Adventure to Joshua Tree NP – Day 1

December 26, 2017 | poppypeach

Our inspiration to explore National Parks this year is that we have a 4th grader and the National Parks have a promotion to get every kid in a park, so that was the impetus to get our kids and ourselves out exploring!

We drove down via Shafter where we made an overnight stay at an RV to break up the trip, tired from the drive and wrapping up school and work we were ready to relax and we were in holiday mode at long last! With a beautiful sunset, we took a walk through the almond fields before heading on over to the RV for dinner of lentil shepherds pie heated up in the microwave. Our host made a huge fire to roast marshmallows for a treat, we stayed out there with the fire for a while until it was too chilly and we were back in the RV for some reading and sleeping. The stars were out and we enjoyed a dark sky with a sliver of a moon.

After our night in the RV we arrived at our next destination the Air BnB called the Atomic Tiki Ranch (I will feature in another post!) and settled in there before we headed out to the Joshua Tree National Park for our first day of adventuring in the park

We wandered down to the visitor centre to get a plan on what to see and do and our first stop was the Cholla Cactus Garden AKA the teddy bear cactus. As cute as they are, they are super spiky, there were so many in this area by the carpark with their shades of yellow and brown. There was a nature walk around the cacti and I just loved the changes in colour on the plant and the detail even in the dried up stalk of the plant – you can really tell this is a desert plant when you look closely. The kids also decided they wanted to do their Junior Ranger badges and this began their time researching and exploring!

We had our binoculars to look for birds or animals

A circle called a Dike – features in rocks that are resistant to erosion

For our trip down from the gardens, we looked at the rangers recommendations and decided to explore other parts of the park so the kids could climb and check out smaller hiking trails for our first day. We found Arch Rock at the White Tank campground – it is a small walk but well worth the journey to see this incredible rock formation lying atop many other boulders, my hubby is in the pic and climbed up to go beneath it. I also climbed up to get up there but I had the camera so I couldn’t really capture myself up there, it was easy to get up but not so easy to climb down with a camera around my neck! Eventually, I just came down the way I went up and all was good, thanks to the help of Missy.

The cool thing about the desert is its expanse but look closer and you find these amazing plants and even though they are dry from the heat they still look beautiful in the light.

After out Arch rock climb, we stopped off at Skull Rock and totally lost the trail so we had to climb in and out of the boulders to get back to the car. It was certainly a mission though I do recommend if you are climbing rocks be super careful with your camera and have somewhere to pack it safely. I had to hand my SLR over to my hubby to look after while I was scrambling up and down over the rocks to find the trail with my son. We made it to the top of a rock and it was very exciting!

For this trip, I have to break this up into smaller bite size days as I took over 600 pictures and it was really hard to edit it down to just a few, but these are my faves and I wanted to focus on the highlights of the desert landscape.

The harvest moon

October 10, 2017 | poppypeach

This week we celebrated the Harvest Moon with the Chinese Moon festival in the classroom and enjoyed a story of how the moon festival came to be with a fascinating folktale, a paper lantern craft, and snacks of fruit and mooncakes. Oh and the lovely tea our parent volunteer made from jasmine flowers.

We were introduced to some new math games, two different versions of Sequence which is a fun game to play.

Friday afternoon after a big week we had exploration on Friday afternoon with a collection of materials ready to play with. The kids had a blast and made many beautiful things using wire, string, beads, sticks and other pieces to tinker with.

Here is a necklace in progress on a wire string which turned out beautifully.

Version 2

Here is a rainbow sting of beads made for a friend. The perfect way to end a week of writing my report for its deadline and my co-teacher out sick.

Still, my Friday did not end at work – I even had the Walkathon at my daughter’s school where she walked 12 miles doing 60 laps and had really sore feet which is understandable! So we went off to visit a friend at his fancy apartment with a pool, and we had a BBQ and the kids relaxed in the hot tub. I had a lovely time catching up with friends I have not seen in person for ages (only on Facebook) chatting about the life and times of living in da valley.

The views from up high!

February 14, 2017 | poppypeach

Finally, I had a free weekend to relax with friends and the family as I have finished my essay writing at the moment, so it’s time to catch up on my To Do list! The weekend was absolutely stunning with its sunshine and warmth – not enough to take off your cardigan yet, though! I spent time hanging out down at the park knitting with my friend and the kids created a tree sculpture in the sandpit dedicated to the environment entitled ‘Protect the Trees’. They kept on finding pieces of foliage and rocks and twigs around the park to add to their group installation.

Sunday being our family day we went out for a hike up to Sierra Azul Preserve in Los Gatos. Another hike we haven’t visited in our 10 years of living here. Little did we know what to expect once we started hiking…

Look for the hangar in the centre of the pic, and we find our house

A perfect place for a picnic or to camp – though you would have to haul it up here!

We ended up hiking 4.5 miles up the hill as you can see from the pictures we were looking over the whole valley from where we were from Palo Alto to San Jose. The urban sprawl at its finest on this beautiful and bright day. It was a great hike for exercise walking for miles uphill though the kids constantly wanted to stop!

“This is boring, my legs are tired,” say the kids!

It was too hard for them to walk up and up and up. In the end, we decided to walk to the oak tree on the trail which was 2.25 miles, and from there the kids were a bit annoyed as it really was not that exciting for them to see the oak tree.

The good thing was that once the hike was done and we saw the tree we went back downhill – it is hard on your legs and knees. I would totally recommend this hike for a family who wants a bit more of a workout on a hike as it is all uphill to the top the views are perfect on a bright day, and it is so good to see the valley from up high!!

