Any day you climb a mountain is a good one.

We stayed in Boulder for two days before driving practically straight home. On the first day, we went around the town, which reminded me of a prettier, more interesting Eugene, Oregon. Lots of dreadlocks, lots of college kids in vintage clothes, tea houses, awesome bookstores. We saw an exhibit on environmental art, which was mostly pictures of caribous and penguins walking on snow. Not sure what that proves, but okay. After that, we ended up at a local brewery eating buffalo steak and watching local sports fanatics cheer football on TV. Boulder made me want to be in college again.

The next day, we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked 6 miles to the top of Deer Mountain and back. We had a great time. It was an icy morning that turned into a beautiful sunny day. As we neared the top of the mountain, we encountered snow but by the time we finished the hike, it had all melted from the sun. The mountain is covered in fir and pine trees except for a few deciduous birches and alders that glowed bright yellow like patches of supernatural fire on the mountainside. And, as you might imagine, it was a really rocky hike. I saw a couple of birds, a deer mouse, and a tiny squirrel. No moose or elk, unfortunately.

I have pictures, but they are on my laptop right now. Check back to this entry later on to see some.

And now I am home petting my kitties and typing on a decent keyboard. Home!

UPDATE: Pictures

Quick Facts:

• Distance Traveled: 436 miles
• Lunch: Cracker Barrel, Kyle’s favorite restaurant
• Books Listened To: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
• Altitude: 6,000 feet
• Scary Thunderstorms Traveled Through: One
• Hotel: Red Roof Inn in Gallup, New Mexico

Kyle and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon three years ago, so we decided to drive straight through Arizona this time around.

The weather, for most of the trip, was perfect–75 degrees with a pleasant wind. Arizona is beautiful with a giant sky and huge clouds and zillions of juniper bushes that spot the landscape like a never-ending Christmas tree farm. The highway signs kept telling me to look for elk and rams, but the only creature I saw was a dead coyote on the side of the road. False advertising.

I did, however, see my first desert cactus.

At the end of the day, Kyle and I went to the painted desert and petrified forest. The painted desert was not as vibrant as it usually is because of a persistent thunder storm that had started about an hour beforehand. I still enjoyed the weird rock formations.

Now the petrified forest was amazing. The trees, which are millions of years old, are gorgeous amalgamations of colors–red, yellow, white, black, orange. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they are stone. Other times, it is hard to believe they were once trees.

A pile of rocks? No, the roots of an ancient tree.

The thunderstorm was the strangest one I have ever been in. Because the clouds were interrupted by the blue sky, you could see where it began and ended. As we drove into it, giant bolts of lightning twisted in the sky and when we got on the highway again, there was a giant rainbow that ended on the freeway. We drove right through it. (No pot of gold, though.)

Then, it started to hail. Soon it was hailing so hard, I thought it was going to break through the window. Lightning was flashing all around us. It scared me, so I put my hands over my face and tried not to freak out. After awhile, I decided that if the hail was going to go through the window, it would have done it already and started to calm down.

Just then, a giant bolt of lightning streamed down and struck across the freeway. It was so close, we could see how the end of the lightning looked like a red poker when it struck. I more or less held my breath from then on, and finally, we came out of it. The sunset that night was amazing.

Tomorrow: Santa Fe.

I just got back from a picnic on a hillside overlooking the ocean near Jenner. It was perfect weather, lovely company, and delicious food. There was also a wooly bear caterpillar which apparently turns into an Isabella Tiger Moth. I was excited because I hadn’t seen one of those caterpillars since I was a little kid.

It was weekend of views. Aside from spending an afternoon looking at the ocean, I went to the Sierra Mountains and visited my parents. We took a drive up the pass and I tried out the camera, which continues to amaze me. Setting actually makes a difference! It’s so fast! Details come out! I mean, you can count these pine needles:

Some other pictures:

This fisherman caught a trout a few minutes later

The road with the mountains in the background

Colorful foliage

Castle rock and clouds

On Saturday, Marcia and I went for a hike at the Jack London park in Glen Ellen. It was a gorgeous day–if a tad too warm. We saw the ruins of the house of a famous writer, a mountain, vineyards, lots of dragonflies, and lizards–including the blue-tailed skink. We tasted blackberries along the trail, side-stepped poison oak, and were almost attacked by a giant butterfly. Then we ate our sandwiches by a green lake. Finally, on the way back, we had a good long look at a baby deer, which was eating a tree. It still had its spots and reminded me of Quill.

That settles it. Jack London Park is officially my favorite Sonoma County park.

Pictures:

Woman sketching the park.

Old tree.

The green lake

Weird thing sitting in the lake. Marcia and I couldn’t figure out what Jack London used it for.

Another shot of the lake.

Red dragonfly

The other week I played hooky and went to the zoo. It was fun. There was almost no one there and I got close to the animals. I liked the owl that swiveled its head to stare at me and the monkeys with handlebar mustaches, but best of all were the flamingos.

I had no idea that flamingos were so weird. They snort like pigs. They stand in hostile groups and then start fighting over nothing, their long necks twisting around like snakes. Their eyes are scaly and yellow. They aren’t pink so much as orange.

