Fast Weekend, Slow Weekend; Hot Weekend, Cold Weekend

The last two weekends are a study in contrasts. Two weekends ago, with the 4th of July holiday making it a long one, we had a busy time. We flew up to Portland and drove around Oregon, to go hiking on waterfalls trails among other things. We saw not just 2 or 3 waterfalls, or even 5, but eighteen. We came home achy and spent on Tuesday. And it was hot. It was hot up there, it was hot back here at home. It was quite a contrast to the March/April weather we've been having since... well, March/April.

This past weekend was the opposite of all that. First, the temps cooled down even in advance of the weekend. Friday it barely hit 71° here, Saturday and Sunday were about the same. Oh, it was sunny and beautiful looking outside, the feel just didn't match the visuals. We tried heading to Santa Cruz on Saturday morning anyway to walk the beach cliffs but bailed out of that when we saw that the traffic was getting insane. It'd take us two hours to drive to the beach 30 miles away. WTF is everyone jamming up the roads to go there when it's barely 60° at the coast?

Bailing out of going to Santa Cruz set the tone for the rest of the weekend. We took it easy. That's not a bad thing; we did get some stuff done. It just wasn't... epic... like those eighteen waterfalls.

And speaking of March/April weather, it's back. Sunday we visited some friends near San Francisco, where the temps didn't even reach 60. As I texted a friend when we were meeting for lunch who was running late....



Worse, it wasn't just winter-like temps up there, it was socked in with fog up there and lightly raining off and on. Fuck this winter weather in July!

I didn't let the unseasonable weather deter me from dressing like it's summer. Even after I checked the forecast for that area I refused to change out of the shorts and light shirt I dressed in for weather at home. "Dress for the weather you want, not the weather you've got!" I figured. 🤣

Whitehorse Falls

By the time we finished our fourth waterfall hike of the day, the towering Watson Falls, last Monday Hawk and I were feeling pretty tired. And I still had two more hike-y falls to go on my list! 😰 It was obvious that we'd need to swap in some mostly drive-to falls or risk having to call it a day already. Fortunately, I found two drive-to falls nearby thanks to a reminder from two fellow hikers who'd done every trail we had so far today. The first of these was Whitehorse Falls.



Whitehorse Falls isn't technically drive-to in the sense of being able to see it from inside a car. You have to park, get out, and walk maybe 50 meters to a viewing platform above the falls. There's also an obvious trail down to the water's edge. I made some picture from up above then checked the vantage from water's edge (shown above) and found I liked it better.

While I was still good for short jaunts like this, Hawk said she was basically done-done for the day. She didn't join me in scrambling down to the water. I suggested we take the remaining hikes one-at-a-time, easiest ones first, and see what we could handle. I had serious doubts I'd get through my whole list at that point.