A Long Walk or a Cold Swim

I decided to go to the 10:00 yoga class, so I did, but I need to remember that you have to leave earlier for the 10:00 class because town is actually open and you have to leave time to park. Josh had gone for a run earlier and thought he might join me if the timing worked out, but it didn't – he didn't get to Mo’s until after I was in class. It was an interesting class with Claire – lots of hitting yourself (gently) with a loose fist, not as much movement as I would have liked. I did learn a new way of thinking about boat pose – that you’re making a triangle with your tailbone and sitting bones – that seemed to make mine much more stable. So a good thing.

Meanwhile Dave had picked up Josh at Mo’s shortly after I got to Yoga, but when it was time to head in for lunch they discovered they had lost Tabetha. It turned out she’d walked all the way to Tolavana! So Josh & Jen picked her up, Dave and Tim drove in, and we all met at Bill’s for lunch. I’m a little Billed out, but it was a fun lunch anyway. After lunch the Wilburys stayed in town to check out the galleries (“many, many” says Josh; “1 or 2,” says Jen). The rest of us stopped briefly at home, and then headed out in two cars to the Cape Falcon parking area. We left Dave’s car at the turnout at the end of the two bridges trail, and then Tim dropped us off at the short sands beach parking area (we overshot the Cape Falcon trailhead, but it’s maybe 50 feet away). Then Tim drove off, leaving Dave and me and a large (and heavier than we thought) daypack to make our way back to where we’d left the car.

Is there a trail here, honey?

This is a hike we've wanted to do for a while now, and now we've hiked the whole trail between Neahkanie mountain and Arch Cape. We were worried we weren't going to get to do it because it’s not the kind of thing you want to do in the rain, but the weather today went from partly cloudy in the morning to absolutely clear in the afternoon. We’re not sure exactly how far we went, but we think it’s about 6.5 miles, going up and down the hills between the ocean and the road. A super nice extra is that Dave had thought to bring our walking sticks (the pretty ones we bought at Mesa Verde; they’re signed by the guy who carved them and dated – 1988, the year we were married. Those are some old sticks. But I digress), which turned out to be invaluable because much of the trail was like a giant mud puddle. We were able to use the sticks to probe how deep the mud was (Dave had boots, but I had my walking shoes that I bought when we were here over Thanksgiving, which are excellent for hiking but not in deep mud) and also for balance when walking on the narrow dry edges of the mud pits, and also good for using kind of like a gondola pole to push yourself up the steep parts of the trail.

Wilderness Reservation Confirmation

The trail is wonderful. It climbs up on the north side of Short Sands beach and the goes along the ocean, with many views of isolated coves that you could only get to by boat. We’d been on the first part of the trail that goes out to Cape Falcon a couple of years ago, but this time we branched off from there and kept going. There were many people on the trail before the turnoff and the trail was comfortably wide (albeit muddy in many places), but once we got to the turnoff the trail was still well maintained but the plants had closed in over it completely. So there were quite a few places where it looked like there was no trail at all unless you looked at the ground. And there were also places where you would be pushing the vegetation aside, only to discover that you were in a deeply muddy place. The trail also went through densely wooded recent plantings (10-15 years old?) and old growth areas, where there was little or no undergrowth. It was a perfect temperature for hiking. There was cell signal for most of the way, which was good because the restaurant called to confirm our reservation while we were out there. The only flaw in the whole thing was that my knee still isn't crazy about going downhill. But I used some of the tricks I’ve learned, and between that and having the walking stick I actually made it through in good shape with only a couple of painful moments. The last part of the trail parallels the road pretty closely and has lots of bridges, many of which have a path of shingles laid across them. Someone had some fun with those, because they don’t go straight across – some are crescents, and one was an ‘S’ shape.  It was a great hike, but both of us were really excited when suddenly we could see Dave’s car.

I'n the tallest!

We got back to the house and went out back to hose off our shoes, and found the deck festooned with shirts and shorts – Tim and the Wilburys had gone into the ocean, which is some kind of crazy because it’s COLD. I guess it’s not so bad once you go numb. Dave and I got cleaned up and we headed to Newman’s, where Josh still doesn't like that they salt outside of the bread. We had a very nice dinner, and because we have 5 wine drinkers we were able to start with a bottle of Prosecco, which everyone liked. Jen and I decided we need to make Bellinis now that peaches are in season. The Gigondas was not as successful. The other great thing about having 5 people is that we got to try lots and lots and lots of different things - everybody in the group is good about tasting and sharing.

By the time we got done it was almost 9, so we zipped home because it was clear and we were hoping for a green flash. But there was the usual low cloud bank over the horizon, so no green flash. There was a super thin crescent moon though, and many bats flying around. The Wilburys headed out because they all have to work tomorrow, and we settled in for our last night here. I made a giant pot of tea, because the mugs are annoyingly small and they have a nice teapot.  After we’d all recovered from dinner it was time for the last two games of trouble. Both were hard fought; in the last game we all had just one peg left and it was a matter of sheer luck. And although I had some fabulously lucky pops, I did not win either game and was dead last in the second. But I did win pepper two times on our second night here, and that will last me until we are here again. Because this is the end, boys. Thanks for riding along.