Dry Creek Regional park - a hike to remember

Last weekend I was given a surprisingly low estimate for an afternoon hike to a place called Dry creek.. the name was not a best seller. Was also told it was past Fremont and an hours ride away. No shade and mostly dry hills but with a nice view of the bay. 

Was even given an option to bail out of this at first.. San then did what she usually does.. bat her eyelids and make a face about me being sore company and I thought, what the hell! We are going on a Sunday evening so it is not going to be hot by the time we start and we will come down watching the sunset! 

It ended up being one of the best hikes in recent memory, thanks to a surprising bloom of yellow and orange flowers everywhere on the first hillside. Then we ended up crossing the place where all the local Afghanis fly kites and run a flea market of sorts from their suitcases... (we had read about it in Khalid Hosseni's book Kite Runner, but got to see it first hand!) 

It didn't end there. We managed to go up all the way to the rim, catch a view of the rolling green hills, see all the way to SFO and Oakland and crossed a creek to get to a little lake that was beautiful.

The photo below is my attempt at some artistry, trying to catch a shadow of the four of us walking on the rim of a hill that was cast all the way on the other hill..

Then we walk down watching the sunset, while taking pictures!

Only downside was that the sun was on our face the entire time and my face became a bright orange the next day.. and as luck would have it, made it into the hot room the next day and flushed myself inside out with sweat. The Aloe Vera lotion was no longer required! 

a shot of our friends as they came up the hill..

Green never looked this good..the sunset made everything so vibrant!

This was taken at a place called Gossip rock..

kept clicking every 5 minutes as we raced down.. we wanted to get at least close to the parking lot before it got dark. Sunset was 7:30! We had to make it down by 8. Used iPhone flashlights to practically run down the last mile and a half.

and my favorite shot for the evening..

Even for March this was not easy in the heat. We hiked form 5-8 in the evening and were way more tired than any of the previous hikes. So definitely wouldn't go again during the day unless it is in winter and on a cloudy day. The area is pretty barren. So no chance for shade anywhere! We didn't see any kids on the trail either. It was a pretty steep climb that reminded us of the climb to Mission peak. 

Breathtaking views of the bay at sunset. On a cloudy day, it would be even more spectacular.

We keep finding these interesting places within an hour from our place, after living here for more than 2 decades! It took a pandemic for us to explore home! 

Difference between hearing and listening

The yoga practice has continued at home for the most part over the last two weeks, even though the studio is open again with limited capacity. 

The first few days I was simply not fast enough to get on the waitlist and then given my zen place, decided to do yoga alone at home to recorded classes. 

The last few zoom classes my teacher has been trying to give me very precise instructions on one pose. 

The balancing stick pose (Tuladandasana) which is a short and sweet pose. . . no I am kidding. We are talking Bikram hot yoga. There is nothing sweet about it. It is a time lapse trip to hell and back in 10 seconds, and that is my PG version. 

The idea is to stand on one leg and stretch the hands and legs like you are the rope in a tug of war competition. The number one thing that puts anyone on guard in a hot yoga class is "lock the knee" which sometimes is also refered to as "lock the damn knee" etc. So whenever the teacher mentions locking the knee, or using your inner thighs etc. the brain automatically thinks "standing leg" or the "balancing leg" that is usually unlocked. 

Turns out my teacher was talking about the stretching leg. She even told me in two classes back to back "use the inner thighs on the left leg and lift it". I heard it and processed it as "Sarah has got the legs mixed up again. I am standing on my right leg and lifting up my thighs all I can but nothing is moving!" 

Then in an act of coincidence, when I was in zombie autopilot mode for a fraction of a second, I let the brain process what had just been heard and accidentally realized that she was indeed talking about my left leg! 

She had practically given me a "paint by numbers" type instruction and I had still managed to $#% it up two days in a row!

Funny thing is that the correction made me balance easier and I was not killing my ankles and feet trying to lift from the bottom part of the leg. 

The fact that she literally has to beat it into me, on zoom, three days in a row is a testament to the perseverence of the teachers! 

Today I was part of a livestream class where you watch the people in the hot room and join the class. The teacher cannot see me on video as they are in the room. Sarah knew I was in the zoom version of the class and she gave me the exact same correction, even though she couldn't see me! This time I was ready and doing it right. Had even practiced it a few times yesterday. 

Here is a video showing a before and after.

Normally you take the step everytime you go down but I planted my front foot down in the video for a reason. That way I can superimpose the two versions in photoshop easily..

The other interesting thing is that this concept works well in two of the four poses in the spine strengthening series where you have to lift your leg and push it towards the back!

Some of you might be thinking "hasn't this guy been doing this 2000+ times over 10 years? he must be the worlds dumbest student". Well, I think that sometimes too but then realize that it has nothing to do with the effort or dedication or what type of intelligence you have.

It all has to do with registering certain things. Watching someone end up in a pose just tells you the end result. Which muscles they used to get there is not obvious. They might explain the body mechanics and practially give you very specific instructions but we are inherently biased. We put filters between what we hear and what we actually process in our heads!

I am happy to have realized this. This is not the first time there has been a lightbulb moment and this surely won't be the last. 

Just cannot wait for going into the studio and embrace the heat and humidity! 

When I am teaching something to my kids, by the third time my voice or body language shows my frustration as a teacher and my kids pick up on it! 

A big thanks to my teacher for being soo persistent and patient, even when she could see that I simply was not getting it, days at a time! 

SFO-day trip- Painted steps

This is a continuation of yesterday's post on the San Francisco day trip to Presidio Park and the hike on Lover's lane. 

After our lunch at Gracias Madre, we went to visit the Painted steps on 16th avenue also refered to as the Painted Mosaic or Tiled steps. 

This is our second visit the steps and I remembered visiting the steps within a few months after they had just been created and opened to the public. We had visited this with San's cousins family and had a lot of fun taking pictures. Kept searching the blog and found nothing! Then saw a few photos from FB. Then spent an hour trying to figure out why I never posted anything, or if it was one of those things where the submit button was never pressed!

Turns out our first visit was on Labor day of 2014. That 4th of July was my fateful trip to India (the plane with engine failure trip as I call it), followed by a last minute trip to Jaipur, flying to Taiwan with 3 hour window after landing in Mumbai, coming back to bay area only to realize MIL had a cancer scare, presenting at a conference while all this was going on.. it was a rollercoaster of a month and somehow, there was a "post backlog"! This photo stood out!

Looking back we visited the hidden garden stairs which was done in 2013. There are three such tiled steps in SFO. Two around 16th street and one 4 miles away in Lincoln park. We visited the two steps in 16th street yesterday.

The first one goes up from Moraga and 16th up a block. It is beautiful and has no bends. you can see all the way to the top. Once you go to the top, you go right a hundred feet and there is another step that leads up to the next street and a staircase that takes you to the top of that hill. 

The views from this point are amazing! you see the ocean, downtown, the layers of buildings on the hill and it takes your breath away!

This is from the top after climbing the 16th avenue steps. 

Once you go to vista point two roads up you see this..

Once we spent some time at the top, we came back down to 16th Avenue and after walking two blocks, we walked down the hidden garden steps. This one bends around and is also very beautiful. 

Took some pictures on the stairs.. (San did take some pictures of me for a change and that moment was captured!)

We had some homemade tea and snacks, courtesy of our friends and drove back. San Francisco is beautiful and we suburbanites have not explored this big city at all. Having lived here for more than 2 decades, we have come to the realization that there is plenty of sight seeing left to do in SFO!

We can do it, one vista point at a time!