Yes, I did indeed finally make it to Austin, 24 hours late, but in time for Christmas.

More pics here: Pow! My Christmas photos are up!

Christy and Marcus, whom I previously hiked with down in San Mateo County, were up in Cloverdale for the weekend and were interested in hiking Mt. St. Helena, the highest point in Sonoma County. It’s been on my list of hikes to do, but the 5 mile trek up (and 5 back) meant that I pretty much needed a whole day to undertake it. Update: Here’s a picture I took of Mt. St. Helena from Sebastopol.

It starts out with a number of switchbacks in a heavily wooded area. We pass a memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson who lived on the mountain (apparently inspiring some of the scenes in Treasure Island). Then there’s a pretty steep section that lets out onto a fire road with 4 miles to go. The nice thing about the fire road is that it makes for a pretty easy hike. The not so nice thing is that it provides no cover from the sun, which was a constant presence. That said, it was a beautiful day.

Along the fire road, there were some expansive views of Napa Valley below and the Sonoma Mountains in the distance.

We stopped in a shady area for lunch. I had tamari roasted almonds and cashews, sesame sticks, raisins, and a tomato and avocado courtesy of Christy and Marcus. I ran out of water and made yet another mental note to get a Camelbak. We got to the top of the south peak, a little over a mile before the higher north peak and decided we were satisfied (read: sufficiently tired) and could head back.

Here’s a topographic map of the south peak (courtesy of Topozone), which is about 300 feet below the north peak. I’ve highlighted the trail we took in blue. The Gmaps Pedometer said it was about 3.5 miles, one way.

On the way down, I finally remembered to have someone snap our picture.

As you can see, I’m wearing my hiking shirt. We got down to the bottom after 3pm, took a quick tour of Calistoga, including the nearby petrified forest, and headed back to Santa Rosa for some Nepalese cuisine at Annapurna, a few blocks from my apartment.

i traveled down to the city sunday morning to meet up with my cousin christy and her partner marcus. traffic was light, got there in just about an hour. they live in the castro, which i had only heard about the night before from alice who was telling me about morgan spurlock’s new show, 30 days. in one episode he has a conservative christian from michigan live with a gay man in the castro for 30 days.

from there we headed down along the san mateo coast for about an hour till we got to butano state park, just south of half moon bay. the fickle summer weather was on our side as the views were tremendous, especially around pacifica. the fog stayed several miles off the coast (until the drive home). we hiked for a few hours through a redwood canyon, which was nice, with a particularly steep decent towards the end.

afterwards we stopped at duarte’s in pescadero for some artichoke soup and dungeness crab. by the time we left, a dense white fog had swept over the coast, providing a much different drive back to san francisco.

i tried to help christy getting her wireless connection working to no avail. chatted for a while about the area—now i’ve got a mental list of places to visit, including the pinnacles and point lobos. headed home just after the sun had set, and snapped this neat blurry picture of the golden gate bridge.

Last weekend (June 4-5, 2005), on the occasion of my cousin Casey’s high school graduation in Liberty, Indiana, the Barnette family—descendants of my maternal grandmother—gathered to celebrate.

My grandmother, seated at the center, had three daughters, standing in the back row with their husbands. My mom, the middle sister, is on the right.

My brother Matthew and I are kneeling on either side of Grandmommy. Katie is sitting in front of Matthew. To my right is Casey and his brother Patrick. Reclining in front is Whitney.

What’s wacky is that this photo is a remake, position for position, of a photo that was taken at Christmas in 1994, 11 years earlier.

Here is a family tree diagram representing everyone in the photos, excluding my maternal grandfather, who passed away before I was born.

note: I had originally posted this on June 7, 2005, but after getting the photo from 1994 and creating the family tree diagram, I decided to revise the content and repost it today.

chris and fran said that was one of emma’s first smiles.