July 20, 2026 - Eureka

Title: July 20, 2026 -  Eureka
Hike Info : Description

Hike Info:

Type: Hiking 

Trail head: McKay Tract Parking area

Trail: Perimeter Trail, Bob Hill Trail

Destination: Loop

Distance:  1.15 miles ¹

Elevation Rise: 289 '

Descent: 269‘

Maximum Elevation: 334'

Minimum Elevation: 256'

 ¹Route was plotted on Google Earth, not with an actual GPS.

Description:

David&Sherri walking to skyway

I got up at 6:15. David is just finishing his morning limbering up time. I see that there is nothing to report as far as lightning is concerned. So I have my breakfast. Sherri did not sleep well last night, so she will be sleeping in.

David is working on providing a redwood worktop for his neighbor. A couple of years ago, there was a couple of redwoods in his backyard which needed to come down-they had become dangerous. He has kept the wood and has been making things such as benches out of the slabs. Much more talented in that regard than I am. Anyway, I provided a little bit of help this morning for him. He still has a ways to go before he installs the finished product.

Before we left Fresno, my cousin Susie had sent a video asking if I had been there. It was on the skywalk at the Sequoia Zoo. We had been to the Zoo several years back, but not the Skywalk. We decided to go to the zoo this morning and walk around. Then walked the Skywalk. These are permanent walkways among the redwoods. They certainly give you a different perspective being up there. While we are not at the top of the trees, more mid-way or at the bottom third mark, you see things differently.

Seems like I have done some skywalks recently. There were the urban skywalks in Minneapolis, and these among the redwoods. Sherri reminded me that there was one in Atlanta as well at their botanical gardens. Upon reflection, I think I like walking among the redwoods the best. Each has their redeeming factors.

Forest View from Skywalk

We came home and had lunch. I took a nap-the body needed it. Sherri watched a movie, The Seven Dials, an Agatha Christie mystery. David and I decided to go for a walk at McKay Tract. When I looked for Sherri, she was asleep.

So David and I went by ourselves to McKay. We got to the parking lot about 3:15. To start with, we walked the Perimeter Trail. We did this in reverse from before. David and I talked about things-you know how brothers talk. Kevin, David’s good friend, called him, describing how he got injured. David and Kevin talked for a while. A good thing is that David slowed down while talking with him, so I did not get into my huff and puff mode. Once the conversation ended, David and I resumed talking. I noted that my left knee has arthritis and at times can have pain when ascending, such as going up stairs. He suggested a knee brace, such as what Rachel suggested a couple of weeks ago in Minnesota.

Gary playing wingspan

Sherri  in the Park's Garden

We made it home by 4:15. Sherri is now up. By 5, David has dinner on the table-a repeat of last night. Sherri says that this is not left overs. All which I know is that I am content. We talked for a while. While David is showering, Sherri and I watch our TV addiction: Jeopardy! Don, David’s friend, and mine, comes over and we talk about an incident which happened to his family involving a bat.

After Don leaves, we sit around, mostly in silence. I take a shower. David goes to bed before I get out. I follow him to my own bed by 10.

June 24, 2026 - Minneapolis, Como Zoo

 

Title: June 24, 2026 - Minneapolis, Como Zoo
Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's

Hike Info:

Type:Touring

Description:

I slept in until 6:30. Then did my lightning report-none again. I had been waiting until I had a block of time to write up a process for somebody in Stanislaus NF to be able to produce a kmz file. I was able to do that this morning. Sherri got up just as I finished up this writeup. We went down for breakfast when Andrea wanted to talk about our next trip to Victoria. So we talked about when to come back from Victoria and where-there is a ferry to be reserved.

About 10, we left our room to go to the Como Zoo and Conservancy. Once again the street numbers got me. But thanks to Google Maps, I was able to quickly get turned in the right direction. We picked up the bus at Washington and 3rd Streets. This would be the 3A bus. The driver seems to know everybody who gets on the bus and is a genuinely enjoyable person as she interacts with each new rider.

 

 

 

We get off at Como Regional Park and then walk over to the Zoo entrance. Unlike many zoo’s, entrance is free. They rely on donations and some big donors I think. Many of their animals reside indoors. I suspect that is because the winters here are bitterly cold and some of these animals, maybe most are from warmer climates.

The first building we go into concerns primates. They range from spider monkeys to large gorillas. When we exit the house, we see a couple zebras galloping around. I am suspecting that the female may be filing a harassment suit against her partner as she kept making hee-haw donkey noises.

I would guess that about 20% of the exhibits were empty. Not sure if it was just a matter that they were rotating animals, cleaning stalls out or if they did not have enough animals to fill them. Sometimes a whole building would be this way.

We go through the African Hoofed Stock house. The giraffes were the ones here. About this time Wendy asked about Winter pictures from various trips around Grant Grove. I sent her a giraffe picture.

Onward to lions and tigers and bears. Well the latter would need to wait for a little while. Both the tiger and lion, singular on both, were resting in their areas. They seem to live a life of ease, or maybe boredom.

The Fresno-Chaffee Zoo used to have polar bears. But our climate was not good for them, so they got moved. But the Como Zoo did. I suspect this is what Sherri really wanted to see. There were two polar bears in one of the areas. One spent the majority of the time in the water with the other joining the first a bit later. Inside the building there was a third polar bear. He was rather old and did not interact with the others. He had his own pool to play in.

Gary with a plastic garbage eagle

Our final exhibit was the Aquatic Animals.That would be not only fish, but other swimming things-there was a separate seal area. But we only saw a nose once. We saw puffins as well.

By this time it was about 1. We found a place to have lunch and plot out what to do next. There was a bird area, but as I was writing this up, I saw that it was a seasonal exhibit. With that, we decided to move on to the Conservatory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ferns

We spent about an hour and a half in the Conservatory. One of the more interesting things about this Conservatory is that it is one of the few remaining glass-domed gardens in the United States. The first area dealt only with ferns. My thought was that Andrea and Lawrence would love this section. Another section deals with herbs and spices and plants used for medicinal purposes. One lady saw me peering up into a tree and wondered what kind of fruit was up there. I said it was star-fruit. But this was not answered on the basis of any superior knowledge, but because there was a tag on the tree.

The most extensive area was the Japanese garden. There were a couple of signs which I noticed. First it said that Japanese gardens, unlike western gardens, try to look natural without the uniformity which you see out of Europe. From what I could tell, these gardens looked more planned and placed. While there was a certain amount of unkemptness in some places, it did not look random nor chaotic. 

 

The second sign said there were six elements which a Japanese garden consisted of: water, bridges, paths, stones, plants and ornaments. Notice that all are plural. The ornaments include the stone lanterns and statues. These gardens did have that.

The entrance into this garden is through settings with bonsai trees. In Atlanta, it seemed like there was an emphasis on the decorative qualities of these trees. Here, there is a diversity of types of trees, ranging from Dawn Redwoods to figs.

We then wander the garden paths-and there are paths,-It is pleasant and relaxing to stroll along the paths. Isn’t that the purpose of these gardens? I wonder how public these gardens are in Japan? Or are they private gardens? They must take a lot of effort to set up and then maintain. Do the workers get to enjoy the sense of well-being from these gardens? OK I am probably over-thinking this. I did enjoy just walking through.

We make our way out of the Conservatory, stopping at a few places which we skipped earlier. Then there is the gift shop which has a magnetic attraction for Sherri. I am able to resist and take up my customary spot on a bench. What to do next is the discussion? Do we eat? It is only 2:30. Go back to the hotel and veg? Walk the SkyWay? We talked to a guy at the visitor services desk. He suggests that walking down to Lake Como would be nice. It is a place of beauty.

So that is what we do. The walk down there is nice. My legs get tired from standing when we are at places like zoos or museums or gardens. They feel much better when we are able to walk at a moderate pace. And that is what we do. We see a pavilion with a deck and observe the lake from there. Then walk along the side of the lake for a while.

By this time, we are starting to get hungry. We are not interested in park or zoo food today. There are some places of unknown quality about half a mile away. But none seem interesting. So we walked to a bus stop-I misread where the stop was, so we walked a bit further. We catch the 3A bus back downtown.

While looking at Google Maps, I see an interesting sounding place with reasonable reviews called the Crooked Pint Ale House. We stop there and have our dinner of Pub House Burger-I think this is a stuffed burger-and a cowboy burger. The server paid the right amount of attention to us, with the right amount of company to enjoy her, but not intrusive. Then the food was very good. Glad we stopped in.

