The California desert

Saturday, 4 January 2014

Hoping to keep the knee happy, I hiked the outer periphery of trails at Arastradero. Sounds impressive, but Arastradero is a small preserve, and its trail circumference is only 5.7 miles, 700 vertical feet.

It is surely unprecedented to see sprinklers running in January, and not for some lush lawn of Kentucky bluegrass, but for the hardy drought-resistant California natives. The absence of rain this year is a real concern.

And the outback isn’t very interesting, either, dry and sleepy, holding its breath for rejuvenation.

Sunday, 5 January

Knee seems okay, so I tried a moderate bike ride, 36 miles, 1200 feet of climb. Lots of people out doing it, another nice day.

But I also went up to inspect the roof, just in case it might rain again someday. Went for some roof patch compound where there are some things I don’t like around the solar hot water panels, and caulked them.