Willie and Teddy's Excellent Adventure: 7/3/2011

It all started very innocently. We went to Redwood park in the Oakland hills and parked at the north end of the park at 1300 feet. About 100 yards down the trail, we felt a misty drop and papa asked if we should go back to the car to get our rain jackets. No, we said, so on down we went. We took the "stream" trail alongside a slowly moving stream in a redwood forested canyon. Very pretty stuff. The mist picked up over the next hour and a half (we're still going down in elevation and going south) but was never more than a slight annoyance, refreshing really. We got to the southern end of the trail where it's about 600 ft. elevation and picked up the return trail--the West Ridge trail. This was 3.5 miles from the start. Then it started to really rain, and the trail climbed to 1500 feet. we'll just say that that 4 mile leg was not a happy time. By the time we got back to the car, we were all soaked head to foot--especially the feet, and our shoes were completely caked in mud. Our two small brainstorms at that point were to wash off our shoes in the dog water fountain (they were soaked anyway so it didn't matter) and strip off our soaking wet t-shirts in the parking lot and swap them for dry 'blues.' We made it home, showered to warm up and had lunch. All the clothes went in the washer. The shoes went in the oven. We played well earned online computer games. We have a war story.

Thursday we met Auntie Monica, cousins Marissa and Ethan at the Exploratorium. This was our second try, as we went on Monday and Papa discovered he didn't have the science center pass with him. D'oh! Anyway, we got in and had a day of it, followed by lunch at Sam Wo. Yum.

Saturday early (before the beastly heat) we went to Muir woods for a hike through more redwood trees. This was only a 5 mile hike, and nothing bad happened. Just went like it's supposed to.

Sunday we headed south to the Fernandez's and a day in the pool. Lot's of splashing and water fights followed by delicious barrel BBQ'ed chicken. Don't tell papa, but Fergie's BBQ is better than his.

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Monday after striking out at the Exploratorium, we headed off to Fort Point for some windy, foggy good views.

okay, we get that it's windy and foggy. What else can we say about this place?

Ya, it's an overpass, and we're under it. Definitely cold. Let's go to the next place.

Ahh, a nice hike--this seems better.

From the gulf stream waters...

to the Redwood forests...and then the bad weather headed in. We did the last 4 miles in the rain. No pix, cuz it was cold and WET.

The next days we met MAL for fun in the city with included a stop at the DeYoung museum to see some artwork and their sculpture garden. We also went to lunch, but me and Teddy didn't like it too much. Papa and MAL seemed to like it though.