The Rock Spring parking lot was open again. This is the first weekend it's been open since it all shut down a couple months ago. My wife and I were eager to walk on mountain trails once again, and it was a gorgeous day to be in the woods, and also to find a spot where we could take in the long view out toward Mt. St. Helena.
Although the coastal hillsides have very little green left, the woods still seem lush, with lots of new horsetail coming up along parts of Cataract Creek.
We stopped by Potrero Meadow where I checked up on the old geocache which I didn't find until May of 2014. It had been sitting out there since 2011. This morning it didn't appear that anyone had been in there in a long time, but in fact someone had been in the box as recently as August 2019.
It was great to open up to the wild again, to get some of that natural nectar made of sunshine and wind, scent of forest and meadow, to feel the trail under our feet, surrounded by birdsong and butterflies, to watch a browsing buck in its velvet antlers and a pair of coyotes that traversed a hillside that was going to gold with wind-blown grasses half as high as the coyotes, and all with so few people around that you feel you have it to yourself.
Even this fence lizard was opening up to new growth: I'd never seen a lizard shedding it's skin before. Its camouflage was so brilliant I probably wouldn't have seen it if my wife hadn't drawn my attention. Once the optometrists are open again I'll have to drop by for some glasses that I've been putting off getting for a long time. The woods are getting increasingly impressionistic, and I just flat-out miss little details like camouflaged lizards.
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