A BETTER DAY FOR ELMER. My dad visited Elmer today, and he was still skittish but by the end of the visit he seemed to be hunting a lizard with his brother and had his tail in the air. Then our catsitter came over shortly afterward and she also reported Elmer hiding but in better spirits. So, hopefully our kiddo will be OK until we return home.

OUR REFRIGERATOR IS HAUNTED. Here in the suite. It frequently makes weird burbling and whining noises.

UP PANORAMIC HILL. This morning, the sky was overcast, but the rain held off, so I decided to take a walk up Panoramic Hill. This was one of my favorite little hikes when I lived in Berkeley. I could walk up from our house to the Clark Kerr campus, hike up into the fire trails, loop over to Panoramic Hill, and come back down. About 600 feet of ascent from our old house, some nice scenic views, and maybe an hour's time or so.

So today I did the reverse: up Panoramic Hill and then down above Clark Kerr before I headed over to Rockridge. And it was *HARD* work. Primarily the flights and flights and flights of steps up Panoramic Hill were hard work. I think that's partly that going up those steps is harder than the slopes (and steps) above Clark Kerr, but I've also definitely loss some of my climbing fitness from four years in Hawaii. Definitely time to get back into shape next year.

But it was a lovely hike today even if there were several rests along the way up.

OUT TO THE CITY. I walk through much of South Berkeley to get to Rockridge BART, and then took the train into and out of the city. Were things running on better schedule today? I dunno, because I never looked at a schedule. But I got a direct train into the city 4 minutes after my arrival at Rockridge and a direct train home from SF as soon as I stepped down onto the platform. So I was definitely luckier if nothing else.

ASIAN ART. My destination in the city was the Asian Art museum. I've never actually been there, though I'm sure I saw some of its exhibits when they were back in the de Young 20+ years ago.

The highlight of the trip was the Takashi Murakami special exhibit. A lot of his work is anime and kaiju influenced, and so it's a lot of fun. There was also some even _more_ pop art stuff, including happy flowers and even NFTs. But he also did some really thoughtful stuff, like producing two-D paintings of ceramics that REALLY looked like the ceramic.

The rest of the museum was terrific too. It was divided by culture, running from India through Malaysia into China, Korea, and Japan. So, so many buddhas (and really interesting didactics on the spread of Buddhism with trade in Asia, one of which said something like "and Buddhism was brought into this region as trade increased, and it was embraced by the population, we don't know why"). Also kukris and Samurai armor and swords and vases and jade carvings (jade can't really be carved by metal implements, it has to be abraded! I had no idea!).

I was bone tired by the time I'd been there a few hours, after 4+ miles of walking in Berkeley, 650 or so feet of ascent, and then circling and circling in the museum. There were a few smaller special exhibits I could have visited, but I couldn't figure out where they were, and I was tired, so I decided to call it a day.

A+++ MUSEUM. WOULD RETURN.

REST & DINNER. When I came home, Kimberly was chatting with K., who she'd spent some time with during the day. After K. left we both napped. (Tired!) Then we had dinner out with N., one of Kimberly's old co-workers, and someone we'd both taken a writing class with. Oh, she also married us. That is, she conducted the ceremony.

Good to see her, good dinner, and now it's another relaxing evening in the suite.

One day left. Gaming for me. Then we go home.

Something that has surprised me since we've been in California is the idea of preemptive COVID testing. I've had three different people note they'd recently tested negative when I arrived at gatherings, one of them mentioning that he tested before every gathering.

Probably good public health, sure, but totally alien to the Hawaiian experience of the pandemic.

---

This morning, we had no lunch plans because we'd had to cancel with my sister due to a cold running through their family, so I ran out to Boston Market to get us some lunch. (This Air B&B is really nicely located.)

I got a chicken on ciabatta sandwich, and it was really tasty, in part because the bread was so good. That made me remember how the Safeway sandwich I got to take up to Panoramic Hill also had great (Dutch Crunch) bread. I swear there is *no* good bread on Kauai. It's all soft and tasteless, no matter claims it's a French Roll or Sourdough, or whatever. So that's a nice change of pace.

---

Here at the Air B&B I'm reminded of how cold tap water gets in winter. Yowtch! That's something I haven't missed living in Kauai.

---

After lunch I went for a walk up to Lake Temescal.

It was a common destination for me for a number of years, I'd often bike up there after work and/or on weekends. It's where I wrote most of the original batch of product histories for DnDClassics.com, many of them on cold, gray, threatening days in December 2011 and January 2012 (I think!). It's where I finished reading A Dance with Dragons, discovered that it was entirely incomplete and non-conclusive, realized I might have to wait six more years to see those plots completed (ha!), but didn't throw it across the room because I wasn't in a room.

I didn't expect to ever return to Lake Temescal, out of all the places I might see in the Bay Area, because it's kind of isolated, up above Rockridge without much nearby ... but we're right here in Rockridge, so it's just a mile and a half above our Air B&B.

The walk up was slightly grueling. I'd forgotten how steep Broadway Terrace is at places.

I enjoyed seeing the lake and the park again, though not for *too* long, because it was cold. (We're having a notable cold snap in the Bay Area, and I'm thrilled to discover that my cold resistance hasn't been eaten away by two years in the tropics.)

And then hiked back down on Broadway enjoying the views of the Golden Gate and San Francisco as I did.

---

I swung by Trader Joe's on the way back to pick up some tasty treats for Kimberly and myself.

Outside I was accosted by another petition-signing beggar, again not wearing a mask. I yelled at her to back off when she started advancing on me, and told her she should wear that mask she had around her neck if she wanted people to actually sign, but she was too busy begging me for signatures to listen.

---

In the evening we had a dinner date than a gaming date with Michael and Katherine, which was nice all around. We got to enjoy La Mediterranee, another favorite restaurant, and we got to play a third game of Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra (which Mike deftly won).

Good company, and a good penultimate day in Berkeley.

It'd be nice to have some friends like that in Hawaii.

---

I finished up one Christmas book, Forged, today, and started in on a new one, A History of What Comes Next. I've done a lot of reading on the trip, and that's been nice because I've kind of fallen out of the reading habit during our years in Hawaii. It feels like there's never time. Hopefully this reading habit will stick.

---

Tomorrow is our last full day: a bit more friend seeing and hiking planned and some simple food before we fly on Friday.

(Lucy! We're coming home!)

By my count, I've now been up in the Waimea and Koke'e parks, above Waimea Canyon, half a dozen times plus one. The hikes continue to be very strenuous, due to some combination of heat, humidity, and altitude, but oh, there are gorgeous views. And in the summer, it's the only place on the island that's cool (other than a Big Save grocery store).

