Opportunity Costs and Other Musings

 

Do you see Golden Gate Bridge in the background?

    Daughter Erin and I met up at Lands End in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago for me to pick up the new to me camera that my niece Emily mailed to me through Erin, and Erin and I took advantage of the location to walk the trail there. The little dog is "Under Butt," the pet of a friend of Erin, and the sweetest little dog I've ever met.

    I remember first learning about Opportunity Costs in an undergraduate economics course many years ago. Basically to me it means that if you are doing one thing, you can't be doing another. The "cost" of spending a lot of time hiking and walking means not spending that time reading, or knitting, or doing a jigsaw puzzle, etc. I have always had the challenge of having many interests and not feeling there was enough time to do them all. Looking forward to retirement I imagined unlimited time for everything that had been deferred, but alas I still have to make choices to do one thing while not doing another. Living in an RV, and especially during COVID restrictions limits my choices and for that I am grateful because I really can't do it all. I am doing lots of walking and hiking in nature which has always been my first choice of an activity for a day off. Now we walk and/or hike every day on our "work" days in nature and I honestly never get tired of it. We also hike on our days off. Last Monday we went to Muir Woods to explore some trails there. We chose a trail that went up and up and so on Tuesday I thought maybe we should do something else other than hike, but we really didn't want to stay in our "work" site all day. For the first time since COVID restrictions began in March it really hit me just how limited all of our choices are right now - can't go to the theater, to a restaurant to eat, to a bowling ally or a museum. We had a good time though going to Limantour Beach at Point Reyes Sea Shore and enjoyed a leisurely walk on the beach and a different natural setting. We are so privileged to live in the midst of so many choices for hiking trails and beautiful vistas.

As we arrived at Muir Woods I was struck by the same vegetation that is all around us at Samuel P Taylor State Park. There was a part of me thinking that we really didn't need to come here to see what we see every day. People we meet at Samuel P Taylor often tell us that it's much easier to come here to see and experience the same thing one experiences at Muir Woods, and I could feel the truth to that.

In one way things look the same, but really, every tree is as unique as every human being.

We chose to take the Canopy View Trail that went up and up to the Panoramic Trail

These tree roots are actually the base of the trail at this spot.

More of the trail going up

A grove of all young Redwood trees, making us wonder what conditions were present to cause this uniform grove - a land slide in the past perhaps?

It's hard to see in this picture, but we could see to the ocean from this spot on the Panoramic Trail.

    When we reached the Panoramic Trail we were right below the Panoramic Road that goes up and over Mt. Tamalpais which we could also see from the trail we were on. Right across the road were some houses, and I realized that the location of a cabin my father once owned on Mt. Tamalpais had to be very close by. A few weeks ago while in Colfax I came across the deed to the cabin my father bought for $1,200 in 1947. He sold it not long after my parents married in 1949, something he often lamented that he regretted. Growing up we often heard that cabin mentioned, and it's proximity to Mt. Tamalpais. There is a picture of my parents taken on a rock on the top of the mountain that they walked to from the cabin, but until I came across the deed I didn't realize it's close proximity to Muir Woods. The description of the property was Lot #14 above Muir Woods. The deed also showed the dimensions of the property: 100 feet long, by 25 feet on one end and 33 on the other - pretty tiny even for a cabin. Some day we need to go back to that area to find the location of the cabin that I think is long gone. I assume if my father hiked up to Mt. Tam from his cabin that he also hiked down to Muir Woods and I wonder if the wonder of those Redwood Groves influenced his reverence for all trees and indeed all of nature.

There were lots and lots of steps to walk down from where we had gone up.

And we had to duck here to continue on the trail.

