Las Trampas hike

Festival of the Bands Concerts

Song 2: Thunder Drum




Song 2: Finale from Symphony No. 5 - Tchaikovsky

Easter at Grandmom's

Riding to Moraga

Arnold - Solo

I took a solo overnighter trip to Arnold to clean gutters and clear out the culvert after our big storms, and couldn't resist taking some photos along the way: puffy clouds; thick/wet snow up the highway just past Arnold; and then after a short jaunt down the Natural Bridge Trail, a cool cave dripping with water from the hillside above and a river running through it. Apparently you can walk (or paddle) up the river to the other end, but I'll wait until the kids are with me for that one.

Playing Tourist in SF

The last time we had walked on the Golden Gate bridge was when Nate was only a couple of months old. We took advantage of their Friday teacher's meeting day and headed to SF at just the right time. The fog broke away from the bridge on our way over, and the tourists were at a minimum. After walking on top, we explored Fort Point below which was built not for WWII, but for the Civil War(!) We thought we'd beat the rush hour traffic by eating at Sam's Cafe on the water in Tiburon, and then grabbing ice cream in Marin, but we still had an almost 2-hour drive home.

El Niño!

After a dry February we saw El Niño roar into March with a few good storms, with an especially strong system that landed Saturday night.  Before hand, I had converted one of our wine barrels into a rain catcher and it didn't take long for it to fill up to the overflow tube.  Saturday was the exciting day: a tree fell down across the main road into town, and a strong cold-front dropped an amazing amount of water all at once. We lost a bunch of smaller limbs on our oaks, the front drains became plugged, and a lake started creeping towards our front door before we could unplug the drains. Gina's brother Dave was there to help with flashlights and a steady hand on the ladder. The kids were oblivious, of course, venturing outside long enough to look around the backyard and fully-running river. More rain is in the forecast for next week; I'm just glad we fixed the roof before El Niño raised its wet head.