Sanborn Drive: On a Roll!

It took some coaxing to get my mom up to the park today in the fog, where we could give her her birthday present. At first she was trepidatious of her new rollator (we're calling it her roly poly) but soon she wouldn't stop for anything but the season's first mushrooms.

Mushrooming is a family tradition, so seeing my old mom, aunts and uncles on their knees trying to identify today's featured fungus was a fun blast from the past. There was a group of them that Google Lens helped identify as either Russula cyanoxantha or Booted Knight (Tricholoma focale).

We rolled past a flurry of activity up at the native plant nursery; Friends of Sausal Creek is a group that protects the watershed and propagates native plants (other than funghi). They have workdays every Wednesday and today, in the eerie fog, they were merrily plopping little seedlings along the fence where informative labels will tell you what they are. 

We got as far as the funeral pyre (there wouldn't be much to see at Lookout Point today) and turned around to come back up the hill. Mom was feeling so energized by being outside that she started chasing us with her new wheels, laughing and playing.  

Above us the coastal redwoods dripped their own captured rain. Unlike other plants they don't just take in water from their roots; their leaves sip on fog. This is happy weather for the redwoods, and we all felt their joy. People seemed to mushroom out of the fog today, smiles pushing their way to the surface. I passed a baby in a stroller with a plastic cocoon. The dad pushed it by at a run, wheels spraying up droplets. 

When we got back to the parking lot, there were wheels everywhere! A van full of bikers were circling the open area, preparing for a drippy, cool ride, even though it's ill advised to ride until 48 hours after a rain. I know bikers love mud, but this many of them will sadly do a lot of damage today.