By my reckoning:

#1: Kukui Trail (in Waimea). My intended destination was the Wiliwili Camp, but I stopped just short of the canyon bottom because I didn't want to get stuck down there. That was a week before the pandemic lockdown, so it was my other experience with what Hawaiian trails looked like when peopled with tourists, and it wasn't too bad, though I saw people less fit than me walking down further than me, which didn't seem too smart. I was EXHAUSTED after my climb.

#2. No Name Trail. My dad, Mary, and I went up, which was nice because it got me comfortable with Koke'e. We just took a short jaunt up Faye Road and down the No Name Trail. We got lost a few times because the signs for both the Road and Trail were mysteriously missing. That (both getting lost and having signs missing) would be sign of things to come in Koke'e.

#3. Nualolo Trail. This is one of two trails in Koke'e that goes west toward the ocean instead of east into the park. I figured I could do a loop of them. Nope! The heat/humidity/altitude got to me again. I walked up over the ridge, and then headed down to the sea, but I was getting increasingly tired as I went, and eventually I turned back just around where the Nualolo Trail splits off to the Nualolo Cliff Trail, which means I didn't make it to the viewpoint out at the end. (Apparently, tourists occasionally get stuck at the view points and have to be rescued, mostly because they've climbed out too far.) I made another long, hard trip uphill to get back, got EXHAUSTED, and decided maybe I needed to try some other things.

#4. Berry Flat Trail. So my fourth trip I tried something pretty innocuous, the Berry Flat Trail just east of the Meadow. Except the road going there (Mohihi) is now covered with brush. I eventually circled around and found another entrance up by the Discovery Center (to be investigated someday when I'm vaccinated), and had a nice walk in the forest, eventually coming out considerably east of the Meadow. Here, I ran into a problem where there are two disconnected "Kumuwela Roads" in Koke'e, one that leading back to the meadow, and one which doesn't. So I hiked down the wrong road for days and learned about all the hunting that goes on in the park. (There were dogs and hunters and cages and trucks and people dressed in orange everywhere.) Eventually, I turned around, walked the whole road back, and took the correct turn back to the meadow, where I arrived, late and EXHAUSTED.

#5. Kumuwela Trail. Eastern Kumuwela Road is supposed to have two trails connecting it to Western Kumuwela Road, the southernmost of which, Kumuwela Trail, is a big short cut. I'd also learned that there was a Canyon Trail down at the south side of Eastern Kumuwela Road, so I tried to get there by starting at the meadow, going down the western Kumuwela Road, cutting across on Kumuwela Trail, and then following that down to the canyon. Except Kumuwela Trail seemed to just deadend under a big bush. I searched for a considerable time for an exit, and when I backtracked watched for paths not taken, but as far as I could tell, the Trail was just dead.

#6. Cliff & Black Pipe Trails. So I'd gotten near the various cliffside trails twice now, once when I went down the infinitely long Eastern Kumuwela Road and once when I'd failed to find the end of Kumuwela Trail. The next time I decided to just cut out the middle man and drive down due a trailhead closer to the cliffs. I did, and descended Halemanu Road to Cliff Trail, which took me down to some lovely views of Waimea Canyon. I then took Black Pipe Trail back up to Halemanu Road, and climbed back up to Julie the Benz (and drove back to Kimberly who awaited me in the meadow). Whew. Success!

#7. No Name Trail, Black Pipe Trail, Canyon Trail & Kumuwela Trail. And that finally brings me to my great traversal yesterday. Kimberly went with me again, and after lunch I left her (and Julie) parked at the meadow. I then had a theory that I could stitch together many of my past trips to form a loop that took me down to the canyon and back. So I walked Faye Road to No Name Trail and came out at the end of Halemanu Road. But rather than turning back (like my dad, Mary, and I did) I walked it until I found Black Pipe Trail and took that up.

(First almost misstep of the day: I began to doubt that I was on the road leading to Black Pipe, after I'd walked it quite a ways, because of course there'd been no sign at the beginning of the road. So when I saw more climbing I turned back and walked about 100 feet, but then I decided, no it was the right road, and I turned again, walked less than a quarter mile, and hit the end of the road and Black Pipe Trail.)

(Second almost misstep of the day: Climbing down Black Pipe I lost my way in a big hillside meadow, and after investigating three or four different potential paths, finally found my way at a turn just before the meadow.)

Where Black Pipe met Cliff Trail, which is what I'd taken the previous trip, I instead turned down the legendary Canyon Trail, the path not taken last time. This led me to Waipo'o Falls, which I suspect is the gem of Kuke'e hiking (and definitely the biggest tourist destination that I've seen so far, since, alas, the tourists were now back, this being my first hike since we foolishly opened the island to COVID again). Waipo'o Falls is a huge waterfall that drops into Waimea Canyon. The Canyon Trail runs by two fairly high cataracts: one that drops into a pool, and one that runs along the trail, but where you can actually climb under the falls pretty close to the path.

There were maybe a half-dozen groups of tourists flirting with the various falls while I was there. More than I'd like, but few enough that I was able to maintain six feet distance. Their tour books clearly told them all to bring swimsuits and to get into the water, because they did. Well, mostly they stood around in the water knee-deep, looked cold, and looked confused.

I of course enjoyed the beauty of the Falls, and of the Canyon, right there too. But I had a destination in mind: the rest of Canyon Trail to complete my loop! My guide book told me I could walk across the river on boulders, and then continue my journey on the other side. Not so much.

In truth, you had to get across about ten feet of river to get to those rocks, and from there could continue on. I'm not sure I would have, but as with everywhere there were tourists standing around in the water at the crossing, looking cold and confused. So I determined it was fairly safe. (Not because the tourists were in the water. "Tourists do the stupidest things" could have been an '80s TV show. But because it was clear they weren't being buffeted about or anything.) So I took off my shoes and socks, lowered myself into the water, and ended up on a submerged boulder, about calf-deep. The boulder was a little slippery, so it was a pretty literal leap of faith when I stepped across a bit of a chasm to another boulder on the other side, which I was relieved to discovered wasn't slippery. From there I was able to get up on the boulder on the other side, and actually sit down to wait for my feet to dry. While I sat, a tourist poked his head out from teht rail, and asked "Is THAT the only way across the trail?" "I think so", I said, and pointing to the back of a sign behind me, which I later learned read "Flash Flood Warning", said, "See, it looks like the trail continues there."

"oh" he said, as if he'd bitten into a sour lemon. I later saw his wife stick her head out and another couple their same age, but none of them waded the river.

I, meanwhile, thought wading the river between the two cataracts was one of the coolest things I'd ever done on a hike!!

From there, it was up a hill and another two miles or so along the Canyon Trail. As promised, there were awesome views of Waimea Canyon, for hundreds of yards at a time. Totally amazing.