Part of the path at the bottom

    Though the vegetation was very similar to our "home" at Samuel P Taylor, there was lots of interesting history to read about the John Muir National Monument, including that in May 1945 when delegates from all over the world met in San Francisco to establish the United Nations they traveled to Muir Woods to honor the memory of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who had died one month earlier. A plaque in the park said that meeting in Muir Woods was a way of "focusing the delegates' attention on the role of nature and places of tranquility in world peace." We certainly all know how soothing nature is, but to have it called out in this way in relation to the founding of the United Nations is significant. More and more science is showing the importance of humans being connected to the natural world for better mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. Oh that public policy will recognize and support that not new idea! So many people we meet here at Samuel P Taylor as they walk and bike and enjoy this place say how this place has helped them weather the isolation of COVID restrictions. 

    Another sign that really caught my attention at Muir Woods had to do with the history of setting aside and preserving this track of land so that all could enjoy it. The sign began, "Muir Woods National Monument was established in 1908 through the inspired leadership of William and Elizabeth Kent, Gifford Pinchot, and President Theodore Roosevelt." It also mentioned the inspiration behind its founding from John Muir for whom the park was named. A secondary sign asked the question, "So who are we leaving out?" in relation to the preservation and founding of the park. The sign goes on to cite the stewardship of the Huimen people, the Indigenous people whose ancestral land Muir Woods is on. And it also says it leaves out the collective action taken by women in the early 1900s who started the first campaign to save Muir Woods. This reminder called to mind a woman I knew at Lake Tahoe whose name is probably not recorded anywhere, but whom had a large part to play in preserving lake front property as a state park.

    Marguerite Hare and her first husband came to live next to Skylandia Methodist Church Camp near Tahoe City on the shores of Lake Tahoe in the 1950s. Marguerite's husband came to be the year round care taker of the campground, but unfortunately he died within a couple years of their arrival. Marguerite stayed on, living in their rented home until early in the 21st century when the problems of aging required that she move in with family in Auburn. I was at Skylandia once in the mid 1960s when we went to pick up my sister after her week of church camp there and I remember how beautiful I thought the location was. Not long after that, the California Nevada Annual Conference of the Methodist Church (it wasn't United Methodist until 1968) decided the campground would need to be sold because the church could not afford the high cost of connecting to the area sewer or other improvements required at the campground. It was a sad day for many to know that this campground would be sold. Marguerite told me that she had just returned from her annual visit to Ohio to visit family there when she learned that Skylandia was to be sold to a land devoloper and in place of the beautiful pine and fir forest would be houses. Marguerite said she could not tolerate the thought of that and she went door to door soliciting signatures and support to not allow development, and it was following her efforts and the efforts of those she recruited that Skylandia was sold to the state of California and is now a beautiful beach front park with trails and access to all. When I was a pastor at Kings Beach United Methodist Church I performed a wedding for one of our members on the bluffs above the beach at Skylandia State Park, and on every one of my four around the lake kayak trips, I pulled out on the Skylandia beach to take a break. Thank you Marguerite!

Here is the sign at the entrance to Point Reyes Seashore near the visitor center that is closed due to COVID. Perhaps that visitor center will open before we leave west Marin County in April.

Before heading to the beach we walked the short "Earthquake Trail" near the visitor center. Here is a fungus on one of the trees on the loop trail that is right on top of the San Andreas Fault.

Also on the Earthquake Trail were these eyes placed whimsically by some passerby. I wonder if the rangers know they're there and if they'll let them remain.

Part of Estero de Limantour near the beach

The grasslands and hills behind - the beach is right over the rise to the right.

Looking south from Limantour Beach to Point Reyes

Some beach art we happened upon

A beautiful egret in the Estero de Limantour

It started to rain a bit while we were on the beach so we crossed over the grassy hill to a trail that paralleled the beach thinking it might be dryer.

Notice the muddy path in front of us? 

We won't try that again.

We ate our lunch in the car, taking cover from the rain.

I managed to get this picture of a bird through the windshield with my phone.

I have started using my "new" Canon camera, but most of my pictures are still from the iphone.

