Muir Woods

The weather was looking good and we had a free Saturday, and apparently everyone else in the Bay Area had the same good idea to go to Muir Woods.

One of the hazards of living in such a populated place--the popular nature spots tend to be pretty packed. I'm glad we got there early because we would not have found a place to park if it had been much later.

But even with the lines to park, lines to get in, and lines to take pictures at some of the main spots, it was still an incredible day in the woods.

We saw some REALLY tall trees.

We saw some REALLY strange plants.

We saw some REALLY gross animals.

It was a perfect day. Seriously. I had really high hopes on the drive over when the view of the bay and bridges was so crystal clear, and the weather didn't disappoint.

(We're just a bunch of tree huggers at heart.)

We hiked through the valley

and then headed up one of the trails which got us out of the crowds and into some spots where we were the only people for a minute or two.

We've seen a lot of beautiful things since moving to CA, but this is definitely one of my favorites. 

The kids did the Jr. Ranger program, which meant after finding a bunch of things around the park, they got to be sworn in by a ranger and each received a badge. We've done this at a couple other National Parks, but the badges here were the coolest ones we've seen. They're made of redwood!

Before we left, we drove down to Muir Beach and walked along the little beach, played fetch with someone's dog, and found sea glass. Lucked out with such a sunny, clear day!

 

On the way home, we stopped in Tiburon to grab In-n-Out and so I could show the rest of my family one of my random favorite spots in the Bay Area. When I was in college, one summer I volunteered at the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands one day a week. My shift ended around 3 p.m., which meant I could either fight traffic for a couple hours to get home, or find somewhere to hang out for a few hours. Most weeks, I went to Tiburon and sat on one of the boat docks and read or wrote until rush hour was over. Lots of good memories there. The area was as beautiful as I remembered (and even more expensive.)

I feel so lucky that we live within a couple hours of so many absolutely gorgeous places to visit.

Grizzly Island and Jelly Bellies

Field trip day! This is my favorite day each week. We've skipped a few weeks here and there, but for the most part, I don't want to miss out on actually going somewhere because I feel like we learn a lot more when we're immersed in the subject, and the kids don't drive me crazy when we're not in our house ;).

I had never heard of Grizzly Island Wilderness Area before, but it came up when I was searching for something to do in the northeast part of the Bay Area to make a full day out of the other half of this field trip. And it ended up being an incredible place! Lots of wildlife to explore and places to walk.

First thing we found was this group of swallows. There were several dozen, and they were very difficult to photograph,

but I was happy when I got home and realized that a few of the 50 pictures I took actually had birds in them, and only slightly blurry.

Their nests always amaze me.

Our favorite find of the day--Tule Elk!

I didn't even know there were elk in CA, let alone on the outskirts of the Bay Area, but there is a pretty good sized herd out here. We saw 80 or so, but the females and babies are separate in the spring, so I'm sure there were a lot more hiding.

So wide open and flat!

Lots of other birds, too. We tried to identify as many as we could, but I am not a bird person and it seems really hard to tell a lot of them apart.

Lots of different ducks and geese.

Love this boy, even if he is a pretty challenging person to walk or hike with.

But he is so fun.

The kids had a lot of fun searching for things and trying to identify them.

My birder.

The wildflowers were plentiful, and crazy tall (like in the first picture, where they are towering over the kids). 

It was beautiful.

Pretty weeds.

These Red-shouldered Blackbirds were everywhere.

Peanut had me chasing this moth around for a picture for about 5 minutes. The top of the wings are white, but every time it landed and closed it's wings up, it was camouflaged with the plants. 

Snowy Egret--we found a few of these. 

We never did find a river otter, but we did see a turtle.

And rescued a baby turtle from the road.

And a white pelican. They don't dive like the brown ones on the East Coast, but still fun.

I'm so glad that I stumbled across this spot on the map!

And then it was on to the Jelly Belly Factory. This, I had heard about, but have never been, so I thought it would be fun to take the kids. Who doesn't like to see how something is made, and get some candy, too?

There were several statues made of Jelly Bellies at the very beginning of the self-guided tour.

They also had a lot of this pictures, made of Jelly Bellies--pretty impressive!

We got there right at a shift change, which meant we had to wait around for a bit before they got things running again. And because we tend to take our time pretty much every where we go, we were passed up by two different groups and then were pretty much the last people to leave for the day. It's kind of how we roll.

But it was worth waiting around to see all the equipment in action.

I had no idea it was such a complicated process to make candy. Or that it took several days from start to finish.

Or what millions of Jelly Bellies look like.

I think this was where they were packaging the Belly Flops--the ones that aren't the right size or get stuck together or otherwise to meet the standards.

Another successful field trip! How can you go wrong with elk and a bag of Belly Flops?