Day 19 - Settling in, plus Mission Peak

Today's hike:  Mission Peak
Length: 6.6 miles
Elevation gain: ~2,200'
Thoughts: Steep and relentless.  And watch your step - that's not mud!

Now that I am on week #3 of my sabbatical, I'm finally starting to settle into it.  Ever see people running errands during the middle of the day and think to yourself, "Don't they have a job or something better to do?"  Yeah - I'm proud to say I've become one of those people.  I have to set an alarm if I want to be out of bed any time before 9am.  I find I'm watching Kathie Lee and Hoda on the fourth hour of "The Today Show" far too often.  Best of all, I'm starting to lose track of which day of the week it is.  Every day is like a weekend day, and it is spectacular!

I'm also enjoying the ability to be one of those "ladies who lunch."  OK, while I may never officially wear that badge comfortably, yesterday I enjoyed a free lunch with a friend and former colleague who now works at Twitter, and got to check out how the young, hip, cool people roll.  My thoughts on the Twitter cafeteria?  #f'ingdelicious  #somuchyummyfreefood  #dontknowhowyoustaythinworkingthere  #freebulkcandyalldayrocks.  Thanks so much for the free lunch, SE!  #letsdoitagainsoon

This week I also hit the metaphorical brick wall on my hiking/training regime and for most of the week found it difficult to motivate myself to explore new hiking locations, relying instead on some oldies-but-goodies or the gym.  Yes, I got some mileage in and logged a total of 8.5 miles and 1,844 ft of elevation over the past few days, but not by doing anything particularly interesting.

I did get motivated to head back into the kitchen and try out another recipe out on K.  This time I decided to try a recipe out of one of my cookbooks - homemade pasta sauce with Italian sausage and chicken, and of course plenty of wine.  K consumed every speck on his plate, so I'll take that as a sign that he liked it.  :-)

So after a lazy week filled with good food, today I finally found the motivation to get my butt back on the hiking trail and made my way over to Fremont to check out Mission Peak.  Yes, that's right - the Peninsula snob in me voluntarily drove to the East Bay for something.  Can you believe it??  Those who know me well are probably shocked at this one, because they know I don't go the East Bay for much of anything if it doesn't involve booze, a fabulous meal, or a spa treatment.  Well, we finally found an exception.  This was a trail that K recommended a few weeks ago as a pretty steep trail so good for some elevation training, and he was right.  This trail is about 3 miles of constant, relentless uphill.  Definitely a good workout.  Here's a view of the hill (I'm headed toward the highest peak in the pic):  

Lots of happy cows from California on this trail.  I even had to cross a couple of cattle guards.  And most importantly, had to watch every step I took.  Even after a good rain, on this trail what looks like mud is much more likely to be a cow pie.  Here's a sight you don't see every day - cows with Milpitas and San Jose in the background:   

At the top, there is a cool monument with sight scopes - each looks through to a landmark in the Bay Area (Mt. Diablo, Mt. Tam, SF, Dumbarton Bridge, Lick Observatory, etc.)

Panorama from the top of the Bay towards SF, the Peninsula, and the South Bay:

It was downright frigid at the top even after the grueling uphill hike, so I didn't linger very long before making the descent.  As I started to make my way down, a hang glider took off below me, so for a time I was actually hiking above him.  How cool is that?  Overall this was a good hike, but one which I definitely felt in my hips, legs and knees afterwards.  It convinced me that it is time to buy some hiking poles.  REI, here I come!