Afterwards, we made our way to our room and vegged for the rest of the evening. Showered and talked about what to do tomorrow and all. Of course we showered. Then went on our Wednesday night family Zoom call before going to bed at 10.

Extra Photo's

March 20, 2025 - Atlanta Botanical Gardens

 

Title: March 20, 2025 - Atlanta Botanical Gardens

Hike Info : Description : Trail Lessons : Menu : Extra Photo's : Animals : Flowers and Plants

Hike Info:

Type:MARTA

Gary and Tulips

Description:

All times are Atlanta local until we get back to the West Coast.

I got up at 8:45, and spent the time just writing up yesterday until Sherri got up a bit before 10. Today will be a low key day, We are both tired. So we will just ride MARTA, do some walks and get used to the place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gary has a new friend

One thing which we will need to get used to is the mix of ethnicities. In Fresno, we have a mixture where Hispanic and Southeast Asian are very evident, along with, of course, whites. But something we noticed immediately when we got on the MARTA yesterday as well as in Krogers, how African-Americans are quite evident. But isn’t that why we go to different places to become more well rounded? And to see different ways of doing things and different peoples? It is just a reminder to me that there are differences in different places.

Sherri made us pancakes for breakfast. I ate well-stuffed, but it was a good feeling. We are pretty slow getting ready. But today is going to be a slow day of recovery anyway from the time change and all of yesterday’s travel. I suggested the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Sherri thinks that is good. I had seen, as an added bonus, the tulips should be in bloom.

It is after twelve when we start out. Our first route is to walk back to the Brookhaven MARTA station. Instead of doing what we did yesterday, we crossed Peachtree and went on the other side, avoiding the construction we went around yesterday. We got to the station and got on the Gold train without issue. The ride was about 30 minutes and we got off at the Arts Center Station.

A word about MARTA since this will be a big part of our lives for the next couple of weeks. MARTA is the mass transit for the Atlanta Metropolitan area. It uses an app called Breeze. We were able to put a week-long pass on the app for $23.50 per person. When we wanted to use it, a bar code came up and the rail or bus scanned the barcode for admittance. During our stay we get a second week long pass. Pretty good that Sherri and I were able to ride around Atlanta for two weeks for less than $100.

 

Here we pick up our first bus ride of the trip. This is #27 which will take us from the Arts Center station to the Piedmont Park area. The system took my MARTA app OK, but Sherri’s it keeps going to the wallet. The driver finally lets Sherri on. It is about a ten minute ride to where we let off. This is on the driveway into the Gardens. We walked up the hill to the admission station. It is $28.50 admission. Will it be worth it? But then Allison, the person behind the window, talks to us about membership and that it would allow entry into other gardens, such as those in California. So we bought a membership for both of us.

We start migrating towards the orchid area. But before we went about 150’, we came across tulips in a pot. This is an immediate stop-the first of many-to take pictures. A short ways later, Sherri has me sitting on a bench next to a frog. The things I do for her. Every little bit we come across more flowers which attract our attention. But what really attracts us is the centerpiece of the Levy Parterre. It looks very much like what we have seen in Seattle at the Chihuly Gardens-later that night when I had the chance, I was able to see that it was, along with some other pieces around the Gardens.

 

After going around the Great Lawn, we enter into the Fuqua Conservatory

-or as we were told earlier that this is where the orchids are. There is an exhibit of orchids right at the front, intertwined by clear beads. While interesting looking, I was thinking this was looking a bit cheap. Then there was a terrarium with some frogs and chameleons from Mozambique. We looked at that for a while and then entered into a humid rain forest area. Lots of broadleaf plants and trees with some flowers. Going through this area is definitely not a racetrack experience.

After wading through the Conservancy portion of the building, we entered the Orchid Center. This is the highlight of the Fuqua Center. The Gardens has been advertising on Facebook that the orchids and tulips are in bloom and they are. And they are. The orchid area is large with a wide variety of flowers. There comes a point where I realize that unless I take pictures of each and every flower, which will be hundreds of them, that only a representative sample will be taken. So I only take a few and those are the ones which catch my fancy.

