 Alviso Marina County Park is one of the key gateways to Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge; specifically, it is near the Environmental Education Center in Alviso. The refuge is very large (30,000 acres) and has several access points; I liked this one a lot--much better than Ravenswood and as much as Coyote Hills. The birds here were TRULY spectacular. This is a birder's paradise!
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 Doran Regional Park is one of the first parks that you will encounter if you head into Bodega Bay on Highway from the south. It's a great place to stop to see the boats coming in and out of Bodega Bay, or you can scope out the birds on the Bird Walk Coastal Access Trail. Then, to scope out the other side of "Bodega Head," get back on Highway 1 for just a bit and take a left onto Bay Flat Road and follow it to the end of Westshore Road, where you can access Campbell Cove, a part of the Sonoma Coast State Park.
 Another post that's really a throw-back to an earlier trip. This was a trip to Lovers Point Park, in Pacific Grove (a neighborhood in Monterey) in April of 2015. The ice plants were blooming in abundance on that trip, and it was just gorgeous to stroll along the waterfront and admire the bright pink.
 I've been sprucing up the website over the past month, and while doing that I stumbled upon some photos of Yosemite from 2011. The waterfalls that year were so nice, that I thought I would post a throwback blogpost!
 Coyote Point Recreation Area is one of the best places to bring kids (of all ages) in the Bay! There is just so much to do and see here! There are several playgrounds (one very big one named Magic Kingdom), a small zoo/science museum called the CuriOdyssey, fantastic views of the bay from the Bluff and Promenade Trails, fragrant eucalyptus forests, a marina with beautiful boats, lots of picnic areas, and cool planes flying overhead every few minutes to land at nearby SFO.
 Filoli is a living museum of an early twentieth-century "country estate" that was built by a man who became enormously rich from owning the Empire Mine, one of the most successful gold mines in California. He went on to become a captain of industry in other ways too (shipping companies and water companies, etc.). The enormity of his wealth is apparent in this summer home that he built for his family. The majority of the museum is focused on the house and especially the fabulous gardens, but there is a truly lovely one-mile nature hike that is worth checking out too!
 Footholds carved into the soft sandstone after repeated use Mount Diablo is an incredible state park in the east bay. The State Park service has the following write-up about the mountain on their website:
At the eastern fringe of the San Francisco Bay Region, Mount Diablo, elevation 3,849 feet, stands alone on the edge of California’s great Central Valley. At this point, the Coast Range consists only of low hills, none high enough to block the view from the upper slopes of the mountain. As a result, the view is spectacular… you can look to the west, beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, to the Farallon Islands; southeast to the James Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton at 4,213 feet elevation; south to Mount Loma Prieta in the Santa Cruz Mountains at 3,791 feet elevation; north to Mount Saint Helena in the Coast Range at 4,344 feet, and still farther north to Mount Lassen in the Cascades at 10,466 feet. North and east of Mount Diablo, the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers meet to form the twisting waterways of the Delta. To the east beyond California’s great Central Valley, the crest of the Sierra Nevada seems to float in space. With binoculars, you may even be able to pick out Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. My daughter and I did go to the summit, but it was too hazy to see the views described above (which are probably most visable on a clear winter day after a rain storm). Instead, we spent the majority of our time at the fabulous "Rock City" near the southern gates of the park. These are large outcroppings of ancient sandstone that have been carved into fabulous shaped by wind erosion and human use (including Miwok grinding stones). The aptly named "Trail Through Time" takes you on a great tour of these awesome rocks.  Not a hike, but a stop along the coastal highway along Big Sur, Bixby Bridge is a photogenic site to take in the beauty of the central coast.
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