My one concern was if I'd hit a dead-end like I had in the park before. And certainly, the path seemed to disappear every once in a while, and at least once I gave a cheer when I continued on and it re-established itself. A mile or so past the Falls, I saw a picnic table, and two women sunbathing, one of them scrambling to put on her top. It felt like I was closer to civilization, but still clearly not in civilization. And eventually I hit the end of Canyon Trail, which was also the end of Eastern Kumuwela Road.

(Just before I got there, someone shouted something, and I shouted, "NOT A BOAR!" to supplement the red shirt I'd worn. When I encountered him a short time later, he said, "I thought you were my friend" and I thought that was pretty weird because I hadn't seen anyone except the two sunbathers for miles.)

I knew I could get back to the meadow from here even if I had to walk the whole length of Kumuwela Road, like I had previously, but I was really hoping to find the eastern side of Kumuwela Trail, which had evaded me last time.

Just a third of a mile on, as the guide book promised, success! And then the question was whether I'd hit another deadend when I traversed the trail. So I walked on for a while, and the Trail didn't look familiar at all, and then it suddenly started looking familiar. Which means that when you're coming in from the west, it's easy somehow to end up on a false trail, but I still have no idea where that was!

From there it was up western Kumuwela Road, and then back to the meadow, where I found Kimberly close to where I'd left here. I'd told her 4-5 hours, and it was about 4.75. I was super happy that I hadn't hit another dead end.

Looping together three of my past trips also made me very happy, because it made me feel like I was getting to know the park. And I was VERY EXHAUSTED again, even though it was only 12 miles.

But there are still places to explore, including those western cliff faces, the Alakai Swamp (I need better boots first), and various descents into Waimea Canyon (most of them in Waimea Park instead of Koke'e Park.)

The Writing Conundrum. I have never in my life been writing so much. I'm pretty much writing full-time now: Tuesday & Wednesdays for Blockchain Commons, Monday, Thursday, and Friday for myself, with a few hours here and there for Bitmark. And in the evenings I sometimes continue with my projects (because I didn't quite get them done! and want to!) or sometimes trade off for different projects (so that my "work" and "free" time don't entirely meld together). This has all been great, I'm really enjoying what I'm doing, and I'm creating great content. But I've discovered one problem: I haven't really been journaling (here), because either I'm writing something else, or I need a break from writing.

The House Work. With the new year, I've started work on the house again, with lots of support from my dad. It's weird actually having a house and thinking about working on it myself. I mean, in Berkeley, we usually just let the house be, other than occasionally calling someone for emergency repairs. It was only when we moved that we really did the large-scale stuff that made it more beautiful and/or usable (mostly beautiful: we were trying to sell a house). But a few weeks ago, my dad and I cut down a handful of metal fence posts in the front yard, because the fencing material had long ago rusted out, and they were just annoying obstacles to lawn-mowing. Well, he pretty much cut them out, after a technique he'd looked up to use a jack to lift them out did nothing. Since, I've been putting dirt over the holes to cover them up: things settled over the last week, so I just picked up another bag yesterday). And now, an area of our yard which really didn't benefit from fences doesn't have them.

Today we're going to start work on flooring. I really connected with the process at my dad's house, and feel like I could almost do it on my own. But he's coming over to help, especially with things I don't know like pulling up the old carpet, figuring out what to do with the closet, and figuring out transitions there. Initially we're flooring Kimberly's office, because it hurts her foot. Later we'll be doing mine as well.

I have as a definite goal for 2021 to get our downstairs in order. For Kimberly's office that'll mean getting in the flooring and a murphy bed (ordered! arriving in two weeks!), then for mine flooring, then for the family room fixing tiles that old renters put in badly, then when everything is in place, getting shelving. (The shelving was on the verge of getting contracted with someone, but then I realized we really needed the flooring redone since I find it likely we'll have cabinets below shelves to make them look nice.)

The Smart Stupidity. As part of the process, all of Kimberly's office stuff got moved out to the family room. In order to not create a fire hazard I ended up having to grab a smart plug to accommodate both our internet equipment and her desk equipment. And then our internet went down at 11pm last night. I didn't know what was up with that, but it was still down this morning. Eventually, I found that the smart plug on our wifi router had spontaneously turned itself off yesterday evening.

I told Kimberly this, and she said, "The Christmas Tree!" Sure enough, this was the same smart plug I'd been using for some of our Christmas lights, and the plug that I'd placed our eero wifi router on was programmed in the app to go off at 10.55pm every night. Sigh.

The Koke'e Trips. I've tried at least twice to write a journal entry on Koke'e, but I've never had the energy to finish it up, so here's the TL;DR. I've been up to Koke'e three times on my own now, on Saturdays for hiking. I went down the mountainside leading to the ocean once (and got exhausted by the sun and/or altitude) and into the interior twice. I've found that the roads and paths inside Koke'e are a poorly documented mess. Roads that no longer exist are on maps, new roads go places not noted on the maps, other roads just don't appear at all. The funniest was on my second trip where I ended up walking miles down an unmarked road (which had the same name as a totally different road, or maybe one letter different, or maybe one west and the other east, the various references I've seen are inconsistent) and it was clearly a road used by hunters, because I kept coming across people in orange vests and orange t-shirts and with dogs (and guns). Most of them looked skulky and ignored me, but I talked some with some kids who were out hunting pigs, I suspect for Thanksgiving. Fortunately I was wearing red that day.

The fact that I don't have cell coverage up there, and have never figured out how to hard-download a map of the area, make this all even trickier, not that it would be accurate due to the aforementioned problems.

Some of the hiking trails are fine, though they tend to go places other than what the maps say and/or don't have some side paths. The worst was on my last trip, where I went down a new road, that for once seemed to match what was on the maps, and correctly ticked off two trails, just where they were supposed to be. But when I took the second trail it dead-ended in a hollow under some trees maybe .1 mile from its end. I wandered around, trying to figure out where the path was supposed to go, and eventually gave up, in part because I was anxious about finding my way back, because the whole trail out that far had been a bit hit and miss.

Don't get me wrong: there's a wonderful glade up at Koke'e that's a great place to eat and do some writing. And I enjoy my wanderings, but it's really weird how poorly mapped it is.

The Car Annoyance. Last year I was slowly getting into the swing of appointments in Hawaii. I had a whole sequence of "annoyance" appointments like visiting the optometrist and the dentist which seemed like they had a lot of weight on them because I was doing something new and it was during COVID. I finally got down to my last one this January, which was taking Julie (the Benz) in for her annual tune-up. (Her last tune-up was on December 31, 2019, a few days before I bought her.) I'd been stalling, hoping to maybe do it the same time as her safety check in March, but then the AC suddenly lost all of its guts, and that's DEATH here in Hawaii.

