Last year REI for the first time didn't open their shops for Black Friday, but encouraged their employees and customers to "opt outside" instead and experience the great outdoors. We loved the idea and spent a wonderful afternoon hiking Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. This year we opted outside again on Black Friday, and we chose to hike in Jack London State Historic Park, the only park close to us that by some kind of miracle has been completely untouched by the October fires.
The vineyards in the park - with the original terraced planting by Jack London - were brilliant at this time of year.
We hiked up to the "lake" - it's not really a lake anymore since it is full of algae. This was our first view of it - that green thing in the back is the lake. I don't think anybody in their right mind would want to dive in there.
But when you walk further up there are some gorgeous redwoods.
I stepped right in the middle of the trees and just took a photo looking up.
When my family saw that, they wanted to do the same thing - and we ended up with this:
This was the first time that I broke in my new hiking boots - my old ones did break in Yellowstone during a hike and the Geek, resourceful as always, had hold them together using duct tape. It was a fine for that particular hike, but certainly not a permanent solution.
But then, of course, everybody wanted to take boot pictures!
And it just went on with taking silly family photos.
Kaefer was sitting on the wall at the edge of the "lake", but she didn't stay on her own for long, not in this family.
The Geek saw this tree and asked us whether we can see the seal in it - can you?
Even the hike back wasn't done in a "civilized" way - there is always room for silliness in this family. I think we thrive on it. Life is so much more adventurous upside down between the poison oak and the mountain lion warnings.
And the vineyards kept on being stunning.
We spent several hours in this beautiful park. Since it is the only park unharmed by the fire, the entrance into it is free until the end of the year. What a gift to anyone who loves to be in nature.
All the photos in this post were taken with my cell phone.
