What with school ending, ice skating lessons finishing up, a dance recital, Girl Scouts earning their last petal, field trips, park days, final tests -- argh! Nick and I looked at our calendars and decided to chuck it all and get away for the weekend. We had heard about a county park near us that doesn't require reservations to camp, which is unheard of in the California state park system. It turned out to be just over the hills from us. I was shocked to see that it was only three streets away from our house, in fact!

Memorial Park is nestled on the western slopes of the Santa Cruz mountains. The park was dedicated in 1924 to honor San Mateo County's soldiers that died in foreign wars. These days, while there is a memorial grove near the entrance to the park, the rest of the acreage is given over to camping sites and hiking trails. Pescadero creek runs through park, and after this winter and spring's massive rains the swimming hole was temptingly full. It's a shame that the temperature hovered around 60 degrees, even mid-day! It looks like in the past they would dam up the creek and make a swimming pool; the concrete structures are still present, but since the creek is home to endangered Steelhead trout, the creek is allowed to flow freely.

Looking at a map of coastal redwoods, it just hit home how lucky we are to live so close to these magnificent trees. Redwood forests are so incredibly magical. My personal theory on why these trees feel so special is that they grow in rings, and this small bit of organization in an otherwise incomprehensible pattern feels like a connection. It's not just random trees in a forest, it's clusters of incredibly tall cathedrals of wood. My daughter calls them "fairy rings." There's a peaceful hush in the redwoods because the needles make a dampening carpet on the forest floor. There's not a lot of underbrush to distract the eye; just some ferns in the wetter areas.

And these wonderful trees only get as far south as Santa Cruz. I feel so blessed to find tranquility just over the hill from my house. It's something that I don't want my daughter to take for granted. I want her to feel a connection to nature beyond just what plants are landscaped in a city park.

So I'm rambling on here...

We arrived Friday night and set up camp. Wini was thrilled to find we were sharing the campsite with a 9" banana slug. I won't bore you with slug stories, so I'll just get it out of the way: by the end of the week we had seen about 50 banana slugs, and that is NOT hyperbole. The slugs are having a great year. Ever open up your campsite cabinet to find a banana slug on the top shelf next to the matches? Cripes! They lose their charm quickly.

Wini had been watching Zoom last week and they made tinfoil dinners - does anyone remember these? You chop up a bunch of ingredients and let each diner make their own creation. This was perfect for my diet. I was able to load mine up with veggies, while my daughter's main ingredient was ketchup. I had forgotten about tinfoil dinners, but it was delicious and diet-friendly. We ended up having them two nights in a row.

Saturday, we nabbed a new geocache and actually were the first ones to find it (a bit of a contest to geocachers). It was our first FTF so we were jazzed! We headed off to the tiny town of Pescadero to do a multi-cache that was basically a walking tour of the town. It was a beautiful day to stroll through Pescadero. Any day that we get to meet a roly-poly kitten is a great day in my book. Wini and I played checkers on a giant checkerboard in one of the town's local hangouts. We didn't get the Pescadero cache, though. Rats!

Heading back to camp, we found crafts going on at the visitor's center. We hiked a little in the park, but were foiled by the creek. Apparently, they put out foot bridges during the summer months...for now, it's ford knee deep icy water or turn back. I was hoping to get a good hike in, and we just couldn't make it happen. We were happy to relax and enjoy the campfire program.

Sunday we did manage to hike. Yahoo! We did a two-hour, 1.6 mile hike that was straight up Mt. Ellen. Distance-wise it doesn't sound like much, but it got the heart pumping. There is always a challenge in getting a 6-year-old to hike up anything - how is it they can be bounding around with limitless energy but when it comes to walking up a hill, their feet morph into lumps of lead? Luckily, we have a hiking secret: a bag of M&M's that surfaces when the whining gets out of control. That bag may get waved around, but it does NOT get opened until we are all the way to the top. Although it was hazy and foggy all morning, the sun came out just as we hit a viewing area near the top of the summit, making us feel like we were in the right place at just the right time. I saw a horned owl fluffing out his feathers and grooming until he noticed me and skedaddled. The trail was littered with banana slugs, who look a lot like the yellow bay leaves on the trail. I'm amazed that we didn't step on any, actually. The highlight of the day for Wini was when she found a butterfly in the path, and he crawled on her hand for a "visit."