The big annoyance is that we only have one car in our household, Lihue (where the Mercedes Benz repair shop is) is 13 miles away, it's not walkable because the highway is the only path there and back, and even if there were acceptable public transit, I'm not interested in taking any public transit in the middle of COVID. So I need help from my dad to get out there and back if I leave Julie, and that seems like a big imposition.

But I dropped off Julie on Wednesday to get her tune-up and check the AC, and my dad kindly gave me a ride back. Unfortunately, the repair shop seems to heavily work on Hawaiian time, so I had to wait for like 20 minutes while dropping Julie off while the manager talked with a friend-customer-but-obviously-mostly-friend on the phone, and then my noon pickup on Thursday ended up being more like a 3.45pm (which means I had to flake on my 4.30pm Zoom gaming). My dad kindly drove me out again, and they'd done all the tune-up, but they didn't have the part for the AC, which they hadn't told me before I came back, but they're not going to have it until Wednesday anyway, so longer than I would have wanted to leave her, since it was time to pick up groceries. But that means I have to go through the whole rigamarole again in a week or two. And still don't have AC. (And they're not even sure the part will fix it. There's apparently a valve which is usually what pops on these Benz ACs, but they can't tell without taking everything apart. But they're going to replace the valve, and they say that does it the majority of the time, and if that doesn't work only then will they replace the whole compresser, so it could be *two* trips.)

Weird being so car-dependent, but that was part and parcel of the move to a small, rural island.

And that's some of the happenings in Hawaii.

On Saturday, I took Julie back up to Kōkeʻe State Park, above Waimea Canyon.

Oh, that's a long and windy road up there (and back). Out to Waimea is no big deal: a similar distance as to Lihue. But then you head up Waimea Canyon Road, and it's 30 minutes or more of back and forth and up and down, like a roller coaster, but in your car (Julie). I'm getting more comfortable on the road, and so I pretty consistently drove it at 25-30mph, with occasionally dips to 20mph for tight curves. But cars sometimes got backed up behind me. I was a good carizen, and pulled into the first look-out on the way in, to let someone pass, then I pulled off onto dirt twice on the way back, for the same. Two of the cars were very polite and gave me lots of room, but it was obvious they wanted to go faster. The third came roaring up behind me at 50mph or so. One minute he wasn't there, the next he was. (The speed limit for the whole road, I should note, is 25mph, which is slow, but about right.)

My immediate destination was the huge glade in front of the Kōkeʻe Lodge and the Kōkeʻe Natural History Museum, which I'd spotted as a great place to eat and write and hang out when my dad, Mary and I were up there last month. And, it was. It was really wonderfully chilly, which is pretty nice after nine months in the warm Hawaiian sun, and there was picnic tables around the south side of the glade, which kept them out of the direct sunlight. I was there around 10am, so it was early enough to get a seat which I did. I had a great lunch (other than the soda I'd picked up in Waimea, which turned out NOT to have a twist-off cap, and is as a result came home with me), and I worked my way through an article for the TSR Codex over the course of an hour.

After that it was out to the Nualolo Trail. This is a 3.8 mile trail that drops down from 3,800 feet to 2,400 feet and goes to an outlook over the Nā Pali Coast. I figured it was well within my capacity based on hiking in California ... but I just don't understanding hiking in Hawaii yet.

It initially popped over a rise and then started dropping down through forested areas, mixing evergreens and Hawaiian foliage. It leveled out before too long, and there was at least a mile through various sorts of forest and scrub. But somewhere past the 2 mile mark it started dropping more and more, mostly in little slotted water ways that were treacherous because of the loose dirt. I managed to slip three times (or maybe two and a half: one was only a half fall before I caught myself on the side of the slot) before hitting the 2.75 mile mark. By that time I decided that my new Costco shoes (which are light slip-ons) just weren't sufficient for the terrain, and that I'd turn back the next time I hit a treacherous slot: which was before the 3 mile mark. Alas, no overlook for me.

There were, fortunately, some nice views here and there in that last half mile or so, both of the ocean to the west and of Niʻihau, the Forbidden Island, which looked like it was floating in the sky.

And then I began the climb back up through all of those slots. In the increasing sun (because we were mostly out of the foliage at that point), it was exhausting. I actually had to sit down for 5 minutes or so at one point because I was sufficiently out-of-breath and overheated. Not what I'm used to! But Hawaii has not just direct, hot sun but also high enough humidity that sweating doesn't really cool you down. After that rest, I managed to make it up through the slots before I rested again, and then I was able to walk the rest of the way.

Way more tiring than that 6 or 7 miles would have been in California! (I might also not be used to hiking at an altitude of 3,000 to 4,000 feet: I dunno how much a difference that makes.)

Still, a nice hike, with nice Hawaiian scenery, and just a bit of a view.

There's a loop of trails in that area, with both Nualolo and Awaawapuhi trails going out to the Nualolo Cliffs Trail, which runs along a ridge. I didn't make it out to the Cliffs Trail on Nualolo, so next time I'll try Awaawapuhi, which is a teeny bit shorter, and maybe start a bit earlier (as opposed to Saturday where I put away my work and started hiking at 11am, I think).

We've been back from Oahu for 9 days now. We probably don't have COVID, since the average incubation period is 5-6 days. I guess Kimberly will know for sure in a few days as she has another required COVID test for another procedure.

Oahu was just exhausting. Part of that was, obviously, balancing work with supporting Kimberly and then having to go back to a small hotel room at night. (It was an OK hotel, but I've stayed in nicer, and I usually prefer AirBnBs, but they're currently illegal in Hawaii.) But it was really the attitude in Oahu that was the most exhausting: having all these detsroyers-of-the-commons pretty much ignoring the mask rules, and so I had to worry about how much exposure there really was. When I got home I was pretty much ready to collapse, and then having to put in a day of work on that Friday pretty much ensured that I was out of commission through that weekend.

I finally perked up on Monday, and since I'd edited histories throughout Saturday, I took that opportunity to do a shorter walk from Shipwreck to Mahaulepu. That sort of thing always relaxes me.

And then the whole week went by in a blur. That was partly semi-quarantine after Oahu, mainly not hanging out with my dad and Mary, but I think I was still tuckered out. I was a bit surprised that a week had gone by when I realized that was the case, on this Friday.

Chicks. Ares, one of the six remaining brood, was gone when we returned. This was not a surprise. When I saw the chicks just before we left, I actually wondered if I'd see Ares again, because he was so often wandering quite far afield from mom Danielle. So I was expecting him to go traveling. Which I trust is what he did. But there's been this black hen out in an adjacent yard, and one of the days since we got back, I noticed she had a half-pint companion, and so I wondered if Ares had found his Mrs. Robinson.

Lizards. The teeny lizards of Hawaii are SOOO dumb. More than once I've held back a cat so they can escape and they just sit there, frozen. And more than once they've disappeared under a couch (while I held down a cat) just to come back out a few minutes later. As I write, I hear Callisto chasing a lizard that I saved a few minutes ago.

Designers. The Designers & Dragons patreon has been every bit as successful in getting me to focus on my projects as I had hoped it would. Oh, this is work I love, and so there's a frequent desire to do it, but having monthly deadlines where I've promised certain types of content is keeping me pushing along quickly, and also letting me make grandiose plans about what I can produce each month. (It also is having a nice side effect of making me feel OK about buying source material for all of my projects, because I've got a bit of money coming in each month from the Patreon.)

Mynahs. Oh, there was one other animal-related change while we were in Oahu: THE MYNAHS RETURNED TO OUR LANAI. @)#$@#. I put Ozzie the plastic owl out when I saw this on our return, and a few days later I found a mynah on the railing staring at him! *)(#$@*#)(. But, I've determinedly kept moving Ozzie around and that seems to have done the trick again. They've left the valley once more. But those Mynahs are determined!

I was going to swim today after a hike all the way from Poipu to Mahaulepu, but that 10 miles or so is pretty exhausting in the 80+ degree heat. So I ended up having a shave ice instead, alas. Haven't swum since I returned from Oahu, but I think things are returning to normal after a week of stunned rest, so I'm sure I'll get out there sometime early this next week.

I've walked the Maha'ulepu Heritage Trail a few times previously, but only little bits of it. I've walked the initial part along the cliffs several times. (You can apparently see it in "6 Days and 7 Nights", and sometimes people take pictures or mimic the stars jumping off the cliffs, to occasionally fatal results). And, last year, I walked further with my dad, out to the golf course that fronts it (the day before I got deathly ill on my ill-fated vacation last year).

But today, I decided to take my essential exercise out on the Heritage Trail, and to see the whole thing this time.

---

I'd talked this over with my physical therapist on Friday, and we decided it would be an OK activity. Nonetheless, I took it easy on the first part of the hike. The path is all over the place, and so you can walk the cliffsides, or behind them a bit. I usually like the cliffsides, to get the beautiful ocean views, but this time I stayed on lower ground as much as I could, to protect my knee.

Past the cliffs, my path merged back onto the coast, and I got to see some tide pools, and then I climbed up past lot of black rock (some of it a native religious site at some point) onto the edge of a golf course.

And here I realized what a great day it was to walk the Heritage Trail, because there are all these signs there saying, Hey, you might be killed by erratic golfers on holes 15 and 16. But the golf courses on the island closed today, so I got to walk an absolutely pristine wilderness (well, not wilderness: an absolutely pristine carefully manicured course meant to look like what tourists think Hawaii should look like).

(And though I think the mayor continues to go beyond what's necessary to protect against COVID-19, to make it look like he's taking action, and banning the largely socially distant sport of golfing is part of that, I nonetheless am willing to take advantage of it.)

Past the golf course it was back into the brush, in a little shrub tunnel, which was better manicured than I would have expected, but it appears people genuinely use this trail, unlike, say, the lost trail I tried to follow near Glass Beach some months ago. And after a bit of that, I crested a hill and could see Maha'ulepu beach, which is in the striking Kawailoa Bay behind Black Mountain. I was thrilled, because I'd never been sure that the Heritage Path went all the way to Maha'ulepu or not. (The Google Maps show it kind of disappearing in the middle of nowhere.)

As I circled the Bay, I passed by a really astounding number of 4x4 trucks (close to a dozen), which mostly seemed to be people out fishing, though I don't know how they got up there.

And then I descended and was on the west side of the beach!

---

The Makauwahi Cave Reserve is also right there, which is apparently a cave with archaeological finds. I need to go back there sometime to see it, but that clearly wasn't within the purview of "essential exercise".

And, I was thrilled to discover a half-dozen picnic tables out by the entrance to the Cave Reserve. If they're not too crowded in normal times, that'd be a great place to sit and write, but again outside of the allowances of what we can legally do under shelter-in-place.

(I really miss being able to write outside, which used to be my regular Saturday activity before I got busy working on the move last year. Now the best I can do is sit on our lanai, which is very nice, but not the same.)

I briefly visited the beach when I was there too. There were maybe half-a-dozen people about, and it was the only beach I saw today where people were sitting out on the beach. But, Maha'ulepu is pretty inaccessible: you walk the two or so mile trail I did, or you take a truck down a very bad dirt road (which is often closed). Or apparently you go up to a stables nearby and walk in a shorter distance (which I suspect is how those 4x4s got up near the end of the trail).

I would have loved to swim at that beach, but I had my cell phone with me, because Kimberly was having another bad seizure day, and I wanted to remain accessible as much as possible. So instead I just watched the water for a bit.

---

This is going to be a hike I do again. I love the beautiful coastal vistas. I love the tables I could write at at the far end. I love the opportunity to swim. In the future I suspect I'll bring my computer with me (so I can work: after-lock-down) or bring nothing (so I can swim).

---

Oh, there was one other surprise: there's an area near the beach which is set up as some experiment to revert the area to primordial native plants. It's very pretty, and looks more like what we might imagine Hawaii to be than that golf course did.

But, there was apparently some primitive flightless bird that used to live on the islands, and took the role of a herbivore to eat plants. And so they needed to replace it. Their answer: African tortoises. So, there's a tortoise sanctuary. Except I'm not sure how well it's doing because there were many, many tortoise pens, but I only saw one tortoise (granted, I didn't wander the entire sanctuary).

He was cool though.

---

Overall, I saw maybe a dozen people on my trip, so it wasn't just that I was "getting" to get out and exercise, but also that I was entirely appropriate in following social distancing rules.

Shipwreck Beach was entirely empty other than two folks who looked homeless, one of whom seemed to have set up a sanctuary of his own there. (The downside of these empty beaches is that we don't have people watching for folks "moving in" as it were.) I passed vaguely near a jogger heading out, then two groups of two heading back. One of those groups had obsessive mask wearers, really surprising me, because it showed off the FUD that our mayor has purposefully been inoculating the island with. Oh, they weren't wearing them all the time while exercising, but any time someone got anywhere near them, they slipped them on. Their obsessiveness actually made me worry that they were sick tourists (and I became more certain of the "tourist" bit when I had to wait back on the trail for several minutes while they took pictures of chickens; but right after that we emerged onto the golf course, and I could go by them while giving them plenty of distance).

---

I'd planned for swimming after the hike, to cool down. And I'd planned to do so at Shipwreck Beach. But, with the waters entirely empty and the shore having a few homeless people, it didn't see that hospitable.

So I went to Poipu instead, which is pretty much on the road back from Shipwreck.

---

Here I saw obsessive mask wearers #2. I swear they were wearing them IN THEIR CAR, as they hopped out almost immediately after they stopped and already had them on.

NO, YOU DON'T HAVE TO WEAR MASKS IN YOUR CAR.

Unless you're sitting next to someone not from your household, I suppose, but you shouldn't be doing that.

---

Unfortunately, I'd cooled down by the time I hit Poipu. And a cool wind had come up too. So it was a bit chilly on the beach, but the water was great once I got in.

I didn't swim for too long. My FitBit says 792 yards, for what that's worth. But it was nice. I swam the length of the beach once and then wandered back and forth a bit more.

Unfortunately, I've been having problems lately getting into and out of the waters. It's that darned knee, which otherwise seems to be getting better. Not sure if I'm nervously babying it, or if it's still genuinely a problem.

Still, it was a great swim.

---

And I was home by 2.30 or so. Great to be able to have a nice hike and a little swim all before mid-afternoon!

Nine and a half weeks later, I hiked for the first time since we arrived on Kauai. Well, it was my first proper few-hour long hike at least.

This was a group outing with my dad and Mary, and it almost didn't happen. We'd planned for a hike today, but then when I woke up this morning I saw, as has so often been the case since we moved here, that it was gray and raining outside. I looked at the radar maps, and found rain clouds flowing across the south of the island, then swinging north toward Waimea Canyon, which is where I'd wanted to hike.

Fortunately, I came up with an alternative: some hiking trails northwest of Kapaa. I had that in hand when my dad called at 9am to talk about our plans for the day. And, this fit right in with his plans, because it allowed him to do some more work on the duplex in Kapaa. He fixed a hole in the roof, replacing some sheetrock, while I mostly watched, carried, and learned how to do so. Then we filled a hole in the yard with dirt. (It's easier to make dirt fit in a hole in the ground than to make sheetrock fit in a hole in the ceiling.)

Our hiking destination was the Kuilau RIdge Trail which runs east along said Ridge for about two miles before it ends in a bridge, where the Moalepe Trail begins. OK, you could say it's all one trail, not two, but that's how they're labeled. And I'd previously walked the Moalepe Trail out, to the Bridge. So this completed the trip, and let me see some hiking that I'd never seen before.

The walk is pretty magnificent. You quickly rise up along the ridge, and as you do you have increasingly common views of Mt. Waialeale and other mountains north and west. But it was also magnificent just looking at the canyons and inlets between the cutbacks of the trail, because they were beautiful, and green, and full of magical foliage.

The walk was also pretty muddy. There were at least a dozen places along the trail where it was covered with mud from one side to the other. Sometimes it was just 20 or 30 feet that had to be traversed, sometimes more like 100. There's a few picnic tables a mile in, and from there it's downhill to the bridge, and that was the toughest, with several muddy, slippery places. Each of the three of us took a spill on that part of the trail: mine was the most spectacular, landing solidly on my butt when I tried to skirt around a woman and her slightly skittish dog, on a muddy, slippery slope. I also ended up with mud all up and down one arm. (When I later got home, the shoes got dropped in the garage until they dried, and the pants went straight into the wash.)

The rain threatened a few times, drizzling for several minutes, but it always let up. (I'd been afraid that we were going to end up out at the bridge, about an hour from the car, in torrential rain, with a muddy trail between us and it. Fortunately not)

We met quite a few people on the trail, all pretty muddy. I was surprised how many were "visitors" and I was even more surprised by how they all assumed that everyone was a visitor. (A few different people were surprised: "Where are you from?" "Kalaheo" "OH! You're a LOCAL!")

We all enjoyed the hike, though we were quite tired by the end. Even though it was only 4 or 5 mies round trip, spending that amount of time balancing and not slipping is pretty exhausting.

And so afterward, it was dinner in Lihue and then home for restful evenings (and a restful morning for me, before I visit the folks tomorrow afternoon for our usual Sunday.)

Last year I brought my Burning Wheel campaign to an end after the finale of Year One because we just couldn't game regularly any more, and it was frustrating to keep preparing adventures, then canceling them. But, we've been enjoying plenty of SeaFall and T.I.M.E Stories since, which still offer continuity, but don't require anyone to prepare things in advance.

But, after several trips down to San Jose this spring and summer, that has also fallen off this fall, due to trips and busyness of folks. Which is sad, because I don't get to see the last remnants of my college group, but happy because I get more time to enjoy the hills, parks, and seasides of the Bay Area.

---

So last weekend I went on a hike that I'd sorta been dreaming of for a long time.

You see, we have these hills backing the East Bay, and there are continuous parks across them, running north to south: Wildcat Canyon, Tilden, Sibley, Huckleberry, Redwood (and Roberts and Joaquin Miller in the same clump), Anthony Chabot, and Lake Chabot. You can walk from El Sobrante in the North to Castro Valley in the South without ever stepping off a trail, except to cross an occasional street (of which I think there are five: Lomas Cantadas, Fish Ranch, Old Tunnel, Pinehurst, and Redwood).

So I've dreamed of getting up early, taking a cab to the entry to Wildcat above El Sobrante, and walking to Castro Valley BART. But, that's probably 10 or 12 hours, and maybe 30-35 miles, so it's never going to happen. Nor is my idea of walking from my house to Castro Valley BART via the hillside parks, which is a bit shorter, but still not practical in a day.

But, a few times I've walked from my house to the Chabot Space & Science Center, in the northwest corner of Redwood and Roberts Parks, and then took the bus home, so I said why not start my morning on a different day with that bus ride, and then continue my hike southward from the Space & Science Center.

So when I had last weekend abruptly free due to gaming cancellation, that's what I did.

Sorta.

---

I wandered out to Cheese 'n Stuff on Saturday morning, and was delighted to find them actually open and making sandwiches during their posted hours for the first time on a Saturday in four or five months. But then I realized that it'd be 12.30 or so before I made it up to Chabot if I walked to BART, took BART to Fruitvale, and then the bus up to the Center. So I decided to splurge and just Lyft instead. I'm usually much tighter with my money when I could just spend a bit of time and/or effort instead, but I wanted to be able to really have time to walk, and I've been stockpiling my "allowance" lately because I haven't been wanting to buy much before we move.

So, instead I got to Chabot Space & Science before 11am.

Unfortunately, on the way up I discovered that sunscreen had never made it back into my backpack following September's trip to Prague (and the inevitable interactions with the TSA). Well, no problem, it was already late October ... but I decided to keep to the shadier creekside trails as much I could.

Redwood Regional Park is awesome. And the creekside trails are the ones I like the best, so that was a happy accident. Then I got out to Anthony Chabot, and I'd only walked along one little corner of that park, once before, so I really enjoyed walking the length of it: a zig-zag up a hillside above Redwood Regional, then a walk in the shelter of a westward hill that was unfortunately just a little too far above a creek to really enjoy it.

