Muir Woods and Mount Tamalpais

We celebrated the day off yesterday by hiking with friends. We spent most of the day in Muir Woods, which has lots of huge redwoods.

It also has surprisingly steep and sweat-inducing trails that eventually bring you up through the fog:

If you go up high enough, you get an amazing view from Mount Tamalpais:

And at the end, we saw a turkey in the parking lot:

Then we returned to civilization and rewarded ourselves for our steep, seven mile (!) hike by gorging on an enormous dinner, followed by ice cream sundaes. We didn't take any pictures of that part, though, since we were too busy ravenously stuffing our faces.

Yosemite

Thursday was my last day working at TFA after nearly six years - I start my new job at Khan Academy on Monday, so for the three-day weekend in between Ben and I took a mini-vacation to Yosemite. Or, as we called it/each other throughout the trip, "Yo, Semite!"

Just like the last national park we visited, the scary sign game was on point:

Also just like the last national park we visited, it was insanely beautiful. It was too early in the season for all the trails to be open, but thanks to all the recent rain there were waterfalls everywhere and it was like being in a Disney princess movie.

Bridalveil Fall

Since we had two full days to explore, we got to do some nice long (non-strenuous) hikes and explore a decent portion of Yosemite Valley. Every time we turned a corner we came across another gorgeous vista more beautiful than the last.

Mirror Lake is aptly named.

Stone towers left by previous hikers

We had a fantastic time, and it was also an excellent way to reset my brain before starting my new job. It's only three hours from where we live, so we're hoping to go back before too long!

Exploring our new neighborhood

And it turns out we live walking distance from this trail:

I still miss real fall, with the crisp air and changing leaves, but I guess this is an okay runner up for November weather.

Hiking and Trains

I have a colleague who has been after me for months to wake up early on Saturday and go hiking in Muir Woods with him and some other friends, and I've always declined because he means early. Last weekend, though, I finally gave in, and got Ben to come too. And by early, I mean we were literally the only people on the BART and it was dark outside:

The hike itself was gorgeous, so I'm glad we did it once, but I'm also not getting up that early on a Saturday to run around outside again.

Yesterday we went to the Millbrae Train Museum, which is right across the street from where we live, but only open a few hours on Saturday so this was the first time we've been around while they're open. It's a very small museum, but they have some neat stuff, like a 75-year-old toy train ride that rocks back and forth (and still works!):

They also have lots of old train controls you can mess around with:

The coolest part of the museum is a 1941 Pullman sleeper car that the volunteers who run the museum are in the process of restoring. The long term aspiration is to build a mile of track so folks can ride in the car for a short distance, but for now you can just walk through it. Still, it's pretty neat - all the rooms are very cleverly designed to maximize space, with all sorts of little things hidden away that fold in/out as you need them (including toilets and sinks). My favorite was the "shoe locker" tucked away under a seat in each room - apparently you would put your shoes in there before going to sleep, then the porter would access them from the hallway (which also has small doors that open into the shoe lockers), polish them, and return them so you'd have shiny shoes in the morning.

As clever as that system is, I'm glad we no longer have to worry about daily shoe polishing as a life requirement.

Colorado!

After our mini college reunion on the cape last weekend, we headed to Colorado for a week of vacation. Happily two of the college friends who weren't able to make it to MA last weekend live in CO, so we could see them this week instead:

Yay, e-friends!

Ben's parents own a cabin in Winter Park which they graciously let us use - it's like living in a post card. Seriously, this is the view from the deck:

We spent most of the week reveling in doing not much of anything - just sleeping in, reading, watching movies, eating, and generally being layabouts. But we did get out a bit - Winter Park is right next to Rocky Mountain National Park, so we spent a day there driving along Trail Ridge Road and gawking at the views.

Park entrance

Ben at the bottom

Me at the top

Look how much snow is still there!

Panorama of the top Ben took with his fancy phone

Believe it or not, Ben even convinced me to go hiking one day. And I hardly complained at all.

Hard to complain when it's so pretty

Finally, Ben wants (and deserves) credit for capturing this enormous bee that was in the house:

We're both bummed to be going back to the real world tomorrow, but happily we've got more fun stuff coming up this summer (so many weddings!) to look forward to.