My roommate Sam is an experienced downhill mountain biker and she asked me if I wanted to give it a go. Considering my sad attempts at dirt biking, I was pretty nervous but I wanted to give it a try. She took me to a good beginner spot in Pacifica, called the Boy Scout trail. We walked our bikes up to the top of the trail, which had some really amazing views of Pacifica and Montara Mountain (which I intend to hike at some point as well).

Oops, did I not do anything for over a month? Anyways, my company has been nice enough to give us periodic “Friyays” where we get some Fridays off to just relax and do whatever. I wanted to get out of the house after a week of virtual chatting and staring at computer screens so I opened up my 20 State Parks in 2020 goal document and selected Butano State Park as today’s destination.

Muir Beach is situated nearby Muir Woods and Mt. Tamalpais. The beach and hiking trails were open but Muir Woods itself is currently closed. Even in June we encountered 60 degree F temperature and TONS of fog. There were still people attempting to enjoy a beach day though, and the parking lot was full. In this picture you can kind of see how many people were there. Lot’s of people in shorts and swimsuits that I felt sorry for.

California is in phase 2 of COVID recovery which is great, it means we’re at a pretty safe hospital capacity AND tracks are starting to allow trackdays again. My brother Sam is associated with Carters at the Track as an instructor so it made a lot of sense for this to be my first trackday since getting back from Texas. I can’t find any previous blog posts about trackdays, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that I’ve been doing trackdays at the pace of one a year (usually around this time of year, too) for the past four years.

It’s been a bit of a long weekend so I’ll be keeping this short. Corte de Madera Creek Preserve is open to hiking with proper social distancing. The bathrooms were closed but we didn’t end up needing them. This is another park that’s right off Skyline in Woodside, so very conveniently located. There’s actually about 30 miles of hiking trail. In my opinion the trails are pretty confusing and the map is pretty cramped.

My big news is that I relocated to San Francisco from Austin, Texas as of Monday! This really threw a wrench in my whole plan to “appreciate Texas more” but stars aligned and here I am! Kind of terrible timing, really, with Coronavirus, to be moving to the Bay Area. Anyways, since 20 parks in 2020 isn’t happening for Texas state parks, I’m shifting gears to a 20 park in California 2020 goal.

I was in the Bay Area from Thursday to Monday but I had the FLU so I’m just going to write one blog post because I was pretty much dead for the entire time. Thursday morning was when the flu hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought my head was exploding, I was sweaty and weak and had no appetite. For some hilarious reason I thought I had food poisoning, so I just popped an advil and got on the airplane and hoped for the best.