Hiking at Sunol Wilderness

Ah California. It is the smell that surprised me then and now. Sweet crisp smells bursting in your nose like a sweet apple's spray upon your tongue. Walking among the oak laden stream banks, with the soft wind on my face, brings to me a deep calm. I journeyed today to Sunol Wilderness. My plan included a 10 mile round trip hike to Mission Peak, but the park worker told me that they had reports of someone with a gun in that direction. The helicopters overhead seemed to confirm this. I instead did the trip east along McCorkle trail. Under oak and sky I rest now at the end of this hike. My return trip will be slightly shorter and the entire hike will be just under 6 miles. Last night I played poker until 3 am. I had a fun time with the 9 others that showed up. I will need to schedule some more trips out here.

I sit in my little hill side of the world in thought of those who sat before me here. Of people from a different world and time, the native people who might have sat here in complete bliss for the sun in the sky. Of those who sat in love, completely unaware of any ill in the world at that moment. Of the lost, hoping here to find direction in the indecipherable blades of grass. I feel neither now, only a steady place in between all feelings. As if completely content, with want for naught or numb beyond ability to know. I do not seek yet I have not found.

Hiking in California

I am in big basin redwoods state park, at the top of buzzards roost which is at the end of pine mountain trail. It was about 2.4 miles up and about 1200 ft elevation gain. I went and had lunch with colin nathan and jon yesterday. They are all doing well it seems and tonight I will see them again for poker. This trip out to San jose has been great so far. Its a bit of a shame that I have to stay until Friday but I am also glad to have the extra time. Next year I will have to come out more often. I am looking forward to the heroscape day at my house in a couple of weeks. I have 10 confirmed people already and 4 maybes. Should be a lot of fun, although I might need some more terrain. Then I am thinking about hosting a game at game depot on november 24th for the national board game day. I am considering descent, as I have painted all the figures, or my home made version of dune. Anyway, I have types this on my iPhone and I have to say it is the fastest typing handheld I have ever used. Just amazing.

After that hike, I went to Wilder Ranch State Park, CA, which is just outside of Santa Cruz. I had been there once before. They were having a heritage day there with food and other events. I took some more pictures. I then went to Natural Bridges state park, which is right in Santa Cruz. I took some pictures of the ocean there and walked around for a bit. Getting ready to go over to poker night in just a little bit.

Goin' back to Cali

Driving. That’s what I’ve done a bit of the past 2 days. Yesterday I got a later start than I had planned and hit the road for California about 4pm from work. I got to a Best Western north of Los Angeles, CA that I had stayed at once before by about midnight. I left in the morning about 7am, arriving in San Jose, CA about 10:45. Went to lunch with the guys at work (Andrew, Kevin, Bryan, Jason, Yevgeniy). Being back feels pretty good to me. I’ll be out here until next Friday and I am looking forward to having this longer trip than I’ve had since leaving over 3 years ago. I had originally planned to leave sooner, but I have some work to take care of Thursday night. This weekend is Jon’s poker party and I am very much looking forward to seeing Bart and the rest of the gang again. In many ways its like coming back to find something that I thought was lost and found to be enjoyed for a fleeting moment in time. I plan to get some hiking in over the weekend and will hit some park(s) after I leave next Friday. I also am loving my iPhone, its truly an amazing piece of equipment. A few days ago I sent out invites for a Heroscape game day at my place on November 10th. I have gotten pretty good response so far; its looks like I’ll have 10-15 people for the day. Life is good, I need to take more vacation time. Driving out here feels so good. Last night my first stop was at a gas station about 100 miles west of Phoenix. Looking over the sunset highlighted desert sky at the mountains in the distance frees me deep inside somehow. Driving, music, thinking, focus. I need to find my inner peace.

Heroscape Game Day

Well this Friday I got to the board gamer group about 7:30pm because Dave went out and picked up a copy of the Swarm of the Marro master set in preparation for the Heroscape game day on Saturday. We played a quick game with one of the scenarios. I played a game of Arkham Horror that night at Gamer’s Inn. I played with Steve, Rich, Gary, Erik, and Jake. It was a long game that we pulled the plug on about 12:30am. We almost won it, though. Then Saturday Dave and I went over to Matt’s house for National Heroscape Day. I got in 4 games by the time we left at about 8pm. There were over 20 people there, and many prizes were given away. I got another Swarm of the Marro master set and Dave won a set of Templar Cavalry. I set up a game with Joe and Dave for Monday after work as well. I still do like Heroscape and the people who played on Saturday were all a lot of fun and nice people. I then went over to Game Depot for their game night. Joined in a game of Talisman. This was my second time playing, it is growing on me. I saw Jake, Taylor, Jeff, Dave, and Robert there (Robert was the one I bought Lord of the Rings and Ticket to Ride from awhile back). I really like the Game Depot venue for game night. Today I played Conquest of the Empire over at Game Depot with Jerry, Taylor, and Amelia. After the game I started to drive out for a hike, but the wind was blowing very strongly and I decided against it. I hate hiking in the wind. I finished up my Descent figures by putting on the coat of Minwax Polyshade, color Tudor. It looks like they just came out with a black color, which probably would work better for figures. I have to say, I think this stuff really makes the figures stand out. I’ll look at them all more closely tomorrow after it dries.

