OK, a sunset is a photographic cliché, I admit it. But all I had to
do was step out on the porch and click. This is one of the better ones we’ve
had so far.

Oh, and I have progress to report: 15 pounds burned off since I made up my
mind to get off my ass.

It started about six months ago, after I got back from the ACES conference.
I’d been blogging like a fiend for about eight months at that point, and the
workouts had become as scarce as cool breezes in Baghdad. It got to the point
where I was either buying all new Levi’s or getting on the Stairmaster and working
my way back into the ones I own already.

I burned off the first 10 over the spring, and figured I’d burn some more on
the hills in the neighborhood in our new place. Things weren’t going too well
for the first month or so — lots of walking for distance (nine miles one day!);
lots of sunburn and sore feet, but not much feel-the-burn. Then I started really
working the hills a few weeks ago (I actively hated the concept of gravity for
a while there) and the change was astounding: I lost five pounds in two weeks.

I wrote about climbing Mission Peak, which I climbed from its base in Fremont
the Saturday before last. You also can hike to from a park down the road from
us. Here’s a picture I took on that trail last Saturday.

That’s the southern limit of the San Francisco Bay just above the center of
the picture. This is about three quarters of the way up, if I recall it right.
I didn’t make it back over to Mission Peak — it was still a mile or so up the
trail when I turned back after a two-hour hike.

This week I’ve been walking down the hill from our place a little bit further
every day. We’re near the top of the ridge and it’s about five miles down to
civilization and flatness, so when I’m in really good shape I hope to be able
to walk to the bottom and back, a 10 mile round-trip with half of it uphill.
Check back next summer for that one.

Here’s a shot from this morning’s walk; we had sunshine (vs. peasoup fog) for
the first time in over a week, which provoked my inner shutterbug.

Last Saturday’s walk got me almost o the top of that hill over there. I turned
back because I was dead tired and there was a guy coming the other way, so I
figured it’d be nice to have somebody to chat with on the way back down. It
was. (People are always cool on the trial.)

So this morning I’m ambling down the hill and what do I see but this long-legged
waterbird next to a little pond: Just after I noticed the bird and squeezed
off a shot, the dogs on the property noticed me; their barking alarmed the bird,
who flew off.

A good day is when the birds do something interesting when your finger’s on
the camera shutter release.

And now, a few more Great Trees of California entries.

This must be where the phrase "get bent" originated from.

Or maybe from here.

More like a shrub, but the colors are nice.

Finally, more local mildlife.

Mama and baby. A year from now the little guy’s luck is going to change dramatically,
I expect. Those Quarter Pounders with Cheese gotta come from somewhere.

These goats look like they’re all from the same tribe. Whatever the horse thinks
of this, he isn’t saying.

I need an excuse to post something but nothing particularly interesting happened
in the past week, though I can share a few more pictures.

Last Sunday I drove down the road to Ed Levin County Park, which is one of
the top hang-gliding sites in the Bay Area. Some mornings I’m going into work
and I see pickup trucks with long narrow bundles bound to their roof racks heading
up to the park — they’re going gliding. I think: wow, how visual is the sight
of a lone pilot floating on the breeze? A photo op for sure. One problem: The
fliers are too far away to get really good images. These are the best I came
up with.

This guy was flying right over my head on his way in for a landing. He’s shouting
a greeting to his buddies down below, one of those things that can happen because
these manmade birds have no motors.

Here’s the guy’s flying partner getting ready to park his glider.

A close-up of his glider. They can cost up to $3,000, he told me. Lessons can
cost another grand. They won’t let you fly at this park without certification
from the U.S. Hang-Gliding Association, which trains people to fly gliders.
Makes sense to take their lessons, because the real experts on soaring — hawks,
eagles, buzzards, etc. — aren’t sharing their trade secrets. I mean, sure,
you could hire a falcon to teach you to fly; just hide the hamsters when he
comes to collect the bill.

OK, next up are pictures I took on my morning walk the other day. Our hill’s
been fogged in every morning, which creates some interesting scenes as the sun
burns off the mist.

This is right outside the front gate. Looked up, thought, "cool,"
took a picture. I like the easy ones.

One of our neighbors is a peacock. If you ever visit this neighborhood and
wonder who’s whipping their child to within an inch of his life, don’t worry:
it’s just this one (or maybe a pal) wailing at the top of his lungs. Looks like this one’s tail
feathers have been trimmed, but even so, a peacock is a wonder to behold. We
just wish they’d quiet down a bit.

Saw these deer in front of this old wrecked house on a nearby hill. I see deer
every morning, so it hardly seems newsworthy anymore. But they are pretty doggone
cute.

Another for my Cool Trees of California file. It’s all uphill to the house
from here, which means I’m a sweaty mess by the time I get home.

I walked 8.5 miles yesterday. Afterward, my feet persuaded me they much prefer
the 5-mile variety of nature walk.

It takes almost three hours to go that far … about 3 miles an hour with
a few small rest breaks. Plenty of time to think about things, like how before
the advent of steam engines and railroads, no human had ever gone faster than a horse
or strong wind could carry him. On foot with no assistance beyond a tailwind,
I can relate to the notion of people walking from Jefferson, Missouri, to Oregon
in the 1840s. The trip Melissa and I took in four days in the summer of ’99
took six months two centuries ago.

Of course, there must be pictures of the sights along the way.

California has great trees. Giant sequoia redwoods get all the press, but a
big fat shadetree like this one on top of a hill has its moments. Seems like
there oughta be a philosopher sitting under it, imagining the solution to world
peace or something. (Of course the bird droppings might provide an insight of
their own; makes me wonder what really hit Isaac Newton: say you’ve discovered
gravity and you want to tell the world: do you tell ’em the most likely possibility
— sparrow doo-doo — or clean it up and invent an apple encounter?)

This is about three miles into my walk — the halfway point if I’ve got a lick
of sense. Nothing like the rumble of a Harley to wake up everything for a half-mile.
I’ve always bought into the Harley mythology — man, machine and the freedom
of the open road — but I’m changed by the experience of having one pass within
10 feet of me, the V-twin engine replacing the sound of breeze and songbirds.
Everybody should experience the thrill of acceleration that only a motorcycle
can provide, the sensation of bending into a curve and hitting the gas. I recommend
they do it in New Mexico. (This rider, to his credit, was trying to keep the
beast as quiet as possible, which is to say, buffalo-stampede level.).

San Jose is off in the distance. Too bad they don’t have camera filters that
can see though smog.

We get about two cars an hour along this road — it’s refreshing to see that
one of them is a mail truck. Not exactly the gloom of night up here, but at
least somebody’s taking care of business rather than taking in the view.

More trees. These hills are dotted with little springs, which aren’t all that
hard to find. All you have to do is go looking for some trees.

Wish I could get more pictures of the birds up here. They all fly away long
before I get a chance to get ’em in the frame. This one forgot its caution long
enough for me to squeeze off one shot. If only I’d have waited another second:
when it flew away it revealed amazing blue-and-white plumage. Some days I see
vultures … one morning I swear they were stalking me. You know, large mammal
walking alone, a carrion eater assumes its a straggler from the herd left to
fend for itself. I look up in a tree and see three or four birds with huge wingspans
fly onto the top branches, then take off and start circling. Glad I had a strong
heartbeat and a water supply.

Hawks and other raptors are constantly floating on the thermals — casting
these big shadows that move across the ground at uncanny speed. Sometimes the
shadow will darken the kitchen floor if the window’s open and the angle’s just
right. Takes a little getting used to.

So I’m walking along and hear this buzzing noise … no bees or hornets nearby,
then I realize: powerlines. You sorta need something like this amid so much
beauty to remind what makes it possible to live in places like this without
the elements and predators killing us off.

It looks brown and dead but these hillsides are very much alive. Little ground
squirrels are constantly darting about — too quickly for my slow reflexes to
get one in the picture. Also lots of little lizards, and of course many more
birds.

One of these wildflowers has a bee crawling around on it, I promise.

I post cow pictures at the slightest provocation. I liked this old gal because
she had horns — at least with this species you can see the darn things.

This immense Angus bull didn’t care much for me taking his picture. First he
snorted at me, then bellowed at me, then started scraping his left rear hoof
along the ground, just like bulls do just before they charge — at least in
all the bullfight movies I’ve seen. I moved along at that point, sensing trouble
if he’d seen the same movies.

This is how you can tell you’re in the country: if the trees form a tunnel
over the road.

Passing bicyclists always make me wonder if I should get me some wheels. Riding
a bike is fine if you have the scenery memorized, I suppose, but every walk
I take is a little different. I saw a coyote the other day that I’d have never
seen on a bike. On foot I can hear cars coming from a half-mile away so there’s
plenty of time to switch to the safest side of the road (I give cars all the
room I can because it seems idiotic not to). It’s true that you can can see
a lot more scenery because a bike is about three times faster than walking,
but you miss a lot at that speed.

The things you see along the road: This is the rubber exterior of a car’s bumper.
Right behind a guardrail, which is probably what separated it from the car it
was previously attached to.

This is one of the reservoirs that ensures people in San Francisco have drinking
water. One thing I learned from a book about the construction of the Transcontinental
Railroad was that the Sierra mountain passes to the northeast of us are some
of the snowiest places on earth — so snowy that the builders of the railroad
had to erect awnings over the rails through the mountains to keep the railway
clear. Otherwise the winter blizzards would make the railway impassable every
few days. It’s the same weather phenomenon that made life hell for the Donner
Party. When all that snow melts, it pours down into rivers and valleys on the
California side of the range, where clever engineers have built dams, aqueducts
and reservoirs to catch as much of it as possible. If not for that snow, nobody’d
be able to live here. Another reason to like snow, so long as it’s a hundred
miles away.

Even with my New Balance shoes, my socks made of synthetic fibers, my hat
built in a Malaysian sweatshop, I can’t help thinking that when I’m out there
walking I’m doing something humans have always done. People have not always
flown in airplanes or driven cars, but as long as they’ve been able to stand
up straight, they’ve been walking (and their feet have resented it). For some
reason that makes it seem worth doing.