Burn Season

It's that time of year when San Francisco empties out. Burners have been building human-sized cat trees or gigantic flaming metal sculptures for months and are ready to transport them to Black Rock Dessert for the annual burning of the man. This year is no different. There are Burning Man virgins in my circle making the trek, pulling their costumes together and buying their goggles.

But, what is different about this year is that there is a real serious burn happening, too. The Rim Fire, as its been touted, is ravaging the Sierra Nevadas and wreaking havoc on my family and thousands of other residents of the area. While I remember many summers when fires affected the area - it is a dry climate after all - the fires never got so close. Scary.

Reasons I Love the Park: Dahlias

It had been awhile since I'd seen the Dahlias in bloom. The last few times I walked through the garden tucked next to the Conservatory of Flowers it was foggy and there were just green stems sticking up from the plot of land. So, drearsville. Not this time! On a walk home from a doctor's appointment in Laurel Village, I decided to take the Arguello Gate into Golden Gate Park and cut through the dell. What a marvelous surprise!!!

Bay Area Ridge Trail Challenge: And So It Begins....

My best friend and I have been doing hikes around the Bay Area for years. This year we concluded a challenge that she had set for herself, namely traversing every trail in Redwood Regional Park. While I did not hike every route she did for that challenge, I did the majority of them. This time, we have vowed to do the entire Bay Area Ridge Trail together. With 550+ miles, this could take us years...

We have already bumped up against the trails on some of our other hikes on the Peninsula and in the East Bay. Now, we will consciously follow the maps in our recently purchased book on the series of trails around the Bay. For our first foray, and in preparation for my friend's impending Mt. Shasta climb, we went to Tilden Park to do a hike starting at Inspiration Point, winding down toward Don Castro Reservoir, and back to our starting point. Unfortunately, it turned out that the Bay Area Ridge Trail requires hikers to have a permit to trek through the portion of our hike that would have taken us to Don Castro...

So, we didn't really get a chance to cover much mileage for our challenge... As in, 550+ miles still to go... But, we were able to walk along the ridge, curl down through Wildcat Canyon for a bit, and loop back. The ridge afforded amazing views of the Richmond area as well as San Francisco. And, at times we were walking in perfect summer heat and at others, we were bundled as the wind and fog whipped past. In other words, it was exciting! Plus there were cows. How cute is that?

More to come....

Reasons I Love SF: When the Sun Comes Out, it Means it

When all of July looks like this, in San Francisco (or in this case, Pacifica on the drive home)....

When it looks like this, it is more AWESOME than awesome! Thank goodness we had an evening like this, today. It compelled me to stop off at Ocean Beach, stare at the surf, catch a kite-surfer, and enjoy the warmth from the setting sun.

Reasons I Love SF: Woodside, Who Knew?

Woodside is a little town just next door to where my office is. And, while I spent some time there a few years ago dog-sitting, it is only since I started my job a year and a half ago that I've started to explore all that the super cute haven has to offer.

First off, tucked into the hills along Skyline Boulevard, it has Stillheart. Once called Skylonda, or something along those lines, this new age-y institute is a great spot for taking a weekend or week night retreat at a reasonable price. The grounds are beautiful, with hiking paths, native plants, a pool and sauna, and sprawling landscapes.

Second, there are some pretty great restaurants for only having a handful of options... Alice's at the top of Woodside Road and Skyline Boulevard, allows you to sit outside, check out the cyclists of all kinds, AND get breakfast for lunch. Who doesn't like breakfast for lunch?! Mountain House, going in the other direction on Skyline, doesn't look like much but, offers high quality fine dining in the midst of BIG trees. Plus, they have some really good Prosecco...

Last, the people are just so nice. For being so close to the heart of Silicon Valley madness and the Stanford brain-trust, the people feel like they are straight out of a town hundreds of miles away. It seems strange that one could just drive 20 minutes up a hill and feel like they are so far removed from the hub-bub but, it happened....

Reasons I Love SF: Sailing

Tiburon is a quaint little town on the coast of the North Bay, with a cute downtown, running and walking paths, and probably residents have a really great quality of life. Especially because they have to have money to live there... At any rate, I enjoy taking periodic trips up to Tiburon, either to visit Angel Island or to just make a day of it, taking in the sights, sounds and drinks of the town.

On this trip, I was able to stay at the Water's Edge, a great spot overlooking the harbor and San Francisco sky-line for some. You can see my view (at 5:30am no less) in the photo set below. In addition to taking full advantage of what the hotel had to offer, including a great wine and cheese happy hour, I went running along the lagoon with a friend, ate at Sam's (of course), and went for a sail on the Bay. It was dreamy...

Reasons I Love SF: Nerds!

Last weekend, I met up with some current and old co-workers for a mid-afternoon soiree that was supposed to last for an hour and a half and ended up going deep into the night for me and another friend from work.... Many glasses of wine and bourbon later, I was lurching home on the N Judah. It's been a long time since that happened.

At any rate, it was yet another quintessential San Francisco evening in the Mission. The sun was up late and fighting its way through the fog that was trying to roll in over Twin Peaks. We were on the third floor of a walk-up down the street from Dolores Park, overlooking Sutro Tower. And, the group of us were discussing Game of Thrones and the books it is based upon, my imminent graduate degree program, and the merits and demerits of program officer candidates recently met. A colleague strummed on the guitar and the hostess answered abundant questions about the secret ingredient in her Giada de Laurentis white bean dip. This is a day in the life of me. And, I love it.

The reason I love it most is that these are all very nerdy things to do on a Saturday afternoon... or any day for that matter. In other words, I'm surrounded by nerds like me in this wonderful city. Every day. There are people who are excited about this list of places, from San Francisco magazine, that incubate/"accelerate" new projects in the Bay Area. There are also people who enjoy talking about the last great book they read over lunch, like my colleagues and I do on a regular basis. And, there are people who want to join courses where they can learn nerdy things like human-centered design. So, we all sit around talking about these things and geeking out on how cool we think they are.