 

 

 

By the time we exit the orchid area, it is after 3. There is an edible garden where we exit and we wander through there. Sherri comments about the trees and shrubs which are trained to be against a wall.There is a name for that: espalier

. I guess I learned something on this trip. We continue our wandering through the perennial and Japanese gardens. The Japanese gardens are the original gardens for Piedmont Park. These look a lot more dominant than other places. Maybe it is because we are here at the beginning of Spring.

For our final excursion around the Gardens today, we decided to do the Woodland Ramble. This is an area across the access road from the rest of the Gardens. We had seen it when we walked in and had wondered how to get there. We still are wondering about that. But eventually we made our way over to where the Kendeda Canopy Walk crosses the road and takes us on an elevated arc into the Woodland. It drops us onto the Southwood Terrace.

 

 

 

 

 

From there we circle around to the Ramble. While it appears this part of the Gardens is still in deep Winter hibernation, there is one thing which looks alive. A man was watching something and being naturally curious I tried to pick out what he was looking at. He points out a red-shouldered hawk. It is motionless except for his head, That is until the man walks off and then the hawk flies towards us and perches within 20’ of us. I guess there is a reason why Atlanta’s basketball team is called the Hawks.

We continue our walk around the Woodlands until we get to the Glade Gardens. There is another arresting glass sculpture here called the Radiant Yellow Icicle Tower. A yellow prickly column, rising out of a pool of water. The pool is called a water mirror. I suspect on a clear day, it would make a great reflection And yes, it is another Chiuly art piece. It is hard to get a good picture which gives a true impression of this. Maybe I am spending too much effort on getting a picture and not enough and taking it in.

What is more impressive to me is when we circle around the Glade, it looks out over a creek-artificial, I think. Still the stillness of the waters, the brownness of the earth and the step falls into the Creek all create a place of peace.

Now we continue on the path to where we first entered the Woodlands. But instead of going over the Canopy Walk, we go through a tunnel to the Cascade Gardens. There is a pond there with a large sculpture called the Earth Goddess. A sign explains that each Spring, gardeners come in and implant the sculpture with thousands of flowering flora creating a colorful fountain in the shape of a woman. This must be quite a scene when fully in bloom. Right now, it is a grayish sculpture with long flowing mossy looking hair. I wonder about this goddess thing. In some ways the sculpture fits into the flow of the garden, but in other ways it seems very pantheistic. But that is how gardens operate. It can either point you to a Mother Earth narrative or back to Eden and our Creator.

By this time, we are getting hungry. We had seen a restaurant in the Gardens called LongLeaf. But it is closed right now. I think there must be a reception tonight. But there is something they call the Quick Cafe close by. When we look at it, it is pre packaged sandwiches and no seating. We decided that we want something more.

When we exited the Gardens about 4:15, we noticed another Chihuly sculpture hanging over the entrance. We then walk down to the bus stop to put up #27 to take us back. The stop is the entrance to Ansley Park. Looks like it has interesting buildings.

#27 takes us back to Arts Center Station. I had seen that there is a Maggiano Little Italy restaurant close by to Buckhead Station. This sounds good. We travel the Red train to Buckhead.Unfortunately, when we get out, I took us off in the wrong direction. But only a block or so. Once I get reoriented we enjoy a good chicken dinner. Sherri has Chicken Francee and I Chicken Marsala. Both are very good. We took home half of it for dinner tomorrow night.

Now to catch #110 back to our AirBnB.We started walking, but saw a bus coming and are able to get to the stop in time. In looking at Google Maps, we are heading in the wrong direction. So after a mile, we get off, cross the street and wait for the bus to go in the opposite way. Did I say how cold and windy it is? We are glad when the bus comes. Sherri still has troubles with the ticket reader, but the driver lets us on anyway.

We get back about 7. A bit tired, but content with our first day in Atlanta. A little before 10, we turn in-that would be 7 Fresno time.

 

 

Trail Lesson:

Different places have different things and people. Different may not mean wrong or bad.

Menu

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Krutzwitz protein pancakes. Mrs Butterworth syrup, milk		Maggiano Little Italy-Chicken Francee and Chicken Marsala

Extra Photo's

Animals

 
Flowers and Plants