[Written several weeks ago, but just finished today.]

Sacramento’s best asset, by far, is the American River Parkway. This morning was cool with a slight breeze blowing up river as I rode through the CSUS campus and picked up the bike trail at the Guy West Bridge. (The first photo here is from the bridge.) I’m in Sacramento visiting my parents and had just dropped off their car for repairs and was heading back to their home in Carmichael. I figured the best way to do this shuttle was to bicycle back on the Parkway bicycle trail. I couldn’t have picked a better way to do the shuttle or a better morning to do the ride.

Along the way, I saw walkers, fishermen, joggers, a high-school cross-country team, exercise cyclists, bicycle commuters on their way to work and dog walkers. Every one of them brought back memories of my times on the trail. If there is any place for which I have a sense of place, this is it. I must have smiled the whole way, greeting others as I rode.

Let me tell a few stories. The fisherman reminded me of paddling this river with Pepper, shortly before she died. Friends Bob & Kitty wanted to paddle the lower portion of the river and I had just purchased a sit-on top kayak so Pepper could go paddling with me. We had a lovely day. I’ve run and walked both sides of the river in that area, but very little looked familiar. The river simply looks quite different when you’re in it, looking up at the levees that block city views in most places.

Further up the trail, I passed the drinking fountain where I had stopped innumerable times to drink and splash water on my neck during a run. Many of those runs were on Thursday nights with my pizza and beer run group. We would go out and get in a long run of 12-15 miles, then go for pizza and beer. It was a fun group, going to many weekend races together, sometimes helping each other through our first marathons, sometimes just going out for a fun 10k or 10 mile run somewhere.  The pack of high-school girls and high-school boys running along the river reminded me of running with my own high-school cross-country team members, years before the Parkway was even there.

I’ve also ridden this trail by bicycle many times. The first was 39 years ago, when I had moved back to Sacramento after college. The trail–then just 12 miles long–had just opened and my father and I rode to the trail, took it to downtown Sacramento, then rode back to their home in Carmichael. In later years I would ride the bike trail with Sierra Club groups, friends Craig & Kitty and on Eppie’s Great Race days with Dennis and Mark.

The early morning sun was beautiful behind the clouds and I had a lovely ride. Later in the day, when the car repair was completed, I hopped back on my bicycle and rode back to town. By then, it was a bit over 90 degrees, so I just burned off a quick 10 or so miles to get it over with. But, that too was a reminder of the times I’ve been on the trail and it was good sweatin’ weather. Since the ride back to Sacramento was heading downstream, I figure I got a ride down memory lane, too.

I had the good fortune of visiting one of the old homestead properties that still lies within the regional park. The site was originally homesteaded by a single woman in the late 19th century, as part of an olive producing area. The homestead still actively produces olives for olive oil from the original trees. You can get an idea how old the trees are by noticing the large old tree trunk surrounded by the later sprouts that are harvested currently. For more information about the homestead history and current olive production, see an earlier article in Edible East Bay.

We hiked in the southern part of the park, where many of the old olive trees still thrive. At one point in our hike along the ridge, we could look north across Pleasanton to Mt. Diablo in the distance, where I was camping a few weeks ago. Read my previous post about that trip.

But, this trip wasn’t just about food and conversation. We camped under the live oaks, avoided the poison oak on the hillsides, spent a good part of Saturday exploring the neighboring geological features at Rock City and tried our hand at geocaching. Most of us were new to geocaching, so this was a fun exercise in learning to use a GPS device as well as learning some of the culture of geocaching. In short, geocaching involves using a GPS device to navigate to a specific location identified by a set of coordinates, then looking for a hidden box with a logbook. Boxes are typically ammo boxes (as shown in picture at right) or a plastic container (held by David in picture below) and usually also contain swag  (trinkets to trade) and occasionally a travel bug. We found both. Special thanks to David and Jean for introducing us to this activity. Thanks to Steve for the photos.

We visited three sites. One of the locations was pretty cool geologically. The hints from the geocaching website said something like “you’re there when you see the alien pods.” We all agreed that this was a perfect description of the rock formation. You can see how large a feature it is by comparing to David’s height in the photograph.

The full moon made for a beautiful hike Saturday night. Several people said they heard owls and coyotes during the night, but I wasn’t so lucky. Both mornings (or was it evenings?) a large family of quail came wandering through the campground. All in all, it was a great weekend, part vacation and part staycation.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the full event! However, with a dance workshop scheduled in Truckee, just 15 minutes away, I was able to attend the morning’s preparatory activities of mixing bread dough. Take a look at this hefty loaf of bread before baking! I understand that these loaves bake up and lift the heavy cast iron lids off of the Dutch ovens.

Although held in late June, this is still springtime in the area, so I enjoyed the many flowers and birds. My favorite was a type of lupine I’ve never seen before, a low (3 inch) groundcover. Other, taller lupine and mule ears are pictured. I hope to attend the full event next year, to partake of the food, music and good company of others who appreciate this small slice of Sierra Nevada history.

We arrived late Saturday night–actually 1:30 am Sunday morning. I began to wonder what Ecuador was like when our van to the hotel had a guard armed with a semi-automatic pistol and wearing a bulletproof vest. The hotel entrance door was manned by a similarly equipped guard. Apparently this is a late-night precaution only, as both were absent in the morning.

Sunday morning, Mar 22, we began to meet others on the trip at breakfast, then we all took a van back to the airport for our flight to the Galápagos. After the flight to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on Isla San Cristóbol* and the necessary Galápagos-entry paperwork, we were shuttled by van to the dock and by panga to our boat, the M/Y (motor yacht)  Eric. The Eric is one of three nearly-identical sister ships, including the Letty and the Flamingo,  that travel together over the same route.  It is a 300 ton boat of about 75 feet, carrying a crew of 11, including naturalists, and carrying up to 20 passengers. This small size meant that our entire group of 16 people had the boat to ourselves, providing opportunities to get better acquainted with our tour group than probably happens in the larger tour boats and ships. I believe most tourists fly into Isla Baltra to begin their tours, but we had a little historical parallel: Charles Darwin first landed in the archipelego on Isla San Cristóbol. So, I’m glad to have started my trip there, too.

Preliminaries included getting our wetsuits and snorkeling gear for the week, which were tested after our first (and rough!) wet landing at Playa Ochoa, a short ways from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. We then headed northeast to Léon Dormido (Kicker Rock), a remnant lava cone  rising 500 feet out of the ocean. We spotted our first sealife on this leg of the trip, several whales. You can get a sense of the size of Léon Dormido by comparing its height to the height of the Letty and the Flamingo at the bottom of the divide in the rock.  It looks especially beautiful at sunset, as you can see in the photo. As darkness fell, we were treated to the first of many beautiful sunsets on the water. After dinner we all headed off to bed and the boat began what was to become the nightly pattern of cruising to another island while we slept. When we awoke in the morning, we were at Isla Genovesa, having also made the first of four crossings across the equator in the Eric.

* Below, for reference, is a chart of most of the archipelago, showing our route around the islands. Isla San Cristóbol is the eastern most island, at the lower right, and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno is on the leftmost tip of the island. From there, you can follow our route.

One of the small, but interesting, constraints I work with as a photographer is the shape of the header in this blog. The requirements are very specific; header images are limited to 736 pixels wide by 229 pixels high. A less obvious constraint is that there are tabs (e.g., “About ramblin’ and Robert”) that impose into the photo area, so there can be nothing in the image that is critical  along its lower left edge, because it would be obscured. When I’m traveling, I’m always looking for images that will fit well within this unusually wide and short format.  Selected images must  capture the essence of a place and be aesthetically pleasing within the constraints of the header. It’s a fun challenge and I always come up with something of interest. On this trip, I came up with a number of images with this challenge in mind and have now narrowed it down to a handful of images. I like them all!

So, here are my header image candidates from my trip to the Galapagos Islands. Help me out and let me know which ones you think best capture the essence of the Galapagos Islands.

(You can expand each image to full size by clicking on it.)

In order, I have pictures of my fellow travelers, the two naturalists, the captain and most of the crew. Enjoy the portraits. I’ll get the iguanas and boobies up soon!

(Click on photos to see larger images.)

The Galapagos Islands are, of course, where Charles Darwin made observations about  wildlife and geology from which he later developed his ideas about evolution, which now stands as the unifying cornerstone of all biological sciences. Thus, for a scientist, at least this scientist, visiting the Galapagos Islands is making a pilgrimage to both honor Darwin and to learn more about these fascinating islands and their wildlife.

Others make their pilgrimages to religious cities: Muslims to Mecca, Christians to Bethlehem, Jews to Jerusalem. But, for me, the best pilgrimage I can make is to the Galapagos Islands. I’m looking forward to it.

I had my camera and journal, so spent the time taking pictures and writing in my journal. Not only was the day beautiful, but the Napa Valley was in one of those rare days each year when the hills are green and the mustard is rife on the valley floor, providing beautiful fields of yellow on lush green backgrounds. My pictures don’t do it justice, but I’ll put them here anyways.

We started early enough in the morning that there was still heavy dew on the grasses and other plants. So, I got started early playing the photographer, down on my belly. The pictures with dew didn’t turn out well, but I did get a couple interesting pictures of small plants that intrigued me.

All in all, this was a good day, hiking with three artists and getting time to relax with camera and pen and paper.