On Saturday, Marcia and I took advantage of the amazing weather and went for a hike by Lake Sonoma near Geyserville.

The trail we hiked was called Boar Scat Trail. There were several warnings about wild boars on the sign for the park, so we were hoping to see one. Mostly we saw flowering bushes–nature seems to think it is springtime–and pityings of doves. Finally though, we did get to see a wild boar. Unfortunately, it was dead. We ran into some hunters who had just killed one and were carrying it on a stick between them ala Lord of the Flies. I took a picture:

Afterwards, we found place on top of a hillside and had a picnic. The views from up there were neato.

Lake Sonoma

Some other hikers

I really liked this hike. It’s challenging enough to break a sweat but you are rewarded for your work with lots of gorgeous views. I recommend it.

Time for another YouTube video. This one is about cats. Cats are small predatory carnivorous species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes and scorpions. It has been associated with humans for at least 9,500 years. Cats are the best animals. See above video for proof.

Meet Jonathan the tortoise, believed to be the oldest living animal. He’s is at least 176 years old. He was “photographed during the Boer War around 1900, and his life has spanned eight British monarchs from George IV to Elizabeth II, and 50 prime ministers.”

Apparently, Jonathan still likes the ladies: “Despite his old age, locals say he still has the energy to regularly mate with the three younger females.”

Also, Jonathan might even be older than 176. According to a spokeperson from South Atlantic island of St Helena, where he lives: ‘Jonathan is the sole survivor of three tortoises that arrived on St Helena Island in 1882. He was already mature when he arrived and was at least 50-years-old.’”

Go Jonathan, go!

I know I’m putting a lot of videos up here lately, but man, you want to see this:

More amazing animal videos here.

Last week, I voted, ate lobster, interviewed the woman who did the voice of Jem, celebrated my husband’s promotion at work, and went to the California Academy of Sciences with Marcia. My life is odd. Also: awesome.

My pictures of the museum didn’t turn out, but luckily Marcia’s did. Although the museum if kind of pricey to get into, it is well worth it because of the center core of it where you walk up three stories looking down into a fish aquarium while butterflies flap around you and light on people’s hands. It’s small for a museum of its type, but everything is well-chosen and interesting to look at. I particularly liked the Ghost Shrimp, shrimp that is completely see-through.

Here are some of Marcia’s pictures:

This last one is of the museum’s living roof, which I will be writing for the Pacific Sun in the near future…

My birthday is next month. Please buy me a baby hippo. Thank you.

The next day, I was really sore from the hike and sleeping on the ground. We drove to a cinder cone that formed in the 1700s. It was by something called the Fantastic Lava Flows, and they were indeed fantastic—piles and piles of black volcanic rocks that looked like someone had pushed them there with a bulldozer. I saw this little creature. I don’t know what it is. At first I thought it was a baby chipmunk, but it doesn’t look like it. Some sort of chipmunk-colored mouse?

We started down the path to hike the cinder cone. Problem was, it was covered with this ground volcanic ash, so it was like hiking on sand. The two-mile hike quickly started to seem a like more to my tired muscles and sore back. I was trying to be tough and suck it up, but I am not tough or good at sucking it up.

Then the cinder cone came into view.

It looked like a giant pyramid. You could see the tiny people on the top. I thought, I do not want to climb that. As we approached, I realized that there was a steep, sandy path going right up the side of the cone.

I let Justin, Stephanie, and Kyle climb to the top and I went back to a lake and edited sort stories. Apparently there was a huge crater and pretty views at the top. Here are the pictures Kyle took:

View.

Crater.

Three kinds of terrain.

Another view

As amazing as that is, I was glad I didn’t push myself to go on the rest of that hike. If I hadn’t been so sore, I would have done it, but as it was, I was happier editing short stories. After all, look what that hike did to Justin and Stephanie:

Purple lakes. Boiling puddles. Black pyramid-like cinder cones. Sound like crazy land? No! This is what I saw on my camping trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park a couple of weekends ago, which I went on with Kyle, Justin, and Stephanie. (Justin and Stephanie have already written about the trip here, here, and here.)

Although I had heard about this park all my life–my sixth grade class went there for a class trip (I didn’t go)–I didn’t know that Mount Lassen is an active volcano. As such, it’s a geological wonderland full of weird and cool sights to see. The first day, we hiked up Bumpass Hell, a place full of all the things described in the first paragraph: boiling mud pits, exhalation of steam, bleached landscapes, etc.

The park warns you not to step off the path because you could easily die or lose a limb. That’s what happened to Bumpass, the fellow who originally owned part of the park–he stepped into a mud puddle boiling at 240 degrees and lost his leg. The knowledge of this added a life-and-death component to the hike that was pretty cool.

So cool, in fact, that we decided to hike on to a cold boiling lake. Doesn’t that sound awesome? A lake that boils, but is still cold? It is not awesome, in fact. It is a mud puddle that bubbles somewhat. Luckily, it was beside a real lake that was just lovely, although perhaps not worth the extra four-mile hike to get there and back. Well, nothing is perfect, I suppose.

Pictures:

Picture of the park with a big rock

Bumpass Hell with a random guy in the shot

Close-up of the steam. It smelled like rotten eggs. The smell didn’t actually bother me unless I happened to be in the middle of one of the steam blasts. Then it was kind of like being farted on.

Purple mud–apparently it is purple because of pyrite bubbling to the surface.

At the end of the trail was this bright blue puddle of water that I thought was pretty.

Speaking of puddle, here is the boiling “lake.”

Luckily it was by a real lake, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Summer Activities List (Updated):

Hiking
Tennis
Camping
Blackberry picking
Listening to live music
Canoeing/kayaking
Picnics
Something involving a fire on a beach and hot dogs
Going on a boat
Wine tasting
Art galleries
Daytrips (Gualala/Mammoth Lake)

So I decided to go blackberry picking today. I drove out to the country and started to pick berries from the bushes on the side of the road… and quickly discovered that this was a dumb idea. Picking the berries was messy and tedious. Every time a car drove by I felt exposed and shy. And then, a big spider scared me.

I decided to go home instead.