Wearing out the dog

The past two weekends we've decided that the dog simply can't be worn out by backyard exercise alone, and taken to the many parks around here to attempt to wear him out, and get a little exercise ourselves. By parks, I don't mean swingsets and BBQ pits (though they have those sometimes) but basically land that's not been consumed by houses and condos. Often this land is too mountainous to be practical for house building, so it's easy to set aside for hiking trails, but not always.

I've really been quite surprised at the variety and sheer number of parks actually. Without looking at a map, I'm pretty sure the entire mountain range separating the Bay Area from the Central Valley is a network of parks, with developments in the occasional valley. That's pretty big.

Two weeks ago, we explored a park not 10 minutes from our house, and last weekend, we got more ambitious and went about 20 minutes to two parks with bigger hills and harder hiking. It was worth it though. Saturday we climbed a thousand feet (seemingly straight up) to a network of ridge trails with magnificent views. Sunday, we did the opposite, walking down into a serene redwood valley before trekking back out.

Both were incredibly beautiful, but oddly not photogenic. There's something about redwoods that is just so peaceful and beautiful that I haven't figured out how to capture it with a camera yet. And the grand vista probably would have looked fairly boring compared to the pictures that you've seen lately.

In some ways, that's what makes great pictures so remarkable, because there's so much that's beautiful and yet they still stand out. On the other hand, it's one of the frustrations I have with photography, in that you don't get the sense of place that you get when you're there. In the redwoods, it's hard to capture the contrast to the dry, brushy ecosystem that lies not a mile away. On our way back from Tahoe, we were surprised to find eastern broad leaf Oak trees (like in Missouri) that were bright yellow. In an ecosystem of brown, gray and dark green, the yellow stands out and makes the landscape far more beautiful.

Yet in a picture, it just looks like a yellow tree. The same yellow tree that you've seen a thousand times. I run into that a lot actually. The little splashes of color that we find on our hikes that make me so happy are impossible to photograph both interestingly and honestly. Sure, I could manipulate the colors to the point where they're more interesting, but that's cheating IMHO. But those little splashes are probably my favorite part. Often I'll see a flower often enough over a hike that it will feel like a friend along the way with me.

But as much as I love photographing wildflowers, it's not always easy to make them look good. Take last Saturday on our hike to the ridge trail. First, you have to understand how dry California is just before the fall/winter rains set in. It's so dry that it's beyond description. The grass actually turns from brown in late summer, to gray in the fall. It's completely devoid of color (which is why I didn't bother taking my camera). When hiking in a landscape like this, even the tiniest ugliest flower you've ever seen growing on a prickly weed looks like a rose in morning dew. But when you get it back home, you realize...it's just a prickly weed with a touch of color.

Anyway, I've rambled enough. Happy Thanksgiving. We're having friends over and cooking our own feast. I'll write and let you know how it goes.