Friday I rode my bike out to a nearby canyon and walked down it. It has a year-round creek that supports tall trees and lush ferns, and a thriving bird population.
Botom: native California snail (much different from the common garden variety snails that came from Europe).
I felt tired Tuesday night. Couldn’t run with the boys due to knee injury, so went off alone at a slow pace up to this hidden pond in the hills and by the time I’d done two around-the-pond circuits, I felt great. A beautiful spot, a little valley damned up at one end. Swallows swoop around, just skimming the surface, grabbing insects, a peaceful place. Once in a while, humans actually improve a bit of the natural world.
A few nights ago I went for a paddle late on a foggy afternoon. The wind had been blowing for about a week, and the water was really cold. I paddled down one of the channels to a spot where there’s black, oozy mud on the bottom. I didn’t feel like a 100% mud bath, so stopped and plastered my face. The stuff smells of deep ocean and sea minerals and is like glue. I left it on my face for a few minutes and had a bit of panic because my eyes felt glued shut. Then rinsed it off. My skin felt alive.
Here’s a post about mud baths (with pix) from a few years ago: https://www.lloydkahn.com/2008/07/13/paddleboard-and-kayaklow-tide-lagoonmud_13/
I’m deliriously in love with the Pacific Ocean, it fills my heart with joy. You never know with a body of water. I went down to paddle in the lagoon around 6 the other night. The water was like glass, the air was fresh, I stood talking to surfer/fisherman Andrew for 5 minutes, both of us enjoying the moment, the birds, water, sunlight, ridge in background. It’s a bond that surfers, fishermen, and beachcombers share. We’re drawn to the ocean. Tuesday night the cove in Pt. Arena was beautiful at sunset. The wind had dropped, and the waves shimmered with silver as they broke.
When I was around 12, I had my first insight into a deeper level of nature. We used to spend the summer at the Russian River, and one evening around sunset I was walking through a hay field and saw a mouse scurry by. I stopped and held still and soon more mice came out. I stood there for like 20 minutes. It was next to a haystack, which was like a mouse skyscraper, and the mice ran all over the friggin place, carrying stuff, chatting, almost climbing over my shoes. They thought I was a tree. It was this busy little society, seldom seen by humans. I was practically ecstatic.
The room I stay in at Louie’s (see below) is in his shop. His house is on the other side of the river. To get there you ride in a bosun’s chair 500′ across the river on a cable. I went across Wed. night to have dinner. (I shot a video of the ride, which I’ll put on YouTube next week.) We roasted 2 wild ducks, and had them with a salad, Louie’s homemade Syrah wine, and an apple pastry he whipped up for desert. Oh yeah, a few shots of tequila and olives before dinner. Listened to music of the ’40s, then CD of The Harder They Come while we ate … we old guys, like, know how to have a good time.
The male quail is the lookout while the female shepherds the babies around on the ground, teaching them how to scratch and eat. Quail are ground birds, like chickens or pheasants. We also have a lot of doves, and a flock of wild pigeons, which are birds of the air.
The males are so beautiful, with their top knot and white-outlined black face feathers, they sometimes stop me in my tracks. Such perfection. There are 2 families with babies skittering through the vegetable garden now, the babies starting to fly. We walk slowly around them and they’ve gotten used to us, so we can get pretty close.
The Dipsea Race was Sunday; it was the 100th anniversary of this 7½ mile cross-country race from Mill Valley over a flank of Mount Tamalpais to Stinson Beach. A month ago I was running well, but a trio of little injuries and a week in NYC took its toll. I was really slow going uphill, but still have the timing to go fast downhill. Which I did, and the next day I was on crutches from I believe some torn knee ligament fibers. Ah me. But it’s healing as I speak. It was a wonderful race and I’m gonna do better next year. Plus we have a newly-constituted running group, the Pelican Inn Track Club, that has recently been infused with a bunch of blazingly fast young runners, and we are stylin. Last night there were maybe 30 of us the pub after running and the vibes were vibrant.
First pic using my new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7, shot an hour ago. I shoot a lot of panoramas, since I don’t like wide angles of the landscape. My eyes sees the world in about the same proportion as a 50 mm lens (old-style lens measurement). I’ll shoot a bunch of pictures, overlapping the edges, then stitch the shots together with Photomerge in Photoshop. A bunch of them are here and there on this blog.
I bought this little camera at B and H Photo in New York (world’s most amazing photo store). For panoramas, you press the shutter button, then slowly rotate the camera, maybe 180°. I think it makes a movie, then stitches it together to make a still. It’s supposed to work in very low light, and also shoots HD video. I’m just starting to explore it.
Can you believe this is in the heart of one of the most densely-populated cities on the planet? Yesterday afternoon, at the southern end of the park, on 58th.
PS: Thanks to Rick Gordon, wizard of all things Macintosh, for the new look of this blog.
Yesterday 3 of us went exploring up a narrow, steep canyon out in the hills. There was Tomas — a botanist, Peter — a local organic farmer, and myself. Tomas and I are both trained runners and I guess we both thought we’d have to go slow for Peter. We got about 10 minutes into the hike, up a steep fire trail and I notice Tomas and I were breathing heavily — and Peter wasn’t. We were at it for 5-1/2 hours, wading through the water, crawling over logs and ducking under brush.
Peter and TomasIt continually amazes me what”s in one’s own territory. If you get away from electronics and roust around in the nearby world, there’s a treasury of riches — true wherever you live.
Bones of a deer, laid out in precise order, deep in the canyon. Peter says coyotes would scatter the bones, but this was a mountain lion, who meticulously consumed its prey. You can barely see the skull with horns at the top. An artistic predator, leaving something that resembles a cave painting.
When we got as far up the canyon as we could, we climbed up the side and headed vaguely in the direction of a place called Pablo Point. For an hour and a half we bushwhacked through the brush, following the faintest of animal trails, doubling back, crawling and sometimes bellying along until we finally reached Pablo Point, trails to which are now abandoned. I won’t say Peter kicked our asses, but I’ll say that keeping up with him had me totally exhausted at the end of the day. We had just the greatest time. A beautiful day, exploring unknown territory, little waterfalls on the sides, listening to these two guys swapping info about trees and plants and — getting a killer workout.
Lloyd and Peter
PS I love doing stuff and coming back and writing it up like this. There just ain’t enough time to do as much of it as I’d like.
On road from 4 Corners down to Muir Woods. The cleft you see in the background is part of the Dipsea Race trail.
Does the wind blow up this canyon or what?