The signs said that scientists aren’t sure why flamingos stand on one leg. Most likely is has something to do with preserving body heat. In any case, they were so strange, I could have watched them for hours.

They were starting to fight here.

On Friday, my landlord butchered the fabulous quinces outside my office, turning them into nubs. Why? I don’t know. But he reminded me why I need my own house and my own yard.

Nevertheless, I gardened this weekend. I planted spinach and red poppies and chives and cilantro. I hung a hummingbird feeder on the window in the hopes of watching some hummingbirds while I write (so far no luck). I dug up half of the soil in my garden and turned it over so it would be ready when I plant the rest of my garden next week.

I also continued my battle against the swarm of aphids already taking up residence in the rose bushes. A couple of sources said that aphids don’t like the oil in citrus skins, so I boiled lemon skins in water and put the concoction in a spray bottle. It seemed to work–when I sprayed the lemon water on the roses, the aphids fell right off, and haven’t come back so far. And it smells kind of nice.

Despite the quince debacle, at least some nature is left in my yard. I turned over a bag I’d left out and discovered a reddish salamander underneath. I haven’t seen a salamander since I was a kid, so I was excited and had Kyle take a picture.

Salamanders are a lot more like baby snakes than I remember. They are also kind of slow-witted. He didn’t even try to get away. I put him in back in a moist place.

On Sunday, Marcia took me to the Artisan Cheese Festival, which she had free tickets to. It is one of many festivals we have here focusing on a particular kind of food. Throughout the year, there are festivals about oranges, apples, berries, olive oil, mustard, and seafood, etc. I don’t know who goes to these festivals because they are usually expensive. In this case, it would have cost $60 to go. However, since it was free, it was well worth checking out.

The part of the festival we went to was in the Hotel Sheraton, where a conference room was full of tables of cheese and wine samples. We circled the room toting our complimentary bags and sampling cheese, mostly goat cheese and white cheddar. It was very good but unfortunately, within 15 minutes we were starting to get full and a little sick of cheese. Plus, it was gorgeous outside, so we decided to have an adventure. We got in my car and drove to the coast.

Eventually, we decided I should take Marcia to the secret beach to look at tide pools. Kyle and I discovered the secret beach six years ago. It’s hard to find and you have to climb down a steep cliff to get to it. Because of this, there are usually interesting things on the beach. I have seen a naked man, a seal, gorgeous abalone shells, three dead crabs propped up on a log, and other interesting things.

Anyway, I have lived by Northern California beaches all my life, and I can tell you: It is very rare to have a day that is not too hot, not too cold, not foggy, not windy. That’s how Sunday was. The sea was glittering and the hills were green with purple bushes. No one was on the secret beach and the tide was out. We walked around on rocks covered with black wooly seaweed, sidestepping sea anemones with slick pink centers like tiny vaginas (gross!) and crouching over pools of water to look at the sea life.

We saw:

• Tiny purple shore crabs ranging from one-inch to four-inches long
• Purple and orange starfish
• Pale green sea anemones that didn’t look like vaginas
• A bottom-feeder fish with whiskers
• Lots of hermit crabs, including one with tiny tiny blue pinchers
• Snails
• A red crab with yellow hairs that hung off its body like moss
• Buoys that washed off of boats
• A large piece of driftwood that looked like the torso of a man
• The biggest abalone shell I have ever seen
• A starfish that a bird had torn in half
• A purple crab with iridescent green streaks on its back

I enjoy nature situations where you are pulled out of yourself and become unaware of how much you are exercising or whether or not you are bored. The tide pools made me feel like I used my pretty day to the fullest. That, in turn, made this whole stupid early daylight savings thing more bearable. And so I say: Hooray for nature!

I helped my parents move this weekend… in the snow. They are moving to the Sierra Mountains, up by Yosemite. So we dragged my mom’s paintings and my dad’s tools through the muddy paths lined with three feet of snow. It was unpleasant, dirty, cold, and did I mention unpleasant? I do not recommend moving in the snow if you can help it.

To get to their new house, I took a three-hour drive through California farmlands, through Stockton and Escalon and Oakdale and other rural parts of California. On the way, I passed fields of fruit trees all ruffled and frothy in their spring blossoms. That was the best part of the weekend.

On Sunday, I planted some spinach. It’s probably too early, but the back of the package says to plant in early spring, and everywhere I look, it seems to be spring. The daisies I planted last year seeded and my garden is full of baby daisy blossoms, along with crocus and stock and sorrel. After that, I spent hours pruning the rose bushes in the backyard while listening to an audiobook by DH Lawrence on my iPod. There’s something so satisfying about snipping away dead branches to make room for new growth.

There are a lot of spectacular hikes in Sonoma County. Maybe that’s why I never paid attention to Helen Putnam Regional Park in Petaluma. I had read it was an easy 2.8-mile hike, and because it seems like it is in the middle of town, I had it in my head that it was going to be a city park with a jungle gym and a lot of planted landscaping.

But to my delight, I discovered that Helen Putnam Regional Park is a lovely park. A concrete road takes you over a series of hills and down to a little lake. In January, with the endless oak trees and everything green from winter rain, it feels like walking through one big meadow. I sat by a lake, climbed a hill, ate an apple, saw a jack rabbit, and looked at a lots of spectacular views. Here’s some photos: