Welcome to the most beautiful place on earth. Or maybe MdO means so much to me that I will never be able to see it with unbiased eyes. To me it is heaven AND home of my favorite trail to run.

Montana de Oro is a scenic smorgasbord, parts are shadowed and dark green from a dense forest of hundred-year-old eucalyptus trees. Parts are shady and cool from running springs and moist ferns. Other parts are dry and dusty, sun-parched and thicketed with manzanita, bay trees and coastal oaks. There are valleys and hills. Canyons and cliff tops. It's hard to visit without grabbing a bay leaf or a handful of fresh sage and immersing your nose with the fragrant, real smell of the central cost.

The place I visit most often, however is a trail known simply as The Bluffs, though you could call it The Cliffs and everyone would still know what you were talking about. A three-plus mile loop, it hugs rugged cliffs, is basically flat, and is usually populated making it the perfect length with the perfect view with the perfect slope and perfectly safe.

Great things about this run? Many.

Wildlife. You always see squirrels, pelicans, rabbits, sea gulls, and hawks. Those are the given. If you are lucky you can watch a snowy white egret have field mouse dinner, a packet of quail run quickly from your steps, rattle snakes slink away. And if you are really lucky you will see dear, bob cat, owls, sea lions, and otters. Often you see all of these in one 45-minute visit.

Flora. Prerequisite sage and chaperral, coyote brush, heather, poppies, monkeyface, and indian sage. And a million of other plants whose names I don't know. Things that grow close to the ground to minimize cold ocean winds, hearty plants that can withstand saltwater and draught. Plants that prefer to be rooftops to bunny dens and squirrel bachelor pads.

Rock formations. This area is an ancient marine table. The constant onslaught of ocean waves has created sandstone bridges and sheer steep cliffs that come closer and closer to the footpath. I often do jumping jacks perilously close to a fingered out jagged edge. Or just stand there and feel the salt air, feel the sea spray and look right off the edge of the planet thinking I must be the luckiest person on the face of the earth.

This is where I grew up. This is where we played hooky. Went camping. Watched our friends surf.

My ex loved to surf what is known as Screamers, which is a mile out on the trail and floats, dips, and crashes above razor-sharp rock edges. It only breaks a few times a year, but I can still only think of those trips with one eye open.

Poppies. Today the poppies are blooming all over the meadow. Everywhere you see, the fields are dotted with bright, deep orange dots, like a happy seurat painting. It's our state flower and illegal to pick, tho any criminal ideas are thwarted more by their propensity to immediately wilt. California poppies can turn an entire hillside into a reflection of the sun. We get caught up in their presence, forgetting that they signal the beginning of the browning of our hillsides.

Tim and Dave at the bluffs... jan's taking the picture.

But for now it is poppies and rabbits. Egrets and cormerants. Lizards and squirrels that squeal like sea gulls and sit up on their haunches like little park rangers welcoming you to their little spot of paradise.

m.