Up the Hill

Short Version:
We ride up a mountain, Janine gets a haircut

Long Version:
After our run/walk, we did some relaxing with caffeine and woodpeckers, then extracted the bikes and set off up Mt Tamalpais. There's a school of thought which holds this mountain as the original mountain-biking mountain, so it was kind of cool to ride on it, but it's a disputed claim and the riding in the area is now restricted to fire roads only and banned outright from any of the hiking trails in the area, which is a bummer.

As far as fire roads go, though, it was a particularly nice one to ride; the gradient was shallow enough that even I was enjoying the climb, and the huge swarms of many-colored* dragon- and damselflies were pretty impressive. As were the views of San Francisco from the many vantage points we found, and as was Janine pedalling up the hill with so much force that she broke her chain. Hardcore wife! One quick and surprisingly successful mechanical repair later we blitzed the final half mile to the visitor centre, and ditched the bikes for the scrambly climb up East Peak, where we found a fire-watch tower, bitey flies, and views which dwarfed those we'd seen thus far, necessitating much fluffing around with camera before heading back down to the bikes.

We paused on the way down the mountain to marvel at the West Point Inn, which is a hotel of sorts halfway up the hill, with hike/bike access only, very rudimentary utilities, and stunningly incredible views of San Francisco. If we're ever heading back that way we'll look at trying to nab a cabin. No idea on price or etc, but we do know they do pancake breakfasts on a regular basis.

Back at camp, Nene gave herself a haircut, which actually looks really good**. We made fire, which wasn't looking healthy until Nene took over managing it, at which point it became an inferno which raged so much that our grilled corn ended up char-grilled corn. Still yummy though. We drank the sole remaining leftover Mexican beer, which made us want more, then hit the sack so we'd be on top form for the next day's exploration of San Francisco, city of hippies. And thrash metal.







* = The bright blue ones were the coolest, then the green-and-black ones

** = I'm not sure whether it's because she did a great job of it, or if it's just down to her looking good no matter what haircut she has. Apart from maybe that perm Ma had back in the late 80s - that may be a step too far, even for Nene. (Hi Ma!)