Amongst the Wildflowers, Away from You

Just A Day, Trips

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Ridge Trail from Mesa Road – Bolinas – 7 miles out and back

We’re social people. We like friends. We like meeting people. And we even like making new friends out in the wild. But when you get to the trailhead for a certain Alamere Falls trail on an overcast Saturday and encounter 300 cars and possibly every active person that lives in the Bay Area, it’s just too much.

So we froze bewildered, briefly, then chose another trail that was hidden behind the wall of parked cars. A trail that led to nowhere in particular, that went an unknown distance. We chose solitude and uncertainty over notorious sights and big crowds. We were rewarded with all of the wildflowers and lush woods that our eyes could soak in, free from the masses just a few miles away.

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All photos in this post taken on a Canon Rebel SL-1.

Easy Getaway: China Camp

Trips, Weekends

There’s a place just north of San Francisco that used to be home to a fishing village of over 500 Chinese immigrants. Before that it was a dairy ranch belonging to a wealthy Irish-American family. And long before that it was the home and hunting grounds of the Miwok people for hundreds of years. After most of the Chinese fishermen left, the land was saved from potential developers, and turned into a protected state park for us to enjoy.

These pieces of land transfer from one hand to the next, serving different purposes for each. Who uses it best? Who deserves it the most? Who should it belong to? Now it belongs to the State, and therefore to all of the people, more or less. Although you can’t use it to farm your cows, catch shrimp, or fully sustain your life anymore, you can use it to enjoy the outdoors, and to be thankful that one more stretch of the Bay’s coast so close to the ever expanding city was spared. Happy Earth Day!

All photos taken with 35mm film on a Canon AE-1.

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