Denver Trip

Went up to Denver this week for a work trip. Got in yesterday and went to the office today. Met Brad, our new hire. He is a pretty nice guy, I think we did good to hire him. Saw Luke, Mark, and Ralph as well. I went tonight and visited with Pat and Emily for a bit. Emily was working, so we ate at the diner she is at. Pat and I went back to his place after awhile and chatted for awhile, then I came home. They have a really nice place up here actually. And Denver ... Ahh Denver. From the moment I traveled on the road from the airport, it felt good to be back here. I really do love this town. It feels so clean and crisp here always. I have missed coming up here over summer for the past few years, and I am going to make it a focus to get up here for at least a month next summer. I remember the time I spent up here well, yet its been inconceivably long. Nearly 6 years since I was up here for a few months one summer. Doesn’t seem real to me that so much time has past. I’ve had a good life and enjoyable time in between, but I really would like to get back up there for some hiking. The rockies are so wonderful. I managed to leave work a little early for a quick 3 mile hike at Roxborough State Park today. I ran through it a bit and only had my camera phone with me. There were a ton of deer on the trail, I saw about 8 of them. One group of them was particularly fearless and I got within 10 feet of one for a picture (it would not leave the trail).

Hike to Flat Iron

It is about 3pm 10/7/2007. Flat Iron, I made it to the top. This is my 2nd successful trip up. I did not go to the higher peak nearby this time. The climb up is incredibly difficult and i did not feel like bushwacking around to go up further. Also the trail seems more difficult to find than on my previous visit about 2 years ago. The last .8 miles goes up about 1700 ft. Ending with a small climb up a rock wall. The trip back down will be slow going I imagine. Getting here took about 2.5 hours, which is quite a long time for about 2.8 miles. The weather has been about as good as it can get for the hike, sunny with a cooling breeze. If anything i've been cool at times. Yesterday I had a great day playing games. I invited Jeff, Tomas, Max, Taylor, and Pat over for a game of Dune. We played on my homemade version. I am happy with all the pieces except the unit tokens. The magnets just are a bit annoying. That game ended when pat and i won on the 9th turn. I played the Bene Gesserit and Pat was Atreides. We had a nice alliance combo for attacks. The final battles to win were all still very close, however. I would have lost 1 except i got lucky and had the traitor leader for the Guild army that attacked me. After that game, Jeff, Max, and I played Talisman 4th edition. I had wanted to give this game a try for awhile. It was a lot more simple than i though it would be but provided for quick turns and good fun. Max and I then went over to gamemaster games about 8pm. I bought Runebound there and played a game with Jake, Jerry, and Max. We did not have time to finish, but i am really enjoying that game. Well, about to head back down the mountain in a few minutes. Back at the house now. The hike back down took about 2 hours, and I got back to car about 5:30pm. I feel a bit tired now from the hike, but getting back down was not as bad as I had feared. I am itching to try the Brown’s Peak trail again now, even though it was quite treacherous.

Runebound at Erik's

Erik invite Taylor and myself over to his place tonight (Friday night) for some games. We played Runebound with his friend Dave and Dave’s wife Amanda. Dave is a photographer and Amanda is a graphics artist for a newspaper. Erik’s known Dave since 2nd grade and they are both native to Arizona. Amanda actually was born in St Johns, AZ. I’ve been out that way before, its pretty far in the middle of nowhere. When I got there about 6:30, I chatted with Erik and his wife Megan for awhile. They have a very well kept house that looked quite nice. The environment and people were very enjoyable and the game itself Runebound was quite good. I will probably try to pick it up at some point.

Hike to Weaver's Needle

I took the day off work and got up to Weaver’s Needle again over in the Superstition Wilderness. I’ve done this hike a number of times now and never realized how steep it is. Over 620 foot in a mile, although its fairly short at only 2.2 miles one way. The weather was actually quite nice. I started the hike about 12:30 and had either clouds or the canyon walls blocking the full sun for about half of my hike. At the top it was very mild feeling as I sat in the shade. I only passed 2 other people very early in the hike and the parking lot was empty when I returned. Hiking during the work week allows for an experience with much less people. I’ve also worked the past few nights on creating a home made version of the board game Dune. I also have a copy coming in that I found, but as I’m not pretty much done with the home made version, I can say it is of much better quality than the original 1979 game. Now I just need to setup a game of it.