Unfortunately, the creekside walking cost me time, particularly in Redwood Regional, where I probably went close to an hour out of my way. So, as I was nearing the south side of Anthony Chabot I decided that I didn't want to walk all the way out to Castro Valley. Instead, I skirted the northwest side of Lake Chabot, which was beautiful and enjoyable, and then took a long walk down to San Leandro BART.

And that was kinda, sorta, my dream hike last weekend.

---

What I didn't have on my dream hike (or the medium-length BART ride back) was my laptop computer. I always take it hiking with me, and until things got very busy this year, I regularly did Designers & Dragons related writing while out. But last weekend, my computer was in the shop.

The big problem was the hinges on my screen, which had gotten so loose that the screen just flopped over or flopped closed unless it was balanced precisely. But, I also wanted to get the battery replaced, because it was saying that it needed service, and we're soon going to be on an island without an Apple store.

I was shocked to discover that they tighten up the hinges by replacing the entire screen half of the computer, which is grotesquely costly and wasteful. But, it's covered by a "quality" program, which is a fancy way of saying "we fucked up, and either we got sued or don't want to get sued, and so we offer free fixes". The battery was not covered by a quality program, but it's 2.5 years old, and was still holding a charge well, so I have no particular complaints there.

What I do have a complaint about is the insane bureaucracy at Apple. Basically, they seemed flabbergasted that I would bring a computer in for two problems. So they filled out two tickets. And they shipped it out to Texas to replace the screen (and hinges). And then shipped it back to Berkeley. And then they shipped it out to Texas AGAIN to fix the battery. And shipped it back. It took them an insane 8 days in all, which is why I didn't have a computer while hiking last weekend.

And generally, I was going into withdrawal over the lack of laptop computer. I didn't do much writing at night. I often had to run up to my office to note something. I couldn't even sit down on my sunroom couch to write during the workday, as I often do when doing something that is straight writing.

But I finally got the computer back on Friday.

And here's the funny thing: the scratches on the bottom of my case are gone. I don't know how much of the computer overall they replaced, but it clearly included the bottom of the case, which I wouldn't have expected. And there was no comment on that.

The keyboard and trackpad also feeler cleaner and tighter, but what wasn't fixed was the occasional problem with my "r" and "i" keys repeating.

risk reward risk reward risk reward risk reward risk reward risk reward risk reward risk reward risk reward risk rreward risk reward risk reward risk reward risk reward rrisk rerwarrd risk reward rrisk reward

I looked this up, because it's annoying for the amount of typing I do, and guess what, there's another "quality" program out there for these early generation butterfly keyboards. Which I've always found to be the huge problem with this particular MacBook model, because a grain of dust gets in there, and the keyboard stops working ... and though I never eat near my laptop, I do take it out to parks, so grains of dust get in.

So apparently I can have the whole keyboard replaced for free, and it's supposed to be a priority repair.

It's just as well that I didn't request that it be fixed with the other problems, since they would have incompetently shipped it to Texas a third time, but I really should fix it before we leave. Maybe in December. Maybe sooner if I get too pissed off by the rrepeats. (I've gotten pretty annoyed at them while writing this; I think I've back-spaced over somewhere between 12 and 20 extra "r"s and a half-dozen or so extra "i"s.)

I will say I've been unimpressed by my last few Apple laptops. Obviously, they're pushing the boundaries of micro-design with these lighter and lighter computers, which has been what I needed for a computer I often take on hikes and bike rides. But the previous keyboard had big enough problems that it was the failure that caused me to get a new computer (and those problems were well documented by other people and the internet). And this one is similarly troubled, and it's apparently even more widespread since Apple was forced into yet another quality problem.

Well, with almost this whole computer being replaced (for the cost of just $200 for the battery), it should last me a few more years afterward, and then I can get a more normal sized laptop, since it will be thrown into a car as often as a backpack at that point.

---

So this weekend (with computer) I decided to head out to Briones Reservoir, in large part because my five year old EBMUD permit expires this Friday, the 8th. I could still get one-day passes if I wanted, but I found it likely this would be my last trip out to EBMUD lands at least on this side of the move. And Briones is really a treasure so I decided to return there for what I think was my third trip.

I took BART and my bike out to the Orinda Connector Trail, which is at the corner of San Pablo Dam & Bear Valley. Then I walked up from there to the Reservoir, and along its south side.

It's a lovely trail, pretty high above the Reservoir (so you don't see it as much as you might like), but through really nice forested areas. And every once in a while you get a gorgeous view. I've walked all around the Reservoir, and this is definitely the nicest side.

I had another hiking dream here, of walking through the Briones Reservoir and then into Briones Regional Park, and from there ever onward, to Pleasant Hill or Walnut Creek. And, once again, I sorta accomplished it. At the southeast corner of the Reservoir is the connector trail to the Regional Park, and I took that, and *poof* was walking alongside one of the entrances to the park. (I'd imagined a more romantic merging of one park into the other, but instead I exited the beautiful reservoir, and then found myself at a scrubby park entrance.) I didn't go far into the park, just to a picnic area maybe a half mile in, where I ate some chocolate.

I could have gone further if I hadn't biked out to San Pablo Dam. Heck, I considered going on and just taking a Lyft back to my bike, but instead turned around. Which meant I got to walk along the beautiful Reservoir on the best trail one more time.

One last time.

---

I think I got about three paragraphs of writing done on my laptop while on BART during that trip. Ah well. I often like to write at a picnic table while out, but with the huge hike from San Pablo Dam to Briones Regional Park and back, that just wasn't in the cards.

---

And now it's back to normal life. I signed off on our final shipping contract today, and just put together a check and contract for our stager, and moved some boxes around. And after today we've just got 58 days left.

Which is why I'm hiking like I'm running out of time. Non-stop!

My number of Saturdays in the Bay Area is rapidly diminishing. The next two will be spent in Prague, then summer will slowly ebb away, and there will only be rain and cold left.

So I'm trying to take best advantage of the scant free Saturdays I have left.

---

Last weekend I went to Coyote Hills, west of Fremont. It's been on my map to visit for years, but heading all the way down to Fremont is a bit of a trek, so I've usually visited closer places.

On the way, I forgot that Union City existed. Probably not the first time that's happened to someone. But I looked at the distance to Coyote Hills from South Hayward and then the distance from Fremont, and decided that Fremont was the closer BART station. So I watched South Hayward go by, then I jumped off at the next BART station. And I was confused, because it looked wrong: too fancy and high-tech and nice looking to be the Fremont BART station. And that's when I remembered that Union City existed and I'd gotten off there.

Close enough: have bike, will travel.

Funny story #1: I used to travel to the Union City BART station really regularly. Back when I worked for Sun in the mid '90s, that was where you got off to take the Sun shuttle across the Bay to Mountain View. But, that was like 25 years ago.

Funny story #2: Union City BART was actually the station closest to Coyote Hills, not South Hayward, and not Fremont.

