The year 2000 is quickly approaching to the end. It was not too long when the rainy season started.
We wanted to have a short hike before the weather turns to wet.
On Saturday afternoon in December, we set out to have a quick hike at one of our favorite open preserve, Purisima Creek.
The weather report predicted a rain in the evening. Some of us had another appointment in the evening. But four of us gathered at the small parking lot next to the Skyline Boulevard at 10:30am for hiking. The sky was grey, but no signs of rain. The air was a little chilly but wind was calm. Not bad at all.
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| A dead trunk along the trail. 'It looks like a lightening strike the redwood'. It was slowly decaying to soils. | A small flower with dew drops. The SF area is greener in winter because of all the rain. Still, it was a surprise for me to see a little flower in winter. |
| Here's the four of us (except me) under the giant redwood. Most of the redwoods in this open space is very young (therefore small). This is one of the largest; probably the loggers left it for the future seeding. |  |
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Our favorite of the hike; banana slug. We saw a lot of them. But this one is eating a mushroom! University of California Santa Cruz selected this slug for their mascot. Hmm, clever choice. |
| We had our lunch here at this beautiful stream. Nice sound of stream and good food (rice balls, etc.!) make the perfect lunch. My friend brought us rice balls, kinpira-gobou, etc. I always wondered why rice balls taste always so good? The only problem was that we had to turn back after this lunch because my knee started to hurt. |
On the way back, the fog rolled into the hills. Usually, the fogs retrieves towards the afternoon. The rain must be coming in. It was interesting to hear an opinion of European about fog; miserable. They hate foggy weather that covers much of Europe for all of their winter. For me, the fog is mysterious. After the hike, we all sat in the grocery store next to the trailhead, had a nice drink. It was a little short but nice hike as usual. |