Mount Diablo State Park

A long, hot day at the office. The annual F.O.R. wildflower hike.

Spring Ski Weekend

Donner Lake from the Old Donner Pass Road.



Ferrari's Crown Resort. I love this place. Not only do they call this motel a "resort", but they throw "Ferrari's" in there for good measure. This is no Ritz. But this is luxury enough--cheap rooms, private beach, a large deck overlooking the lake, and two (one indoor, one out) toasty hot tubs. Oh yeah.





The infinity pool.



A cool overlook we found. Could have spent the whole day up there.



I like this picture even though it sucks. Those clouds were really moving.






Truck shot (ten years and running).

Friday Happy Hour

Building a Garden.

Step 1 - Remove grass. Make it flat.



Step 2 - Lay cinders. Pack in tightly.



Step 3 - Fill with good soil mix.



Step 4 - Plant tasty veggies (tomatoes, eggplant, carrots, beets, peas, sunflowers, lettuce, chard, onions).



Step 5 - Celebrate with a meal made up of ingredients from the farmer's market (the pros) - asparagus pasta, caprese salad, and oysters.

Cache Creek Wilderness Loop

Trail map. Roughly 20 mile loop. Lots of bushwacking and route finding.



The beginning of the trail provides great views out to Fiske Peak and the Cortina Ridge.





I recently watched a documentary about "Umbrellas"--the massive landscape art project that Christo put up in California and Japan in the early 1990s. These trees reminded me of those umbrellas.







This is where the trail goes from a peaceful walk in the oak groves to an exposed march down a spur ridge into Cache Creek.



If you look closely you can see the trail winding its way down the ridge all the way into Cache Creek.










First view of water.



Ropy tree.



The wilderness.

Cache Creek Wildlife. Wow.

First I saw these...





...and an hour later, this. (There is a large, brown, black bear grazing on the beach. Click on the pic for a bigger view.)

I watched him poke around for awhile.



The fact that you can still see a bear in its natural habitat, only 60 miles directly north of San Francisco is pretty cool really.

California Newt.

I saw two of these dudes.

Sunset on Cache Creek.

Day 2 - Portraits.

Grumpy.


Not grumpy.

Day 2 - Cache Creek Wilderness

Camp. Drying out.



Morning on the river.







This is a very remote section of Cache Creek. What little trail there is is overgrown and uncooperative. Most of the hike is either walking in the river or bushwacking through thorn bushes and river reeds. I Loved it.





The last riverside stop before hiking out of the canyon up to Cache Creek Ridge.