Refugio & More
Nov. 9th, 2014 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aTo The Refuge. I had a marathon bike ride on Saturday. I rode up to Hilltop Mall for lunch (which has become a bit of a habit due to chicken cheesestakes and chocolate brownies) and from there went through Pinole and Hercules. I saw some nice parts of those towns that I hadn't seen previously, plus rode along my favorite creek trail in Pinole, but my ultimate goal was the Refugio Valley Park in Hercules, which according to Google maps was a lake at the head of a bike trail going south.
The Park was very pleasant, reminding me a bit of Lake Merritt, with its lake fountains, its stone overlooks of the lake, and its numerous geese. The trail leading south from the lake was less impressive. The first mile or so was nice, and I got a nice serenade of The Star-Spangled Banner from some sporting event at the Hercules Middle/High School. But then the "path" became little more than a narrow sidewalk that ducked down away from the road between the intersections. Well, I'm usually happy to try out each bike trail once.
There was a lot of open, brown land near the school and the community college, but then subdivisions began to appear to one side, and the road eventually came to an end. I was quite puzzled, as my (incorrect) Google maps said it continued on. I eventually sussed out that it was EBMud Watershed ahead. Eventually I opted to head in. (I now have an EBMUD Trail Permit for the next 5 years, so I'll to take advantage of it.)
I had to walk my bike, which was just as well, because there were some very large rises and steep drops on the Bay Ridge Trail that I was walking, and they wouldn't have been bikeable anyway. There were also lots of cows. Tons of them. And most of them have calves. Ever read that calves bound? They do, they really do. There were calves bounding all over, like they had springs in their legs. It was totally darling. The adult cows were less so; they were a little agro, but as I got close eventually backed away so I could pass.
The hike inside the EBMud lands was exhausting. It would have been hard without hauling a bike around, and with ... whew. A mile and a half (and probably close to an hour later) I made it out to a slightly hilly road and eventually followed that up to San Pablo Dam Road, which I took to Orinda. All in all I made a huge loop that was 35 or so miles total, plus a BART ride from Orinda to Rockridge.
Whew! Exhausting day, but there was cheesesteak to be eaten and new places to see and hills to climb and cows to avoid.
Endgame. Sadly, I missed out on Endgame's 13th anniversary party, which was also Saturday. I didn't see an announcement about it until Tuesday night, and by then I felt like I'd already promised out all my emotional energy for the week. If I'd known that people I would have liked to see were going to be there, I would probably have went, and I probably should have asked, but ultimately I decided that rather than expending emotional energy at a gathering, I'd build up emotional energy on a long solo outing.
And so it goes.
Television. Kimberly and I decided to fire Once Upon a Time tonight. The show has teetered on the edge for us for its entire existence, because it's never been a very well-written show. (To be precise, it's cliched and obvious and soapy.) However at the start of the show, there were interesting mysteries and long-term stories and consequences. (Though the producers seemed at least as bad about figuring out what their long-term plans meant as when they were working on Lost, particularly with the two saboteurs who came into town late in season two and seemed to totally change their motivation just before they were abruptly written out at the start of season three.)
But now the show has become some sort of saccharine family drama and rather than long term plots Once Upon a Time instead tells 11-episode arcs which are forgotten almost as soon as they're done. Their first one, on Peter Pan, was quite good, but I think that's because the show abandoned most of its less successful characters and its less successful setting (temporarily) to go to Neverland. Their second arc, on the Wicked Witch, was a total flop, and I say that loving Oz and Wicked. Their third one, on Frozen, is almost as dull.
I'd thought about waiting until the end of this Frozen arc to dump the show, but it just wasn't worth it.
Meanwhile, Gotham may be getting slightly better. It started with a horribly fractured premise (it is about a young Bruce Wayne? is it about Gotham Central? is it about the appearance of Batman's villains?) and I knew it was going to take a while to find its center, but Jim, The Penguin, and (much to my surprise) the young Bruce are all become increasingly strong centers of the show. I also like the two mobsters (Falcone and Marcone) who have become increasingly important in recent episodes. Hopefully that show is finding itself (because Once Upon a Time never did).
The Park was very pleasant, reminding me a bit of Lake Merritt, with its lake fountains, its stone overlooks of the lake, and its numerous geese. The trail leading south from the lake was less impressive. The first mile or so was nice, and I got a nice serenade of The Star-Spangled Banner from some sporting event at the Hercules Middle/High School. But then the "path" became little more than a narrow sidewalk that ducked down away from the road between the intersections. Well, I'm usually happy to try out each bike trail once.
There was a lot of open, brown land near the school and the community college, but then subdivisions began to appear to one side, and the road eventually came to an end. I was quite puzzled, as my (incorrect) Google maps said it continued on. I eventually sussed out that it was EBMud Watershed ahead. Eventually I opted to head in. (I now have an EBMUD Trail Permit for the next 5 years, so I'll to take advantage of it.)
I had to walk my bike, which was just as well, because there were some very large rises and steep drops on the Bay Ridge Trail that I was walking, and they wouldn't have been bikeable anyway. There were also lots of cows. Tons of them. And most of them have calves. Ever read that calves bound? They do, they really do. There were calves bounding all over, like they had springs in their legs. It was totally darling. The adult cows were less so; they were a little agro, but as I got close eventually backed away so I could pass.
The hike inside the EBMud lands was exhausting. It would have been hard without hauling a bike around, and with ... whew. A mile and a half (and probably close to an hour later) I made it out to a slightly hilly road and eventually followed that up to San Pablo Dam Road, which I took to Orinda. All in all I made a huge loop that was 35 or so miles total, plus a BART ride from Orinda to Rockridge.
Whew! Exhausting day, but there was cheesesteak to be eaten and new places to see and hills to climb and cows to avoid.
Endgame. Sadly, I missed out on Endgame's 13th anniversary party, which was also Saturday. I didn't see an announcement about it until Tuesday night, and by then I felt like I'd already promised out all my emotional energy for the week. If I'd known that people I would have liked to see were going to be there, I would probably have went, and I probably should have asked, but ultimately I decided that rather than expending emotional energy at a gathering, I'd build up emotional energy on a long solo outing.
And so it goes.
Television. Kimberly and I decided to fire Once Upon a Time tonight. The show has teetered on the edge for us for its entire existence, because it's never been a very well-written show. (To be precise, it's cliched and obvious and soapy.) However at the start of the show, there were interesting mysteries and long-term stories and consequences. (Though the producers seemed at least as bad about figuring out what their long-term plans meant as when they were working on Lost, particularly with the two saboteurs who came into town late in season two and seemed to totally change their motivation just before they were abruptly written out at the start of season three.)
But now the show has become some sort of saccharine family drama and rather than long term plots Once Upon a Time instead tells 11-episode arcs which are forgotten almost as soon as they're done. Their first one, on Peter Pan, was quite good, but I think that's because the show abandoned most of its less successful characters and its less successful setting (temporarily) to go to Neverland. Their second arc, on the Wicked Witch, was a total flop, and I say that loving Oz and Wicked. Their third one, on Frozen, is almost as dull.
I'd thought about waiting until the end of this Frozen arc to dump the show, but it just wasn't worth it.
Meanwhile, Gotham may be getting slightly better. It started with a horribly fractured premise (it is about a young Bruce Wayne? is it about Gotham Central? is it about the appearance of Batman's villains?) and I knew it was going to take a while to find its center, but Jim, The Penguin, and (much to my surprise) the young Bruce are all become increasingly strong centers of the show. I also like the two mobsters (Falcone and Marcone) who have become increasingly important in recent episodes. Hopefully that show is finding itself (because Once Upon a Time never did).