More redwoods then onto the Bay Area

Yesterday I visited the Humboldt State Park on the way down to the Bay Area. Luckily no more rain, or only a sprinkling here and there. Mostly photographed redwoods along the way on the Avenue of the Giants, a lovely meandering road next to 101 where there are redwoods growing right next to the road. Took an interesting photo from inside a hollowed-out redwood, looking out into the forest.

Slowly the landscape changed and became more hilly with less redwoods and turned to the scrub oak with vineyards here and there. Ah, my second favorite tree - the oak - and California has many fine specimens.

I arrived at my friend, Paul's place in San Anselmo and it was in a lovely location with hills, oak trees and greenery. I haven't been up in that area much before, but the nearby town of Fairfax is quite a cute, little town. We went for a short hike nearby around a lake and there was a wonderful mix of beautiful trees, some redwoods, oak, manzanita and many others. California certainly has some nice trees! Afterward we ate lunch with Paul's family in Fairfax and we walked by this cafe where there seemed to be several people playing musical instruments. Well, I walked in and found that just about everyone in the packed cafe had a ukelele. So I asked one woman if it was a ukelele convention and she told me they meet there every Saturday and play music together. They all has songbooks and played and sang together - the whole cafe. Never saw a thing like this before. It was pretty cool! They said I was welcome to join them with my mandolin, but unfortunately I didn't have it with me.

So now I am back in San Francisco at a friends on top of Twin Peaks with a gorgeous view of the city. Funny, but after all those years of living in San Francisco (13 years), I can say that I wouldn't want to live here again. Yes, I have good memories here, but it just doesn't feel the same. If I were to ever move back to this area (which isn't all that likely), I think I'd much prefer to live in Fairfax or somewhere in Marin. I'm just not feeling the city vibe very well. I want to be amongst trees. Hmmm, I wonder if I bought redwood seeds if I could plant redwood trees in BC. I wonder if they'd thrive there. Of course, I'd need somewhere to live where I could plant them. Don't know where I'll be living in June yet.

So off to Santa Cruz tomorrow then to San Jose and Berkeley - so bouncing around all over the place, eh? (practicing my Canadianisms).

So more redwood pics...