---

The trek to Coyote Hills is great, because it's almost entirely along the Alameda Creek Trail, which is a pleasant creek-side trail. (Well, creek undersells it. It's a big marshy waterway that's mostly dried up this time of year and where you often can't see that the water because of all the plants. But you get the idea.) Also, like those creek-side trails just a bit further south in San Jose, it ducks under all the road crossings. So you literally can bike without stop for miles and miles.

I've written elsewhere that Fremont's bikeways are pretty crappy going north-south, not picking up until you hit Milpitas. And that's true. But this east-west trail is great.

As you go along it, you see all kinds of neighborhoods. A lot look like the quiet, tree-covered suburban neighborhoods that remind me more of St. Louis than where I grew up. (Where I grew up in San Jose didn't have many trees, being a new subdivision, and no public areas, like some of the parks I spotted near the Creek Trail in Fremont.) But there were also condos nearer the highway that were clearly very expensive despite their tiny, soulless footprints. And then as I got quite near the Bay, everything turned more industrial, and I felt like I was biking through a wasteland.

---

I'm pretty sure I've never been to Coyote Hills before. It was a very nice park.

That was obvious from the start due to its bike-friendliness. The Alameda Creek Trail took you to paths that took you straight across the park to its center, where the visitor center was. No having to bike up a car-filled main road to get there! And, it was clear that this easy, accessible route was well used. I saw large numbers of bicyclists on the Alameda Creek Trail and on these paths into the park itself.

The park had a lot more amenities than most East Bay Regional parks that I've visited. As I said, there was a visitor center. And right next to it a butterfly garden (that, truth to tell, didn't have a lot of butterflies). The visitor center also spent a lot of effort advertising the whole East Bay Regional park system. There was one map that showed them all and allowed you to flag what you liked about your "favorite". (There were no blank flags, but I probably would have been a Berkeley loyalist and said, "TILDEN, for quiet lunches at Jewel Lake and for connecting paths to all the nearby parks and trails." From Tilden you can literally walk to San Pablo, Pleasant Hill, or Castro Valley, never stepping off a park trail, except to cross an occasional street.) There was also a whole display of brochures with maps of various East Park parks. I looked in despair at how many I still hadn't visited. Ah well, I've seen a lot more than most East Bay residents, I expect. And I did grab maps for two parks I want to see near Castro Valley: one just north of the city and one just south.

That'll be one of my scant remaining Saturdays, maybe as it starts to chill, and I'm looking southward for warmer places.

---

The park itself is an impressive and beautiful interface of marshland and hills. When I looked across parts of the park where I could see both, it was breathtaking.

I did a little bit of hiking while out there, just up to the top of the ridge overlooking the Bay and back. It was pretty, but a rare case where it was nicer looking back at the land on the near side of the Bay.

And after that I took my bike out to circle around the back of the hills by the Bayside trail. Also pretty, and probably a bit of the Bay Trail that I'd never done before, but I've long ago given up trying to circle the south bay on the trail: it's just all too far from public transit (though with my riding to and from San Jose in recent years, I've probably ridden most of the Bay Trail from the Guadalupe River in San Jose eastward, with other travels taking me all the way to Benicia and Martinez, but to the west I don't think I've ridden anything from the Guadalupe River up to SFO.

Overall, a park well worth visiting, though I enjoyed the ride along the Alameda Creek almost as much.

---

This Saturday was supposed to be gaming, but D. and M. both had other plans, so instead it was a bonus free-day. Which isn't a bad thing when I'm going to Prague in less than a week.

I'd been thinking about Point Richmond lately, I think because I'd been reading about work on the trails leading to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, so I decided to go up there, and also to visit the nice little hamburger place in Point Richmond which is the closest I've found to Oscar's since they sold out.

I rode the Ohlone and Richmond Greenways, and wondered if it might be my last bikeride along them. Maybe not: there are four months left. But that's not the sort of thing I'm likely to do when I'm back in town visiting, as the Ford GoBikes annoying limit you to 30 or 45 minute trips, making you swap out bikes a few times if you want to do a longer ride. (The one place that I felt had a reasonable bike share was Berlin, which used DonkeyRepublic and allowed you to rent a bike for a day, not the ridiculous $12/hour of the GoBikes if you go past the 30 or 45 minutes. Maybe other places will catch up with them.)

As usual, the Ohlone Greenway was pleasant and under construction. (Currently, the construction is at the El Cerrito Del Norte BART station, and doesn't actually impact the Greenway at the moment, though there are fences up against it.) As usual, the Richmond Greenway travels through a post-apocalyptic urban wasteland. Most of that continues to be on the eastern half, where the Greenway was actual clean today, but there was knee-high rubbish adjacent to the Greenway everywhere. The western half, meanwhile, continues to try and become a true community resource with even more parks and benches going in thanks to the new construction of an apartment complex ... but most of the actual people on the Greenway continue to be homeless.

And I was shocked when I left the Richmond Greenway east of the Richmond Parkway to find that there was indeed new bicycle infrastructure. It used to just dump you out into the street, because they'd never been able to get access to the unused last few blocks of old railway right-of-way. But now that street had a bollard-protected cycle way. It was never too bad a street to ride on, but nonetheless yay! Even more importantly, there's a new crosswalk linked to the cycleway on the north side of the Richmond Parkway. This used to be a critical gap in the biking infrastructure, because you had to cross three sides of a busy street with a very slow light to get into Point Richmond. No more! The cycleway leads right to a walk button, and then on the other side continues all the way into Point Richmond. Amazing!

I had my lunch, and it was an acceptable Oscar's substitute, and then I followed the signs promising access to the Richmond-Point Rafael bridge.

The bridge was supposed to open to bicyclists this Spring. It of course, did not, because CalTrans never met a schedule that they didn't miss. The newest date is fall, which could mean as late as 10 days before we leave, but I actually suspect will be later and thus going on the (personal) trash heap of things that opened too late in the Bay Area for us to enjoy, right alongside Berryessa BART (which I think is hitting a year late, after they said it was going to open *early*).

Anywho, I knew I wasn't going to get on the bridge, but I hoped I might get to see the path up there and maybe get over to Point Molate, an otherwise inaccessible bit of Bay Area land.

No love! I could see the paths that go under the highway to Point Molate, and they looked done, but they were all still closed off. I also got my closest view of Point Molate from bike, and I hadn't realized what an industrial wasteland it was. (On the maps it looks just like a big empty space.)

Ah well. The industrial wasteland was probably sour.

---

So after that I biked back to Knox Miller Regional Shore, which is on the backside of Point Richmond. It's a nice little park with a lake and views of the Bay and lots of tables. I've enjoyed working out here many a time, though I have to ask if this is a last too.

I'm typing and posting this from one of those picnic tables.