Today I got up earlier than I even would to get up for work on a normal day.  Tomorrow I’ll be getting up around 5am to catch the plane back – so knew I had to “adjust” accordingly.  The weather today was a little better than yesterday, but we made our plans without knowing that it would turn out that way.

We headed straight for Ventana Canyon.  The first mile or so of the trail has been sold to private owners, so an easement (think “public beach access”) was created to let people still get to the canyon.  This was often lame, as the first half mile was spent hiking next to condominium parking lots.  For another mile each side of the trail had a fence.

After that came a concentration camp style twisty fence intended to keep bicycles and animals out out of the canyon.    The trail twisted back and forth over the dry creek.  The creek at this point was the most interesting part and I wished I could just hike it instead of the dirt trail as it was full of interesting boulders.  As we slowly climbed in elevation we ran into more and more rocks of interesting varieties, (quartz, mica, granite, etc.)

Next the trail took us on a zig-zag all the way up the mountain.  There were many little “vistas” to stop and take a breather and look down on the valley.  At various points the sun would make an appearance and then quickly disappear again.  Looking out on this rippling pattern over the flat valley and lower canyon reminded me of the waves of light on a dusty shallow sea floor.

Zen parents:

After hiking for two hours we reached the top of the first hill/mountain in the canyon.  There are many trails that branch off two more miles up, but we decided to turn back as there would be no way we could get back to the car before 2pm, and we hadn’t eaten since 7am.  Here is the view from the top (or at least the “first” top – the trail kept on going up after turning back down for a bit):

I stopped on a flat rock on my way back down and did some meditating of my own.  My parents were already far far down the trail.  My dad used his super zoom lens and took this photo:

Here is how far away he really was (look for the little black dot near the middle of the photo):

I took the creek bed back as far as I could – hopping back and forth down massive boulders.  I suppose on a hot day it would be fantastic to go UP the creek, cooling off in the water while climbing up through.

looking back at the dry creek bed boulders:

For a late lunch we went back to an Italian place called Caruso’s on 4th street.  Dad and I then went up to the Park Place mall to watch Avatar.  After our minds were blown my mom took us to Jamba Juice before going home to pack and get to bed early for the long day ahead tomorrow (my plane ticket says “seat: N/A” .. should I be worried?).