Busy Times . . . But Fun!

Explorations

After our return from Yosemite we decided to take it easy. We all needed a little rest right? It was back to school for Nye and time to play with friends after school in the park and in the pool. Back to painting for Arch. And back to work for Sara! ;)


La Brea

Okay so to mix things up from the routine of sunny days with blue skies in the 80's I decided to take some fun trips for work. Okay they were all to sunny places but hey this is California! The first was to the La Brea tar pits. This consisted of hopping on a plane and flying to Los Angelis for the day and then driving across the city to the DuPage museum. I've always wanted to go to La Brea! This was my first chance to see some of the amazing animals I've been reading about at work like Giant Sloths, Mammoths, and Sabertooth tigers. The tar pits themselves are very, very, weird. There are places in the lawn of the museum where the tar is just bubbling up to create new little pools. Must be hell on the lawn mowers!

We topped off the trip with a supper quick trip through Hollywood. I can honestly say that it was thrilling to see the sign "Hollywood" but after all the time I've lived in NYC the "strip" was a bit of a disappointement. I guess I had been thinking about Times Square and the whole Broadway experience. It just isn't like that at all. But that didn't keep me from sticking my head out the car window and snapping bad pictures.


Paleontology At Sea Cliffs

As part of "work" at the museum I had arranged a paleontology field trip. It is hard to do an exhibition about the process if you've never been out on a fossil dig. I'm fortunate to have folks at UC Berkeley's Paleontology Museum who are willing to endulge us. A small group of us had fun learning all about how to read the rocks of California's sea cliffs and then follow that up with a chance to find marine fossils. I came back with a few pretty cool sea urchine fossils and one giant "rock" clam.


Alum Rock

Our latests family exploration was to Alum Rock Park. We've spent most of our time exploring the hills of the Santa Cruz Mountain Range to the west of San Jose. This was our first adventure into the foothills to our east. Alumn Rock is a steep gorge that cuts into the foothills. At this time of the year the eastern hills are amber in color since all the grasses have already browned and gone to seed. (That is in stark contrast with the more "rain forest like" green of the western hills.) Still Alum Rock Park is really beautiful! We hiked a 3 mile loop on the South Rim Trail. From up top we had wonderful views of the whole of the San Jose Valley and the southern end of the San Francisco Bay.

We all had a great time enjoying the butterflies, flowers, and lizards we found along the trail. I'm continually impressed by all the amazing flowers we've seen since we moved here. The terraine is dry and the sun does beat down but the scrub oak trees afford wonderful cool spots along the trail. Hummingbirds buzz overhead and these amazing oasis of color attract the most wonderful range of butterflies imaginable.

The park was once a "spa" back in the 20's. Along one side of the stream that runs along the bottom of the valley are these great old relecs. Old bridges, little arched doorways where the water runs out smelling like "dragon farts" as Nye so aptly phrased it. Intricate rockwork pools are set along the path, no doubt for the happy bathers at the spa. We couldn't quite imagine the whole idea of sitting in water that smelled that bad. Still it didn't seem to phase all the the local wildlife.

We'll be back to explore more of Alum Rock's beauty one of these days. It' is sooo close to the city but feels remarkably far away.

Love,

Sara, Nye, and Archil