Coming or Going?

...or both?  Some days are just like that....

These signs face off at an especially steep curve on the road to Hood Mountain Regional Park at the top of Los Alamos Road. It is only a mile from our house as the proverbial crow flies, but as OilMan's Ford Fusion goes it's more like five miles of steep winding road, much of it with the added excitement of being single track.

You never know whether you will meet a propane truck, a charging bull, a slow moving tractor,  or group of cyclists toiling up or barreling down. We were trying to imagine as we drove up this morning what the road must have been like  when it was used to transport bulldozers and other heavy fire fighting equipment up to the  Hood Mountain site.

There is a surprising number of driveways and mailboxes along this road, for there are very few visible houses. Most of them are hidden in the trees or down steep hills which I would never want to negotiate in the rain, at night or even to go to the store.

On a sunny morning, however, it was well worth the trip for the walk down the hill to the head of the Santa Rosa Creek, the same creek that runs beside our street. A man with a stick overtook us as we trudged back up the hill with Ozzie and OilMan said, 'We're just trying to encourage the old dog to go back up the hill.' The man said, 'you must be talking about me....'  He then disappeared up the hill ahead of us.

I'm making the first batch of ratatouille with the produce from the garden using the ripening tomatoes before the birds finish them off.