Oh, and the bonus was that I watched two really wonderful films – Hello my name is Doris and Girl Asleep. Both quirky and a lot of fun. A favourite character was Doris as she was an older lady with such a crazy fashion sense who is cracking onto her co-worker. This leads to some funny scenes and the best being when she joined him for a gig out to see an electro-pop band, that outfit is the best!

Girl Asleep is an Australian film set in the 1970s so I loved the film from the beginning seeing the clothes and the 1970s cars in Australia. My favourite sequence of the film is when Greta had her 15th birthday party and everyone who came danced their way into the room and then it was all on – a scene of dancers at the party, I gave this film 5 stars just for this scene of 1970s dancing!

It’s a sun sunny day!

February 1, 2017February 1, 2017 | poppypeach

As the rain has been keeping us inside most of the time for the last couple of weeks! Sunday was literally a sunny day so we took full advantage of the morning and went for a wander to explore more of the bay. Over the week a friend of mine told me about a park with amazing views of San Francisco, Oakland and the bay where she volunteers to feed a feral cat colony! I was so excited so we went on a mission to look for it via Seal Point Park and it is right next door to Ryder Park – named after my nephew! It is a dog park with a hill with sweeping views of the Bay all around. Plus the added bonus is that the trail is perfect for riding so one day we will have to catch the Caltrain over there as it is 12 minutes away from the stop – it is a 21-mile bike ride via the Bay trail from Shoreline Park, whew I get sore legs thinking about it!

The pics above are from the top of the hill and looking down onto the sights, like San Francisco on the left behind all the fog. On the right is a pic of some of the sculptures along the trail.

Now, this is what we need more of here where I live super cool looking interactive sculptures. The two discs act like an echo chamber and it’s so good to go in there and sing! This lotus looking sculpture looks like it would spin if it is windy!

A giant pokemon in real life in front of the binoculars

The San Mateo Bridge and a fishing bridge (the old bridge!)

We decided to go and find Project Baycat to see if we could see any cats but unfortunately, they had partied Saturday night and there were no cats to be found. I will just have to go with my friend when she volunteers – I can’t wait! Still, it was a lovely morning to spend with the family in the sunshine.

A beautiful Hindu statue of Vishu, the protector and preserver of the universe, and when someone places his statue at a particular location, it means they’re asking him to watch over the place and its inhabitants, and to ensure harmony – sweet!

And did I say planes – all of the planes that come into SFO fly directly overhead so if you are into watching some planes, check out this Seal Point Park right next to Ryder Park – the water park in the summer!

And speaking of volunteering – this bearded chicken was left by the farm where our coop is and she has been adopted to our flock! In times like these, giving back at a local level is the best thing. I donated cat food to Project Bay Cat and I am still making pussyhats for my friends who supply the yarn and they donate to a non-profit for the hat. My favourite gig of the week volunteering with the kids and teaching them sewing. It is the best thing to see them create with a needle and thread, and a lot of the time I even learn from them!

A piece a Week – Simple T-shirt experiment

March 22, 2016May 28, 2016 | poppypeach

A week of many things to do leads to a simple little project that I found in the Great British Sewing Bee : Sew Your Own Wardrobe. This is a t-shirt I have been wanting to make since I found it in the book as it is such a versatile piece, the bonus is that it has bias binding on the hems so that gave me more time to experiment with bias binding after last weeks project. This is an excellent demonstration piece and next time I know to make this a couple of sizes smaller!

The simple t-shirt in action

This weeks hike we wandered to Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve – another permit required open space managed by Mid Peninsula Open Space. It was an interesting place to explore with ruins of a Jesuit College which opened in 1934 – the college buildings were heavily damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. The Mid Peninsula Open Space acquired the land in 1999 and if you have a permit you are free to explore this space. Wandering the fire roads and through the forest it was extremely fascinating to see what mystery unfolded. We had no idea what used to be there \ and it was interesting what we found and how we put the pieces together. In the end we looked at the Google Map and it said Alma College and we just wanted to find out more… In the link to Alma College it is really interesting to see what the future holds for this land. Also there are some great pictures on what the space looked like before the earthquake. It is now just derelict buildings and warning signs looking through the fences you can see that this was a place that has a lot of history to it, find more images here.

Do Not Enter this space is dangerous – graffiti added to the space

The giveaway that this is an older building – look at the light fitting

Indeed… Explore More…

This looks like a garage that was destroyed

Favorite parts of this hike exploration for me were through the ruins of old bricks and buildings nature still took over. I love how the grasses and moss grew everywhere, my son even found moss growing in an old green bottle we found when we went exploring down a hill to find the flowing creek.

Over time nature just takes over

Moss and graffiti

I like the look of these concrete pipes

“Look, moss is living in this bottle”

We found beer cans, old bottles, tires, rusted oil cans from back in the day that enhanced the experience of adventuring into places where no one visits. I can get used to this kind of hiking with no one else around – in the couple of hours we were there we only saw one horse rider and two horses on the fire road.

Checking out a beer can from 1968 – check out the tab top (ring pull) on the can

When we made it down to the creek

Our snack spot by the creek massive chunks of concrete and rocks form this small waterfall

The ruins with nature growing everywhere

Locked in! The only way to enter is with a key combination

Where a fountain once stood – this bird stretches its wings

With all the rain the spring flowers are in bloom and today I went for a 9.5 mile (15 km) bike ride to Shoreline and found this amazing field of poppies. It was close to the middle of the day (lunchtime = hangry) so I captured what I could on my phone camera and rode on home.

Spring California Poppies Bloom

A bumblebee doing what they do best!

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: