Sure, one of my eight bosses was all, "Yeah, I've heard the skiing's great this time of year," but the beauty of Tahoe in the summer is that you get all of the benefits of the place - the gorgeous views, the warm weather - and none of the cons (snow, being cold, the assumption that one will take part in snow-based sports, people driving in snow, etc.).

We randomly chose the greatest trail ever (Shirley Canyon trail starting from Squaw Valley for those interested), which involves half-hiking, half-bouldering your way up 1,300 feet of granite to swim in an alpine lake surrounded by snow-capped peaks.

It was so rewarding and fun that it almost made me feel better about turning my age that I turned, which I'm not going to disclose because it's the same age my mom has remained at for over three decades and hence holds an overwhelming stigma for me. Let's just say that Steve has been warned to call ahead to next year's birthday restaurant and ensure that I'm carded.

Because it is an island, because there is a ferry involved, and because human beings less than five years can ride for less than a latte, Angel Island State Park is teeming with children. The only way to avoid them is to get onto the trail, but before and after that you're waiting in line with them, embarking with them, and riding a boat with them.
Harried moms snipe. Oblivious fathers wield thousand dollar cameras like mechanical dicks jousting from their torsos, stopping after each shot to judiciously examine the result as if we were at the Olympics, or in Fallujah, and not on a sun-dappled California island with a grand total of two native mammals. Most of the people who seem like they're having a good time haven't reached their teenage years yet, and even then it's a frantic sort of fun, a let-out-of-one's cage frenzy. There are two distinct camps of children being herded off the ferry by their parents: the ones for whom there will be a Safeway-sponsored picnic on the goose-excrement covered lawn, and maybe a stroll towards the eucalyptus groves if nobody screams too much, and the ones with bought-new bicycles and miniature internal frame packs that they'll outgrow within a year. These latter families will be purchasing $8 kid's entrees at the Cove Cafe.

"YAWWRPRP" says a toddler sitting across from me on the ride back, loosening my stirrup from my anvil. His father bypasses any proactive attempt to parent and instead threatens that the only real authority figure present, the captain, will throw him overboard if he doesn't be quiet.

How to get back into the trail after snakeophobia rears its ugly head:

Step 1. Pick a short one so that you can make it back to the trailhead in decent time if you lose your shit.

Step 2. Pick a well-traveled area so that someone else scares the snake away and/or encounters it before you do.

Step 3. Make sure there's tasty huckleberries on the way.

Other bonuses: a couple of high school friends perched on a tree branch self-consciously bantering their way towards LUV; electric dryness and tannins in the air that reminded me of fall in Tennessee; and a middle-aged hippie biking up Skyline Boulevard with his middle-aged collie trotting alongside an open trailer-buggy that she'd no doubt jump into when she got too tired.

I'm flailing my arms around me like a convulsive and twitching my head to the side in what has to be a really unattractive manner and generally feeling very violated because if there's one thing that hasn't been a problem in California it's bugs and now even that was a lie. Cows bucolically graze on steep brushy hills and every once in a while there's some pissed-off lowing in the distance because somebody's dog found the herd.

The mild terror that's been constricting my throat for the past mile after encountering not one but two snakes is starting to turn into a headache and it's making me sloppy; I've already missed three sticks that totally would have sank their twiggy little fangs into to me had they not been figments of my very active imagination. And of course no one knows where I am, I live alone and didn't even send an email saying where I would be and now I have no signal on either cell phone and when they find my venom-riddled body they won't even know who I am because I left my wallet in the car to lighten up my pack.
Every leaf pile and root hides an anaconda-sized rattlesnake and every branch is an opportunity for a stealth attack, even though I know they're not aggressive or even tree-climbers, and every law and theory about where a snake can hide is front and center in my brain: rocks for warmth, shade for coolness, grass to catch prey. I'm surrounded by rocks and shade and grass and the headache is making me lightheaded and THIS is how to properly freak oneself out while hiking alone.

I don't know if it was the Easter weekend that brought out the crazies or what (did anyone else know that Easter is based on moon phases? sounds pretty secular to me, people), but I saw the following things on the trail: a) a woman who was definitely an octogenarian, b) a man walking barefoot (and it wasn't all service/fire trail), and c) a stroller - who knew there was a couple in the Bay Area too cheap to buy a hiking backpack for their kid.

Anyway, wildflower report: very good. I'm betting we'll hit spectacular in about two weeks.