Leaves in Water

This picture was taken on Thanskgiving Day, hiking at Muir Woods. I love the fact that it was 65 degrees and sunny here on Thanksgiving, and that I spent my second Thanksgiving in a row hiking on Mt. Tam. However, this is just about the closes I've gotten to any fall color here, and that I don't love. Even though some of the trees here do turn colors, it's nothing like the spectacular show I grew up with.

Banana Slug

This is a banana slug. Like mushrooms, they are everywhere when you go hiking this time of year. I tried to include some clover in the picture for scale. These guys are a solid 4-6 inches long and I didn't adjust the color on this image at all -- that is their god-given color, in all of it's neon yellow glory. A word of warning, do NOT accidentally step on a banana slug while you are hiking. It will take you the rest of the hike to rid your shoe of the even-more-neon-yellow-and-disgusting goo that resides inside the slug. Ick.

Sky over Point Reyes

Taken yesterday evening from Sky Camp in Point Reyes National Seashore. Still haven't managed to camp at Sky Camp, but it does lie right along one of my favorite hiking trails.

Reading Update

Over the weekend, I finished Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken. What a great little kids book! It's dark, in that very British, Lemony Snicket way. (In fact, I'd be shocked if the guy who wrote the Lemony Snicket books wasn't a big Aiken fan.)

Reading Update

Just finished Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. It's a young adult novel that reminded me a bit of Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower. A good read -- I actually didn't want ot put it down yesterday morning when I had to head out the door for hiking and then Thanksgiving dinner (yum). Currently in the middle of Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken and

Perfect Reflection

Looking up

Standing in the middle of a cluster of redwoods at Jack London State Park out in Sonoma. I love the way they grow up in rings like this.

Warning

Mushroom forest

This time of year, mushrooms pretty much take over the world in northern California. As the air gets damper, they spring seemingly out of nowhere, everywhere you look. Hiking in Point Reyes yesterday, I took dozens of pictures of mushrooms. Everything from this colony of miniature mushrooms to otherworldly pictures of the undersides of some massive red mushroom I don't know the name of. Last winter I saw dozens of mushroom hunters searching for edible mushrooms in the underbrush. I think I'll leave that to the experts, though -- I can't even seem to figure out what the little guys above are called from the perfectly good pictures I've found online. :-)

Hiking in the Fog

Old Pine Trail, Point Reyes -- November 18, 2007.

Watchtower, Alcatraz

Happiness

Pitcher Plant

Flytrap

One last post for today. This photo was taken at the Chomp exhibit at the San Francisco Conservatory in Golden Gate Park this past summer. Aren't the colors of this flytrap lovely? Carniverous plants = way cool, if you ask me.

Reading Update

Just finished reading Lamb by Christopher Moore. SO funny. Must go pick up some of his other books.

'shrooms

Garden Bounty

This picture was taken in July. Now that we're nearly at Thanksgiving, and the garden's looking pretty bare, I'm missing the fresh strawberries and everything else. The winter crops are in, though, so soon I'll have Swiss Chard, Cabbage, lettuce, and other yummy stuff again.

Vernal Falls Stairs, Yosemite

This picture was taken in May, on the stone steps that lead up to the top of Vernal Falls at Yosemite. The mist from the waterfall was so thick, it was like being caught in a rainstorm. You can see how heavy the falls were in this picture -- they're the white mass to the right of the person at the left edge of the frame. By the time we got to the top of the falls, we were absolutely drenched. And it wasn't even an especially wet winter or spring. I was there again 3 months later, and the steps were bone dry. Here's a picture of the waterfall from then. Quite a difference, eh?

Clouds, Hilo, September 2007

So the sky in Hawaii -- Seriously amazing. I don't know if it's that the atmosphere is cleaner, or if it has something to do with being on an island, or the reflection of the ocean or what, but the sky is like 5 shades bluer than here, and the clouds were constantly blowing me away. Look at the way the sunlight is coming through these clouds. This image is completely undoctored, just taken with the normal settings on my cameral. It almost looks like a reflection, rather than the real thing. I took endless cloud pictures while I was there, so I'm sure I'll post more at some point.

Golden Orchid

Light through leaves

Hawaii Botanical Gardens, September 2007

Reading update 11/5/07

Over the weekend, I reread The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. I haven't been able to get absorbed into any book I've picked up for the last couple weeks, so it was nice to go back to an old favorite, which I was probably reading for the fourth or fifth time. And it makes me bawl every single time. In fact, my eyes were still a little itchy and red when I got to work this morning. Also realized that the first time I read it must have been when I was in Chicago in 2004, before I officially moved there, training for my job teaching reading classes -- Scattered throughout the pages are the marks I used to figured out my reading speed as I practiced the speed reading skills I was going to be teaching. Hard to believe that I'm going into my fourth year at this job - it's the longest I've been with a company since Sam Goody.

Oh yeah, I'm also trying to do that blog-every-day-in-November thing, but it's a challenge when I don't have internet access at home. I think I'll have to cheat and just post an extra post or two on Mondays or Fridays :-)

Palm Reflection, Hilo 9-07

Boat, South Point, Hawaii

Dan at Bodega Bay, October 2007