Mt. Talapia...I mean Tamalpais.

hello hello!

This weekend C and I took a "staycation" and did a day-trip up to Marin to hike in Mt. Tamalpais park. It was gorgeous! We brought a nice picnic lunch in our backpack of sourdough bread, cheese, nectarines and a couple of those fiber muffins. I didn't do any cooking this weekend (hence the "staycation") so there aren't any recipes to post. We did check out some new restaurants in the city which were awesome. We went to this great little Italian place in Russian Hill on Friday night. I was very pleased to hear the waitress recommend the exact same meal/wine combo I ordered to the table next to us. I guess I'm getting better at my wine pairings! We also checked out this new French/Japanese fusion place called Swell. The food was AMAZING. We both agreed we had never had such inventive cuisine in our lives. The only catch is that the food is very light so don't go there after a day of hiking looking for a heavy carb-laden meal.

Here are a few photos from our hike:


We happened upon a Greek-style amphitheather. They actually do performances of plays here in the summer...not sure what is playing this season!


A clearing with a giant rock...


There were lots of beautiful redwood trees.


The trail.


The trail ran right along a creek which continued to build up and eventually there were bridges and waterfalls etc. It was amazing!


Devil-Deer.


View from the trail...


A recently fallen redwood...straight into the creek.



After the hike we decided to drive to the top of the mountain. It was quite a drive considering I hadn't driven in months...I almost had a heart attack when a bicyclist passed me on the right flying down the hill at over 30mph.


We were way above the fog-line!


Woo!