Visiting a pair of old friends in the East Bay a couple of Sundays ago, I suggested a nature hike, "ideally with no dogs, bicyclists, or elevation change."
(All photos by Austin Newsom and Jim Roach.)
They knew just the place, Tilden Park in the Berkeley Hills.
Like many other Shelter-in-Placers, sluggishness has become the new normal.
Navigating our new pandemic reality has conjured up all varieties of new etiquettes, and it was a joy to see most fellow hikers slipping on masks when they got too close to each other on a narrow pathway.
I had not been to Tilden Park since the 1980s when I occasionally golfed at their rough-and-ready municipal course in a gorgeous canyon, and had forgotten what a treasure the unmanicured park can be.
We are going to have to figure out how to be outdoors together in a safe way because we need nature and we need other people. Creating those new protocols is going to be fascinating, a mixture of science and creativity.
On the way home, we stumbled into the BLM protest on the Bay Bridge where 50 vehicles blocked westbound traffic, and inched across the span for three hours. Possibly because the near-solstice sunset kept us gloriously entertained, the stranded vehicular crowd stayed mellow during the inconvenience, and a few cars turned up the music and made it an excuse for a dance party.
Nice banana slug!
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