    This week on our days off we went to Colfax because Rob had a dentist appointment in Auburn on Tuesday. Our medical provider is now Kaiser, and we could utilize the Kaiser facility in San Rafael, but we choose to keep our medical and dental appointments closer to Colfax. It also gives us a good excuse to visit daughter Ruth, granddaughter Avienda and grandchild Chris and their wife Alana periodically. We drove up on Monday and were back in camp late Tuesday afternoon.

An egret we spotted when we stopped for a short break along Highway 37 between Novato and Vallejo.

It's hard to see in the distance, but the coast range is visible in the very back of this picture, then the Sutter Buttes and then the lower foothills. This picture was taken from the trail along Boardman Canal above our Colfax house with my phone. I wished I had taken the new camera with me to see if the distant mountains would have showed up better.

Maru, Ruth's Great Pyrenees "lifestock guardian" dog.

Maru greets all "intruders" to the Colfax property with barking, warning strangers to stay away. 

I swear he always looks disappointed when he recognizes us since we're not intruders.

Avi and Maru. Avi is not usually agreeable to having her picture taken.

Avi and I went for a walk down the road from the house and we spotted this bird.

I think it's a California Towhee

This beautiful bird is a Scrub Jay. 

I think "Scrub" Jay is a rather derogatory sounding name for this beauty.

    Back at Samuel P Taylor the beauty of the Redwoods continues to amaze and grab my attention. I know I keep taking pictures of the same scenes, but I'm sure they look different somehow, and indeed sometimes they do look different. 

The sun behind the trees on a trail near camp.

I was going to call this a "naked" tree, but it's hardly naked with all that moss.

I want to pick a tree without it's leaves now and take pictures of it as it leafs out this spring, but I can't quite remember where this one is. I was looking for it this morning, but couldn't find it, guess I need to retrace all my steps of the last week or so.

These ferns that grow out of moss on cement and rocks and trees fascinate me. I thought they were what's called "resurrection" ferns, but the last I read about them said they are found as far west as Texas, and we're a lot further west than that.

More of the little ferns

A large fungus on a tree - there is a huge variety of fungi here in the park.

A couple of salmon I caught on the Canon camera about two weeks ago. We have not seen any for several days now. When the Fish and Wildlife fish "counters" came by this week they said their numbers are way down. They walk a two mile stretch of Lagunitas Creek each week. For a few weeks in a row the numbers were in the 50s. About three weeks ago they were pretty excited because they counted 97. This week they counted only 11 - Coho spawning season is coming to a close. They say Steelhead should arrive this coming week following the rain. It sounds like the Steelhead will be harder to spot, but we'll be looking.

A slug captured by the Canon camera

Turkey vultures at the top of a tall tree very close to our campsite.

A bird in a tree - not sure what kind.

This, I'm pretty sure is a Varied Thrush.

A pretty duck in the creek

A pair of ducks in the creek.

This picture is taken from a bridge a mile down stream from our campsite. We walked there this morning and saw two otters, but I didn't take the binoculars, nor the good camera, so we couldn't see exactly what they were doing. It looked like they were eating - perhaps one of the salmon that has finished spawning.

Last Friday morning's campfire.

I generally have a fire first thing every morning where I write in my journal and sip my cup of tea. 

The latest jigsaw puzzle - done in the tent.

Straus and Elsie in their most common resting place.

Straus in a rare moment of being a lap cat.

Straus looking very pretty.

And Straus looking silly

Elsie reaching out for Rob to pet her. She does this with her claws out.

The cats perched on top to the mattress that was on its side in the hall.

They think any new change is just for them. The mattress was there because when I was putting the newly washed sheets on the bed on Tuesday I discovered that the plywood under the mattress was quite wet. We checked every possible source for the water and determined it is from condensation from the back window overflowing to a corner of the plywood and then wicking to the middle of it. We used the space heater to dry it a bit and are now keeping paper towels wedged in the window "sill" and changing them as they get soaked. Keeping the inside of LesThora dry is our biggest challenge here in the winter Redwoods.