April 5, 2006 Day 4

clear all day.
Temperatures 60-65.
Once again woke up to the sound of raindrops pounding on the roof. Not at all encouraging...

The good news today was that by the time we had parked our car at Coyote Hills and returned the Hayward Regional Shoreline Park Headquarters to start the day's ramble, the rain had stopped. We still carried our rain gear, but did not need it and that was great. We were joined today by Donna's JMT hiking buddy, Katy, who is now 6 months pregnant.

We still needed our warm coats, as the wind was blowing and it was cold. The trail for the first few miles passed through wetlands and we had a great time looking at all the waterfowl. Telling Katy about putting on Muir eyes, we also saw lots of little wildflowers, few were natives, but still they were beautiful. Everything was pretty flat, so all day we could watch the Coyote Hills get closer.

We left the shoreline, passed over the highway to the Dumbarton Bridge and rambled for some time through a series of industrial business parks. There were lots of "for lease" signs. One claimed to have 1,126,000 square feet. That is a lot of feet of building. The factory building that John Muir worked in for the Trouts' in Canada was 12 by 18 feet, 216 square feet. We wondered what he would think.

There were not sidewalks, but there wasn't any traffic (remember all the vacancy?) so walking was easy. We left the commercial area by following train tracks, and got out to the wetlands again. The sky was grey, but the air was calm, and there was a nice path beside the tracks so we had a pleasant walk, looking at all the junk laying around all the dilapidated buildings that lined the tracks.

We then left the tracks and walked for about a mile and a half along Union City Road. Again the road was lined with housing tracts, each encircled, like a fortress by ten foot stone faced concrete walls. There were sidewalks, so walking was pleasant, but the never-ending concrete wall started to get on our nerves. Where did all that stone come from and why put it all here, and were the walls to keep us out or them in?

We ended the day walking into the lush green Coyote hills, which was like paradise after all those tracts and walls. It was about a 12 mile ramble.

That evening, Jonathon Jones, from the Fremont Argus, contacted us to see if he could hike with us for a few hours tomorrow, saying he wanted to write a story about us. Of course to join us for a few hours meant that he had to get shuttled from where he ended back to his car, so he experienced firsthand the logistical challenges that we face. It would also mean that we could ask him to shuttle us back to the our car at the end of the day, and so logisitics would be taken care of tomorrow.

day 4 Muir Walk