It was hot and sunny and Bryan Barrett was in town so we all took off for a drive into the hills. We brought our dog Dixie, hoping to go for a hike in Foothills Park which is a gorgeous place with magnificent views of the bay. Unfortunately, we discovered dogs aren't allowed in the park on the weekends. I don't know why. However, no one was there to enforce either the rule, the residents-only restriction, or the auto fee. Feeling furtive as hell, we drove in anyway, and had a look around from Vista Point. Dixie came with us, on her leash, and was kept to the cement path where she couldn't do any more damage than a normal human would. I saw a lizard, several interesting butterflies, and a red-tailed hawk floating watchfully overhead.
Hoping to find a park that would allow us to take Dixie on a real walk, we kept driving up Page Mill Road. Up, up, up, around hairpin turns, in and out of shadowy cedars and madrona we went, admiring the views and puzzling over the kind of people that would spend thousands of dollars on houses in an area that was hard to get to, tended to go over the cliffs in a heavy rain, and were located in many cases no more than a few steps off a road. You get the worst of all worlds, I should think, even if the views are heavenly.
We pulled off at Los Trancos Nature Reserve and walked a few hundred yards down the trail, admiring the poppies and wild sweet pea in among the golden grasses and thornbushes. Dogs weren't allowed there either so we turned around after a quick look and excited doggie sniffing at some interesting holes in the ground. On we went as the day grew hotter, wending our way ever upwards towards the spine of the hills that separate the peninsula cities and the ocean. At last we reached Skyline Boulevard and turned onto the relatively gentle curves with relief. At La Honda we stopped for water and lemonade. As always at the junction of Highway 84 and Skyline, it was hog heaven; dozens of motorcycles were parked and twice that many people wandered around admiring the machines or sat on them revving the engines. They were mostly RUBes as far as I could tell (Rich Urban Bikers). The motorcycles were gorgeous, sleek and shiny and lean with tons of chrome and leather. After we tanked up and Dixie drank her water from a paper cup it was all (blessedly) downhill along 84.
I kept thinking about the 60's, remembering the hijinks of the Merry Pranksters and the Grateful Dead and all the acid trips that must have played out at the Trips Festivals under the redwoods up here. For a little while I could imagine myself as a hippie chick, flowers in my hair and stars in my eyes, getting zonked on LSD and having epiphanies about music and love and the meaning of the universe way up in the hills above the sleepy peninsula towns while Jefferson Airplane wailed over the loudspeakers and the light show throbbed and flowed over the trunks of the trees.
Back home I fell asleep from the combination of sun and excitement. I do not know how it is possible to become tired from merely riding in a car for three hours but there it is. Dixie fell asleep, too. Bryan left, bearing my Alice (cf Dilbert) doll as a gift, and left a book on the natural history of the USSR in return. In the cool of the evening I set out dishes of flat beer to tempt the snails to a happy death, then spent some time doing computery things. We watched Blue's Clues which is a kids' program several steps above Barney and not dissimilar to PeeWee's Playhouse (less subversive, clearly). I have had an incredibly full weekend and yet I feel as though I've gotten everything done that I planned to. I must be getting the hang of socializing.
A good thing, too. Next weekend my stepmother comes to town, John goes out of town, and there's the annual Solstice Party at Allen Baum and Donya White's house which I have promised to help with. Juggling pet care, dog walking three times a day, shuttle runs to the airport, and a huge party ought to keep me busy. It's a good thing I've been in training.
