Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Hike 5

Sorry this post took so long for me to put up. Hike number 5 happened last Saturday at The Pleasanton Ridge. I have lived in Pleasanton for nine years and have never been up here, what a waste. It was a four hour hike thru woods, meadows and rolling hills.




The ridge was full of fruit trees at one point. Pleasanton was full of agriculture at one time. There is a reason Hopyard Road is called Hopyard - hops for beer were once grown along this major road. Few fruit trees remain up on the ridge these days, but there are some beautiful oaks.

Then there were to cows, or as I was told at work - don't think this is a cow. OK, I guess it may grow up to be a steer, but it was still very cute. There were lots of cows out in one area, some of them looked like they would like to show you who was boss, but they left me alone.


Sorry this picture is sideways, but it is mistletoe. I was wondering what these were, perhaps some kind of nest? No, it is mistletoe, the kind you put overhead at Christmas and wait for a kiss. Mistletoe is a parasite, who knew? Not me.

This next picture was taken at the end of the hike. Look closely, it is a photo shoot and at first I thought the model was naked, but no. You can see her legs under the tree. I had to stop and bend over to look under the tree, but she did have clothes on.

Now, four hours is a long time to be hiking and I keep hoping that I will have the stamina to keep this up. Hiked up two hours and I could look out over the hills that go from brown to beautiful green velvet almost overnight. On my way down I passed a little family out for a hike, a dad, a kid about 8, another kid about 5 and a mom with another kid on her back. The 8 year old boy was asking his mother what those poles were that we all had. "Well, honey those are hiking poles. You'll use them when you get a little older and we do more challenging hikes, like Half Dome." I did stop myself from stabbing her with my pole, but I thought about it.

I am at 77% of my goal, if you haven't yet please visit my website and help me reach my goal.



No comments: