Devil's mountain to a heavenly beach

Another exciting weekend. On Saturday, we visited Mount Diablo, over on the eastern side of the bay. This is 3,849 feet high (higher than anything in England or Wales), and you can actually drive right up to the summit, although we also passed lots of brave mountain bikers tackling the long road up. There were a few trails at the top, but mostly we went for the views, which stretched well over 100 miles to the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada in the east, then back at a lesser distance to San Francisco in the west, where it was possible to pick out a tiny Golden Gate Bridge, as well as some other major landmarks. Mount Diablo is part of a huge state park, which holds many other delights, including a bunch of weird rock formations near its southern end, which we also had a look at. The foothills reminded us both of the Derbyshire countryside, albeit cast in a different, Mediterranean-style light.

From Mount Diablo we headed to Berkeley, where I joined up with a German conversation group, which meets once a month in a café there. Meanwhile, Jon went to do his own German homework (I’m teaching him the language at last) on the lawns of the university campus with all the other students. Afterwards we decided to have dinner in the town, and opted for Vietnamese – very tasty!

The clocks went forward on Saturday night, so we had an hour less in bed – boo! Therefore, for the next few weeks until they change in the UK, we’re only seven hours behind. After our customary jog on Sunday, we set out north to Marin County, armed with a walking book I bought from a second-hand bookstore in Berkeley. It was a beautiful day, and the temperatures soon climbed once we were over the bridge in Marin. We took the Tennessee Valley trail down to Tennessee beach, named after a steamship which was shipwrecked just offshore. This was an easy and popular hike through dramatically sculpted hills, past groves of eucalyptus, skirting wide tracts of marshland down to a glimmering lagoon and the ocean beyond. It was a lovely beach with high, multicoloured cliffs on either side, although not safe for swimming because of the powerful currents. It was perfect for a picnic and a spot of sunbathing, though, on what was the hottest day of the year so far. Before heading back, we climbed up through thick vegetation to a lookout point, which afforded superb views. We then continued to Tiburon, a well-heeled community nestled behind Angel Island on the other side of the bay from us. This has a large marina and a pleasant waterfront with an excellent vista of the city. We enjoyed an ice-cream in the late afternoon sunshine while picking out the now familiar landmarks in distant San Fran.

My school volunteering has started, and I’m helping out three mornings a week with a special needs class in a middle school. It can be good fun, but is sometimes a bit mixed – today for example, when perhaps the kids were tired from the hour change. Things have picked up a bit at the nonprofit too – last week I called over forty restaurants to ask them to donate to an event in May. Our Hawaii plans have been dealt a bit of a blow, because it turns out the cheap airline doesn’t fly from any of our nearby airports to the island we’re most interested in, Kauai. We can still go, but it may have to be as part of a package deal, which is by far the most economic way to do it, but doesn’t allow you to stay in out-of-the-way places.

Well, it’s another gorgeous day here – sunny and about twenty-four degrees – so I think I’m going to take my Italian homework to the beach or Washington Square. I'll be publishing more photos on the Fotki site at http://public.fotki.com/EllenHardwick/ (password: moocow) shortly.