way to the top this season. It was quite a feat for an 8 year old and a 5 year old to attempt.

Here are Sophia and Naomi sitting on the side of the trail resting.

I think at this point they were plotting how to get out of going the rest of the way up.

We made it!

Here are Lukas and me at the top.

And here are Shawn and 5 year old Naomi on top of some rocks at the top.

Naomi riding back down on Lukas' shoulders.

Lukas told her if she made it all the way to the top, he'd carry her all the way down on his shoulders.

All together from our campsite it was about 5 miles round trip and well over 1,000 foot elevation gain.

      Remember in my last blog entry that Avi had used hair chalk to color my hair? Her temporary hair coloring inspired me to try some "real" rainbow highlights. Rob thinks it's silly, but I think it's fun! My niece Karyn is a hairdresser in Willits so I dared to make an appointment with her to actually have my hair died. Truth be told, I have never had my hair died in my life, and have never wanted to die it, but off I went to see Karyn and below you see the results! The top layer is still my natural grey so unless I wear a hair clip the died hair kind of plays peek a boo.  And because I didn't have the hair bleached first the color will eventually wash out, which is a good thing, but in the meantime I'm having fun with it - and Avi loves it! The trip north also gave me an excuse to visit my sister Elizabeth in Potter Valley - and I even got a visit with Santa!

One side of my hair

The other side

And here I am with Santa! 

    Since Thanksgiving we've made four trips to Colfax. We had a couple of medical appointments in Roseville, and one of the trips was to celebrate Christmas on winter Solstice with daughters Ruth and Erin, granddaughter Avi, grandchild Chris, and granddaughter-in-law Alana. We went up last week to see what we could do to help Ruth regroup after the devastating snow storm that shut off power and water for six days after Christmas.

Here are Rob and Ruth playing a game of Settlers after Avi went to bed.

Our time together with family is never complete without at least one board game!

Beautiful fall scene along the canal that I usually walk along while we're in Colfax.

Beautiful winter scene at the house in mid December.

This wasn't the big storm - just got a pretty dusting of snow.

Winter solstice Christmas

Avi could hardly wait for her mother to open her present from her!

She was almost more excited to see all of our reactions to her gifts to us, than to see what she got.

The same canal a few weeks later than the pretty fall picture.

    I was able to get through and around this tree on my morning walk last week, but my path was totally blocked further along the way by a much larger oak. This was a week after the snow storm and it was raining, but there was still a lot of snow up on the canal trail. There was only about 6 inches of snow at the house from the storm, but it was super wet and super heavy, breaking thousands and thousands of trees throughout the foothills and shutting down power. Electricity went off at our house on December 26 and didn't come back on until January 2, and then went off again on January 3 for several hours the day we arrived. When the electricity is off there is no well water. And in this storm the canal that supplies the irrigation water was also shut down, so no irrigation water either for several days. Ruth was able to drive to town so she could get bottled water and she melted snow for the horses and to flush the toilets. The cook top is propane and works fine with the power off, but the propane furnace won't work without electricity. Ruth went through lots of firewood keeping the wood stove going. While we were there Rob cut up some of the wood that had come down on the property, but it won't be good firewood until next year. Ruth had a hard week surviving, but there were other people in much worse conditions who weren't able to drive out, or didn't have wood heat to rely on. Ruth has a generator, but she chose not to use it - they are horribly noisy and require a lot of tending. In the "old" days when the power went off in our Colfax area neighborhood everything got real quiet, but not now. Now when the power goes off you hear the generators start up all over the hills and it's not quiet! 

    

    Tuesday evening, January 4, 8 year old granddaughter Sophia called me on her mother's phone to ask if I could help her surprise her father (Shawn) on his birthday on January 6. We figured out some logistics and I said sure, so Rob and I headed over to Richmond to pick up Sophia and Naomi after school. Sophia was so excited! We went to Safeway and bought an undecorated cake, some cake decorations, cards and presents and then the girls sat in the back of the car and decorated the cake, wrapped the presents and wrote on the cards. They also made pinatas out of balloons that they put candy inside before blowing up and then decorated with pieces of paper. We went back in the store for helium balloons and dinner fixings at the deli. Shawn was pleasantly surprised when the girls arrived at the house to ring the door bell with the balloons and gifts in hand. The "surprise" party was a total success! And it included Shawn's sister Erin who shares the same birthday. As Shawn told the girls he got a baby sister for his third birthday!

Sophia and Naomi decorating the pinatas in the back seat.

Shawn and Erin ready to blow out their respective cakes.

Shawn opening gifts.

    We haven't had nearly the number of trees come down at Samuel P Taylor State Park as the foothills did with the after Christmas snow storm, but there have been a few trees and branches that we have cleared off trails.

A tree blocking Pioneer Tree Trail.

Often when a tree falls on the trail one is able to make their way through or around the tree, but not this one. The slope to either side of the trail here was too steep to find a way around.

Here is Rob cutting it up with his trusty bush saw.

And you can see there is again passage along the trail.

This fir tree is too big for the little bush saw, but we did manage to clear branches so it is easier to step over one end until a trail crew can come clear this tree.

This tree was across Ox Trail.  It took several days after I discovered this one before we could get to it to cut it up because it just kept raining. I go out hiking in the rain, but Rob doesn't  go out in the rain unless he absolutely has to.

This is a maintenance worker clearing up a tree that fell near the park entrance.

Fortunately it missed the Park Host's car, the wood shed and just barely brushed the Gator.

The end of the trail!

    North Creek Trail, which used to be my favorite way to get to Devil's Gulch, was cut off by a slide on the side of Sir Francis Drake Blvd. You could actually see the trail several feet down toward the creek from this end. There has been one way traffic ever since this happened several days before Christmas. There was some concern that the slide might take the road out, but they are able to build up the bank with lots of big rock. The work is noisy during the day as this location is right across the highway from the campground, and last week they had bright lights on it and worked through the night causing some campers to complain. 

A tractor down in the hole and one on top.

It has been fascinating watching the progress of this work. 

We didn't see the tractor get down there, but we heard that it sort of just slid down behind it's bucket.

How will it get out?

As the rock is laid in the hole it just keeps driving up higher and will eventually be at road level!

These tractor operators are really artists at what they do.

    One of the reasons I was eager to come back to Samuel P Taylor this year was that I was hopeful of getting into a nearby U.C. California Naturalist Course. The organizations close by that sometimes offer the course are not offering it during the time we are here, but there is one offered at Pepperwood Preserve near Santa Rosa so I signed up and began the 50 hour course that is held for 10 Saturdays. The first session was last Saturday, January 8, and it is proving to be everything I hoped for and more. Our first session was all outside at the beautiful Pepperwood Preserve that was burned over in the 2017 Tubb's fire. In addition to the regular components of this comprehensive course about our unique and wonderful California ecosystem, we are also learning first hand about fire recovery and prevention of devastating results of fire.

A view of Mt. St. Helena from the trail at Pepperwood.

A view south west from a rock outcropping at Pepperwood.

    We continue to enjoy to the beauty and wonder of Samuel P Taylor State Park, and are currently enjoying the sunshine after many days of rain, drizzle and overcast.

A view toward Tamales Bay from up on Bolinas Ridge.

What do you see?

No, it is not a salmon!

This is an otter that I got some good views of in the creek at Devil's Gulch, but I wasn't fast enough to get a good picture!

Some salmon in the creek at Devil's Gulch.

Because the water has been so high and murky in Lagunitas Creek it has been hard to see the salmon, but I have seen them almost every time I've walked in Devil's Gulch. Last year there wasn't a lot of water in this tributary creek so we didn't see any salmon there, though we heard someone saw some. This year with more water, there definitely seem to be more salmon, though I haven't heard any official numbers.

Some pretty fall leaves on the ground some weeks ago.

Some pretty fall leaves in the tree some weeks ago.

My morning "sanctuary" in Wild Cat Canyon.

It is the same and yet different every day, and this is where I go to begin each day!

    

    As I thought about the title for this blog over the past several weeks I considered calling it water, mushrooms and raccoons, because we have seen a lot of all of that since we have returned to Samuel P Taylor. It is wonderful to watch how the creeks fill up and then start to recede and then rapidly fill again with new rain. It has now been a few days since the last rain and the creeks are decreasing their flow, but there is still plenty of water flowing into and through the park. Currently the 10 day forecast shows no rain, so we'll be watching to see how far the creeks recede before the next, hopefully fairly soon, rain fall.

November 28, 2021

This is the lowest I have seen the water in Wild Cat Canyon Creek since we arrived in November.

The trickle did not last long - this is that little water fall on December 13 following a heavy rain storm.

The same waterfall from a little further back.

This part of Wild Cat Canyon Creek is immediately below the bench in my "sanctuary."

Lagunitas Creek from the bridge to the campground.

The creek was really running high and fast on December 13.

The water coming out of the pipe in the background is from Wild Cat Canyon Creek.

One of the many run off creeks in the park.

Water running through camp site 7.

This is why that camp site and others along the creek are closed for the season!

A tributary creek to Wild Cat Canyon Creek.

Stair Step Falls

This is the most water I have seen in the only named waterfall in the park. 

It was pretty the day I hiked over to Devil's Gulch to see it, but there are lots of other water falls in the park with no name.

I think this is the prettiest water fall in the park!

This waterfall is directly behind our camp site where a run off creek enters Lagunitas Creek.

Though it is right behind us, we have to walk about 1/2 mile to the other side of the creek to see it.

Another picture of the "prettiest" water fall at Samuel P Taylor State Park.

    Lots and lots of mushrooms - and below are just a few pictures of some I have seen this season.

Lots of these on a steep bank next to a trail not far from our campsite.

More mushrooms on the same steep bank.

Note the white area to the right of center at the top of the picture.

This is a close up of the white area - looked like snow, but it was an over abundance of mushroom spores!

How big do you think these cuties are?

This big!

    So much variety in the mushrooms! I never get tired of them!

    As I shared in my last blog, we are seeing lots of raccoons. Pretty much every day we release one or more from a dumpster. These are juveniles who manage to get in the dumpsters, but then can't get out. It is interesting to hear the different reactions from visitors to the park - some are scared of the raccoons, some are quite alarmed, others think they are cute and some are annoyed by them. Their varied reactions give us opportunities to explain what is going on. No, they don't live in the dumpsters, they're just looking for easy food gathering and they get stuck! 

Elsie and Straus relaxing in their warm, dry home.