 Yesterday, my daughter and I both finished school for the year. Although I have work to do still, I submitted the final grades last night to the registrar for all the classes that I teach, and she had her last Zoom circle for her toddler class of the 2019-2020 year. So we decided to celebrate today by exploring a new park: Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, which offers amazing views of the San Pablo Bay and the mountains to the west in Marin County, such as Mount Tamalpais.
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 Last weekend I went on an introductory hike to Black Diamond Mines Regional Park in Antioch. It was a very cool hike that included a first for me: I hiked through a ~160 year old tunnel driven by prospectors looking for commercial grade coal! To see more photos and read a summary of my hike, click "read more" below.
 Hayward Regional Shoreline is much, much nicer than I assumed it would from driving past it on the San Mateo Bridge. I had seen the Hayward Shoreline Interpretative Center, and I assumed that this was the only way to reach the park. The center itself looks nice enough, but the trails would almost certainly be noisy due to the traffic from the freeway. It turns out that there are actually three entrances to the park. I took the one on West Winton Avenue, and it was really beautiful--no traffic noise at all, but just lots of gorgeous marsh grasses and shorebirds in Cogswell Marsh.
 Ardenwood Historic Farm has become one of my family's absolute favorite activities for the weekend. It seems like most people associate this fantastic EBRPD park with its fall Harvest Festival, so it tends to be less crowded than Tilden's Little Farm. We had another lovely adventure this Saturday: we toured the Patterson House for the first time.
 The last time I was at Alviso Adobe Community Park was when I was with my dad, who took some lovely photos of a striking sycamore tree in the large field across from the adobe house. This time, I actually went into the park itself to see the historic building, an adobe built in 1854 during California's Spanish-Mexican Rancho Era. This is one of the few remaining adobe houses in the Bay Area.
 Today was my daughter's birthday, and she loves trains. So to celebrate, I took her to the California State Railroad Museum which is part of the Old Sacramento State Historic Park. I had been here before--my husband and I used to live in Sacramento--but this was her first visit, and it was a HUGE success! Choo choo!
 Despite flawless weather, I did not have the best day today at Garin Park, one of the two parks in the complex of Garin/Dry Creek Pioneer Parks. I made the most of it, but I was really off my game.
Most of the land around Sunol is owned by the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which manages reservoirs and water in the area. Although it seems like this place would be loaded with hiking trails, most of it is actually off limits to the public to protect the water running through Alameda Creek. Although you can drive through the canyon, the train gets you closer to some of the area's natural beauty. It was such a pleasure to finally do this, especially because this year is the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad, and this line was originally the westernmost portion of the transcontinental railroad. It's a bit of living history.
Click "read more" to see more photos of the ride.  Sibley Volcanic Preserve is part of the East Bay Regional Park district. It neighbors Huckleberry Botanic Preserve in the Oakland hills near the Montclair Village. This 2-mile loop around an ancient volcano is an easy, flat, one-hour hike that features lots of gorgeous wildflowers in the spring.
 Today, I treated myself to the featured trail at Brushy Peak Regional Park recommended by the EBRPD for their 2019 Trails Challenge. I have been wanting to do this hike since January, when I visited the park but could not complete the trail due to the mud. It was lovely to visit the park when it was dryer and warmer, and when the wildflowers were blooming!
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