7 Comments Posted on 04/07/201304/08/2013 Peak a Week

Black Hill | Week 3 | Peak a Week

Black Hill is the second-to-last cerro in our ~~Seven~~ Nine Sisters line of peaks. It’s just before Morro Rock. It’s at the top of an 18-hole golf course. It’s not that steep. It doesn’t take long to hike. There’s a lot of (poison) oak. And there is a longer trail you can take, if you know about it, that winds down and around the whole hill, through the camp ground and on the outskirts of the golf course.

It was cold-windy when we got there and the fog was coming in fast, and then it went right past us and we were back in sun. And then the fog came back. The fog, it’s fickle.

Leave a comment Posted on 04/06/201304/06/2013 Beach a Week

Pismo Beach | Week 5 | Beach a Week

We parked north of the pier, so that’s a pro tip to you. It gets crowded in the main part of Pismo. Cars, people, no parking, people darting out on the streets. So, go north on the frontage road and park on a beach access residential street instead. Take the wooden stairs down to the beach and don’t go barefoot unless you feel lucky in the splinter-free yatzee roll of the dice (but you’ll be fine once on the sand). Bring a kite. Bring a sweatshirt. Bring your dog. Bring a friend. Or get lucky and get your mom to take a beach walk with you. That’s what I did.

This is my mom, my Beach-a-Week partner for the second time.

We ran into the Twin Fam. Their mom, Angela, is one of my long-time SLO blogger friends (before Flickr even). I’d never met Angela’s family, but I’ve seen so many photos over the years that I said “Hi!!” when I saw her husband and the kids and their friend and immediately stuck out my hand and introduced myself. They were nice enough to pose for a quick pic.

Precariously placed houses. Gravity: it’s the law.

Picking up after your dog: it’s the law, too.

2 Comments Posted on 04/01/201304/01/2013 Beach a Week

The Spot | Week 4 | Beach a Week

This used to be a secret spot (not THE most guarded secret spot in our area, but still well guarded for many years). I googled before making this post to make sure I wasn’t spilling any beans. There are other sites that will give you directions and more. I’m just here to give you a little glimpse. If you want to find it, you’ll have to do your own work.

This was my favorite beach back when I was 18, 19 and 20. I’d come and watch my boyfriend surf or I’d just come by myself (with my dog; nowadays I would never bring a dog here) and a towel and a book. I love the hike in.

For today’s sojourn Steve came along. We looked at shells and rocks and birds and checked out the tide pools. It rained earlier in the day and was really cloudy/overcast when we got there, but within 45 minutes it was all sun and got pretty toasty.

When did starfish become Sea Stars? Why did the name change? Anyone know? (I guess I could google that.)

I gathered up all the turbans I could find in just a 3-foot radius (all well above the water level and without any living creatures inside). Quite a few in such a small space. When the tide began lapping at my heals I moved my bounty to higher ground. Before I left I deposited them back into several different pools. Maybe a crab would like a new home.

4 Comments Posted on 03/31/201304/01/2013 Peak a Week

Bishop Peak | Week 2 | Peak a Week

Bishop Peak is a pretty standard hike in these parts, yet I hadn’t done it in about two years. Two years. How does that happen? By letting days slip away doing the daily grind of whatever-it-is. It’s one of the reasons I’m doing the Peak a Week, Beach a Week and Sur a Month pledges. I want to remember this year as one where I made the most of it. Hiking is one of the ways I hope to do that.

According to Wikipedia, chaparrel is only found in California and Baja California.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the California Thrasher is also only found in California and Baja California. I was so transfixed by this guy that I stayed in a lower spot at the top of the hike instead of following the others up to the top of the rocks. Too many people were hiking today for the Thrasher to stay out in the open for too long. I recorded his song, but it’s hard to see him (in this video he’s in the middle of the screen, on top of the big rock in the center).

Hiking companions today: Steve, Shane, Corinna and Niels. I’m a total sap. Sometimes just walking around and hearing them tell stories and laugh puts a lump in my throat; we’ve all been friends for so long. I love them a lot. Sometimes it gets me in the heart.

5 Comments Posted on 03/24/201304/01/2013 Beach a Week

“A” Beach | Week 3 | Beach a Week

Locals my age still refer to this as “A” Beach, short for Atascadero State Beach which is what it was called until some time in the 90s. My high school was on this beach (a rare and cool thing, a school on the beach) and for both PE and track practice I was sent (along with my classmates) to “run to the rock” or the dreaded “run to Cayucos pier.”

Beach notes: Full of sand dollars right now. Also saw a baby/juvenile gull, several curlews, and gangs of dowitchers, and a couple whimbrels. Also four horses, an egret, four dogs (prohibited on this beach), one kite, two people playing in the waves, and two people digging something up (i think just sand, alas) with a shovel where the water was meeting the beach.

Leave a comment Posted on 03/23/201303/31/2013 Peak a Week

Cerro San Luis | Week 1 | Peak a Week

First hike of Peak a Week. Cerro San Luis.

3 Comments Posted on 03/23/201303/23/2013 Peak a Week

Hiking is good. Let’s do more of it.

So we have Sur a Month (beginning March 2013 and running through February 2014) and Beach a Week (beginning March 11, 2013 and going through the first week of November 2013) and to it I am adding Peak a Week (spring equinox through fall equinox) to round things out and make 2013 one of those years where I will look back and say, “Man, that was a good year.”

Goal: hike the lovely hills all over the Central Coast (but flat hikes will be okay, too, in a pinch.). It’s okay if it’s the same damn peak over and over again. I don’t care. I just want to be outside making the most of the time change and the ability to quickly hit a trail

Leave a comment Posted on 03/20/2013 picture

I shall be telling this with a sigh

2 Comments Posted on 03/17/201303/24/2013 Beach a Week

Big Corona | Week 2 | Beach a Week

Beach a Week, week 2. March 17, 2013

My cousin Solomon and his long-time girlfriend Kyla came to California for their spring break.

After morning meditation at The Center for Living Peace, brunch at Britta’s and Side Effects at Edwards University Cinema, we drove out to Big Corona to get our feet wet. I lived just a block from this beach for a year in the late 80s.

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