A few weekends ago I made the two-hour trek down to Big Basin Redwoods State Park to hike the Sunset, Berry Creek Falls, and Skyline-to-the-Sea trails. 101 Great Hikes says the loop is 12 miles long, Bay Area Hiker says 11, the park’s own trail map placard says 10.5, and Google Maps says 9.8. Whom to trust? It doesn’t really matter, but it makes me wish I had a GPS watch to know for sure. In any event, I burned through it in exactly 4 hours, including a short sit-down for lunch, which means I was averaging somewhere between 2.5 and 3 miles-per-hour.
I took photos along the way, but the light coming through the canopy was too harsh for most shots. That and the trees were just not cooperating, compositionally. Except for these.
A few weekends ago, I gave myself a four-hour window to hike a 13-mile loop in Point Reyes (before racing home to return my Zipcar). Turns out four hours was a little tight. I ate my lunch in motion and jogged a few downhill sections, but I also managed to take a few photos that show a different side of this national seashore.
We were still waking up early a week after returning from France, so on our first weekend back we drove out to Mt Tam State Park at 7:30 in the morning—and that was after a leisurely breakfast—to reconnect with home.
When we arrived in Landry, after a long day of travel, the hotelkeepers told us that the only restaurant in town was closed. The best they could offer was a simple meat and cheese plate. “With wine?” we asked. “Of course.” Not expecting much, they brought out a platter with a healthy slab of Beaufort, a wedge of tomme, a goat camembert, a whole saucisson, some sliced salami, a loaf of crusty bread, salad greens, dressing, and of course, a bottle of wine. We were giddy at our good fortune. And we needed it. The next morning we would begin a multiday hike along the GR5+GR55 through the French Alps, attempting to cover 125 miles in nine days.
Day 1
We hiked 11 miles in fog and misty rain to reach our first refuge. Their website mentioned that we might have the possibilité de goûter le lait tiède de la traite du soir (possibility to taste the warm milk from the evening milking). Yes, please! Twice a day they milked two brown Tarentaise cows, using the fresh, raw milk for cafe au lait, hot chocolate, and homemade fromage blanc for dessert, served with jam and dulce de leche—also made from the milk. They claimed that only four people in Savoie still handmilk, two of whom work at the refuge. Of course Stephanie volunteered to help that evening.
Usually I aim to create our annual photo book between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I fell behind the last two years. 2013 lay half-finished, and I hadn’t even started 2014. A few words of encouragement from family motivated me to restart the project. Over the course of two weeks in June, I spent every free moment putting them together.
Translating the English captions into French is the hardest and last task required to complete the books. Not only was Stephanie swamped with summer school at the time, but translation stands out as one of her least favorite things. So for the first time I used Fiverr to hire someone to do it for us. It only cost $30 to translate both books, but not having to coerce Stephanie into doing it was priceless. And it meant we were able to get them printed just in time to bring with us to France. Onto 2015!
