I had a social and active weekend. After taking Winston for a walk on Saturday morning, I met up with a group from the CCCBA who were walking around the Lafayette reservoir. It was so nice to catch up with folks I haven’t seen in quite a long time! The weather was perfect for a walk, sunny and crisp, and we had a lot of canine companions with us. The king tide has come in while I was gone and the on ramps to the 101 at highway 1 were closed because of flooding, it looked like a lake. Good thing the king tide didn’t happen last weekend when it was storming, it would have been a real mess.
I hung out with my mom for the rest of the afternoon and evening, going to bed early because I had to be up earlier than usual on Sunday. I was meeting friends for a walk in Petaluma and looking after my sister’s dog Javi, so I had to head to San Francisco to pick him up first. I had some problems at the gas station when my the cover to my gas tank would not open. Finally on my third attempt, I used my car key to get it open, but unknowingly locked my car. When I tossed my keys inside and shut the door, I heard the sound of the auto lock and realized what had happened (why I didn’t just put my keys in my pocket I don’t know) Luckily my mom was still at home and only a few blocks away so she picked me up, I got my spare key and got back into the car. It was early enough on a Sunday morning that very few people went to the gas station so I didn’t create too many problems for them. I discovered that early on a Sunday morning is great time to drive in San Francisco because nobody else is out!
Javi and I managed to make make it to the walk meeting spot on time, and it was another gorgeous day for walking. It was fantastic to be out with my trail got us friends again, we had so much to catch up on over the last two months. We are still working on hiking the Bay Area Ridge Trail, but since many the trails are closed due to instability and mud, we decided to do part of trail that was paved. It definitely made for easier walking since they were very few hills, and it was surprisingly a much nicer walk than I expected. Petaluma is full of beautiful old houses, especially in the west part of the city.
We got some free lemons left out by a resident, passed many free little libraries, even picking up the audiobook of To Kill A Mockingbird, read by Sissy Spacek. When we took a slight detour to get some coffee, we went past the Petaluma Historic Library & Museum, which used to be a Carnegie library! It has a beautiful leaded glass dome in the ceiling and gorgeous wooden architecture. In that same area we saw beautiful old murals on the brick buildings, and an electrical outlet art piece on the side of a PG&E building. On the walk we crossed many bridges going back and forth over the Petaluma the river which we walked next to most of the way back to the car, for an urban walk it was quite pleasant. Lots of families were out playing in the parks that we passed, them none of them seem to have public restrooms!
After we finished our 10 mile walk, the most I had walked since I had Covid, Javi and I headed back home and watched the 49er game with my sister and mom. Javi was worn out and just slept on the couch. Everyone was thrilled that the Niners won and are now going to the championship game. Later, Mom and I had a lovely video call with Annemarie, who had the day off since it was Wellington Anniversary day. It was bittersweet talking with her, while it was great to catch up and see that she is doing well, I was sad that I wasn’t there with her and it will likely be awhile before I see her again. I know that’s part of being a parent, but it doesn’t get any easier when they are so far away.
