This hike is from last Thursday, 7/27. I'm starting to run out of hikes at Point Reyes National Seashore- I think I have maybe three or four major hikes left there, and a couple of out and back to the beach hikes still to complete.

Thursday was my short day at work. We had a meeting that day that was productive overall but that was marred by what I perceived as foolishness on the part of one of my coworkers- he was making assertions based on his own wishful thinking rather than on the available facts. I called him on it, probably a little too sharply. My other coworkers perhaps didn't think much of it, but it stayed with me the whole time I was hiking and I kept replaying it in my brain (I'm unused to confrontation... can you tell?). I thought about it so much that I gave myself a headache. It was one of those times that it would have been nice to just have an off-switch in my head. Grrr.

The hike was nice despite my preoccupation. I started from the Sky trailhead, hiked down the Fire Lane Trail, down to Coast Camp, and back up the Laguna Trail,which goes by the youth hostel and some sort of environmental education center. It was a greyish day on the coast, which was quite welcome after all the damn heat we'd been having. The hike was 8.2 miles, all told.

Young California quail are out in force. I probably saw six or seven families on the trail between Coast Camp and the youth hostel. The quail are a lot easier to get close to when they've got babies around.

I also ran into a group of six or so 14-year-olds that appeared to be backpacking on their own. They were doing really well... they seemed like they were keeping a good pace, their packs looked to be in good order, and all the kids seemed like they were happy to be there. The lead kids shouted back to the kids coming up behind that someone was on the trail and that they should stand aside. Nice to see manners in the young folk. I was thinking how cool it was that these kids were entrusted with the responsibility to do an overnight trip on their own, but then a mile or so down the path I ran into the rest of their group, which had adult supervisors. Oh well. If I ever have a kid I think I would like to send it on solo or small group (with other kids) overnights at a youngish age (preteen to teen), if that's something that they were into. I think kids in a lot of cases can handle more responsibility than we give them, and develop responsibility by being entrusted with things.

I made a cake for my boss' birthday, which we are celebrating at work tomorrow. Now I am going to go frost it. There are two more hikes in the hopper... I will report upon them soon.