All was still in Hiker Jane's snug little flat in Bernal Heights. Mr. Hiker Jane was busily canceling his morning outdoor plans, while Hiker Jane gritted her teeth, filled her Nalgene bottles and declared loudly to her bedroom, "We. Are. GOING!" There was a flurry of phone calls, and some delays, but in the end three brave nature loving souls met at Muddy's Coffee shop on 24th and Valencia to kick off our monthly hike.
Meta Moment:
Hiker Jane has lived in San Francisco for close to ten years and can count on one hand the number of times she has "randomly" run into Online Journaler folk, a bred of people to which Ms. Hiker Jane once belonged. Twice in the last six months it has been the divine Ms. Evany, who at this last occurrence, grinned and exclaimed that lately "she's everywhere I want to be." True enough.
Our little trio discussed our options. We could bail and head to Oscento and soak in hot tubs for several hours, forgetting our hike all together, or we could drive South to see how bad it was raining down there and either (a) hike or (b) come back to Oscento. In the end we decided to head South.
"Wahoo!" squealed Hiker Jane, and whipped out her Treo to take some crappy pictures to commemorate the event.
"Ack! No moisturizer! That thing whites me out!," were the random howls back as Hiker Jane clicked. Here are the results:
When we arrived in Pacifica and the San Pedro Valley Trail, it was still raining. Well. It was still raining off and on. We looked at one another as rain started pattering down our heads. "Lets go," Hiker Jane declared, and headed straight to the bathroom. Then we headed to the entrance booth to pay the park entrance fee. "Shouldn't we get half off because it's raining?" Then Hiker Jane headed to her car so that she could read her license plate number, because she never &^%$ remembers it, then she went back entrance booth to finish the form, then back to the car to put in the little "We paid, honest" stub on her dashboard, and then we hit the trail.
The rain started coming down harder and we plodded on. About half a mile up the trail we saw a fat banana slug making its way across the floor. Lorelei dared someone to lick it. We gave her a look. After a few more moments passed, we stepped...carefully...over the banana slug and continued on. If you've never seen a banana slug, I'm sorry, I have no pictures since it was raining and the Treo is sensitive at all, but I did find this one online. They look exactly like that except they are usually smoking something and eating M&Ms.
After about another mile we reached the waterfall summit.
Here it is....
Can you see a waterfall? If so, good for you...please tell me how you managed to spot it. That said it is actually in there somewhere, and it was extremely beautiful, and hummingbirds came out of their nests and danced around us like fairies while we marveled at the waterfall's beauty. No really, they did. I tried to take a picture of the hummingbirds too, but if the Treo couldn't manage a @#$% waterfall, you can imagine how my bird pictures came out?
So instead I decided to take a picture of something closer. A lovely Manzanita Tree, which I kept on making new names for because I couldn't remember what it was called. It became the Montecarlo tree, the Monticello tree, and the Montazuma's Revenge Part III tree, depending on my mood.
I also got some pictures of some other exotic wildlife, Lorelei and Therese eating some well deserved chocolate. MMMM. There were hazelnuts in there.
We hung out at the top of the trail for a while. What shocked me most is that in about ten minutes someone actually joined us. It was a mother and her brood: two children and Dad. She was wearing a pair of white sneakers and carried an umbrella. Her husband, a beer. I'm guessing there was a conversation earlier that day that ended something like this...
"I don't care if it IS friggin' raining, it is MOTHER'S DAY and I AM THE MOTHER and goddamnit we are going for a NICE. WALK!!!!!"
I really wanted to take their picture, but that would have been a bit too obvious.
We decided to continue up the trail for a while and about twenty minutes later decided to have lunch. It was tasty indeed with plenty of chocolate to follow all of the healthy dried fruit and nuts and bread we had lugged with us. Unfortunately, we didn't eat the orange that Therese brought and it decided to nestle into my right hip like bowling ball and I cursed it the entire trek down. Okay, so really like fifty feet before I whipped my pack off and found it a new home.
It was while we lunched that we saw someone else on the trail. One of those damn sprightly sixty-five year olds who was jogging down the trail soaking wet, and wielding two hiking poles like an animated human ant. Curse him. We said something rude like, "Hello" and "Have a nice day" as he passed.
After lunch, we continued upward for ten minutes before Hiker Jane's crew started saying things like, "We're wet and cold," and we made the decision to turn around and hike down the mountain. Hiker Jane had the brilliant hippie notion to make the hike down hill a walking meditation and requested that we not talk. "You aren't going to talk for two miles?," Lorelei commented raising her eyebrow. "Yes," I declared, "and if I break that promise you can pinch me."
Two minutes later Hiker Jane yelped as her ass was pinched. The rest of the hike down included random sign language, obscene hand gestures, laughing, the declaration that laughing did not count as talking so you are NOT allowed to pinch my ass, and a good deal of ass pinching.
In short order we made it into the car and back to the city. There was talk of going to Oscento, but Hiker Jane was falling asleep at the wheel, so after dropping Therese off, she headed home. Lorelei managed to sneak home with her and babied the very babyish Hiker Jane with spicy black bean soup and leftover cheese, after Hiker Jane sneezed her way through a hot bath.
Ms. Lorelei then headed back to Oaktown while Hiker Jane waited for the return of Mr. Hiker Jane, who returned bearing "Goood Fricken Chicken" the best take-out chicken ever, after sitting through thirteen rainy innings at the Giants game and getting pooped on by a diarrhetic seagull. Whoever said that was "good luck" was just trying to make someone feel better about getting crapped on. And didn't have to do that person's laundry.
But the chicken was damn tasty.
