What a
strange weekend. Yesterday early a.m. I went for a
hike up on
Skyline, and here's what I found....an
entire tree had been
uprooted and fallen on one half of the road.
Then, after having an absolutely lovely time making
sugar skulls for
Dia de Los Muertos at
Corazon del Pueblo on International Blvd., as I was getting into my car, an SUV-ish type vehicle
could not wait for me to close my door and decided to squeeze by....which wasn't possible and so
practically took my door off. The
door got munched - thankfully none of us was hurt - and the driver proceeded to speed off.
Dummy. Did he think I couldn't see far away enough to capture his license plate number? So I
waited for an hour for the police to arrive, and when they didn't, I had to hightail it home anyway because Scott and I were due in Nicasio (West Marin) for a
fundraiser for
Gavin Newsom. The good news is that we got there just after he did (even though we were an hour and a half late!) so didn't miss a thing. We then decided to drive back through
San Francisco (stopping to eat at
PlumpJack just to make it a
full-on Newsom-supported evening) and stay the night....(highly recommend the new
Hotel Vitale at the Embarcadero), and this early a.m., Scott and I went for a walk over to
Pacific Heights, and saw
this car. Upon further investigation we discovered that it was a
matching planter to one that still remained in
front of the doorway of the large apartment building right on the corner where this car was parked. I would have felt tremendously sorry for the owner of this vehicle, however, I had (have) it fresh in my mind that I, in fact, will probably see this person in the
insurance office first thing Monday morning as well. Like I said, strange weekend.....and there's not even a
full moon.
Today I finally decided I needed to find the labyrinth inside Sibley Regional Volcanic Preserve. It never fails that when I'm on a walk, either through Sibley, or on Skyline outside of Sibley, someone stops to ask me if I know where it is. In fact, I never knew it existed until I read about it on the Walking Berkeley blog (this is the post where I also began my web circumnavigation ultimately finding my way to my Wednesday morning hiking group). Quite frankly, I am not a big fan of Sibley. I've always found it somewhat ugly....lots of wide fire-road sized trails, and really rocky. It looks like what it is....a former quarry. Amazingly, however, the Bay Area Ridge Trail is quite
lovely through Sibley. It's between the Huckleberry and Tilden portions, and it's probably the most forest-looking part in all of Sibley. Scott and Ry went off, once again, to mountain bike in Redwood, so Si and I decided the girls were going for a hike to find this labyrinth. Fortunately I did my research online before leaving, and found out that there are actually six labyrinths throughout the park, with the Mazzariello Labyrinth being the largest of the six. According to Friends of the Labyrinth, it was originally created by Helena Mazzariello (of Montclair, natch), as a classical earthen labyrinth, but was added to by 
various hikers until it became the rock labyrinth that it now is. Also, apparently "the mere presence of the Mazzariello Labyrinth violates laws and codes of the East Bay Regional Park District. Although warmly embraced by some park officials, their sanctions of the Labyrinth are unofficial." No wonder it's not on any of the official maps or web pages. The top picture is the Mazzariello Labyrinth, as is the one with Si placing an offering, which had fallen off, back on the altar in the middle. If you look closely, the other picture is of Si in one of the smaller labyrinths above the Mazzariello Labyrinth you can see beyond. It's a very easy and enjoyable hike, and I highly recommend it if you want to spend a little outdoor time in a peaceful and meditative space.
