We were delighted with all the food in Arcangeli Grocery and could scarcely decide what to buy. Here is Cliff with our still-warm olallieberry pie!
There is nothing I love better than outdoor adventures, so for my 26th birthday Cliff and I went hiking in Butano State Park near Pescadero. It rained heavily on the drive down, but thank goodness the rain let up just as we arrived in Pescadero. We stopped at Arcangeli Grocery to get ingredients for a picnic, including a freshly-baked olallieberry pie. The hike was delightful - it took us through open spruce forest, redwood canyons full of mist and mushrooms, and rocky ridgtops where we heard owls hooting. We finished our hike just in time to meet Zach for dinner at Pescadero's most famous (and only) homestyle restaurant, Duarte's Tavern. We stayed the night at Pigeon Point Lighthouse and then got up way too early the next morning to go to Tracking Club (on the beach near Gazo's Creek) where we read a dramatic story told by bobcat tracks. What an awesome trip!
Click on any picture for a full-size version.
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We were delighted with all the food in Arcangeli Grocery and could scarcely decide what to buy. Here is Cliff with our still-warm olallieberry pie!
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From our picnic spot, we could watch tendrils of mist rise from the damp forest.
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Close-up, this fallen log was an intricate garden of dozens of different species of mosses, ferns, and fungi.
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We hiked slowly because we kept stopping to look up at the trees.
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We found a fallen redwood tree, long dead, that had wedged itself in the fork of another tree. It hung high above the forest floor and made the perfect bridge to an undefined destination.
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There was an amazing variety of fungi in the redwood forest. Here is a slimy yellow one. We also saw huge white shelf fungi, red-capped mushrooms, small purple mushrooms, and - best of all - an eerie white fungus that looked like grains of rice, growing in the cavity of a decaying log, and glowing. Bioluminescent fungus... but why?
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For much of the distance, the trail took us close to the stream bank. In one place the bridge was washed out so we had to wade through!
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The rain had brought out all the banana slugs. We saw several dozen of them on our hike. This was one of the largest.
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But slugs on signs are fine, of course!
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A little muddy, we got back to town in time for dinner at Duarte's. Here Cliff and I have just finished consuming several calorific desserts. My chocolate mousse pie had a candle in it, which I successfully blew out, and my birthday wish has actually been coming true so far, though I can't tell you what it is.
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We enjoyed a Scrabbleful evening at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, and (with difficulty) woke up very early the next morning to go to Tracking Club. Here we are heading to the car just after sunrise. So that is how I started my twenty-seventh year. |
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Last updated July 8, 2006.