Wintertime can be a warm, cozy time to cuddle up with a good book near a warm (only on good air quality day) fire but let’s be real, that’s more likely to happen in the book you are reading than on a rainy winter day in the Bay Area with an extremely active six year…
Oh, this little park. If you hail from anything other than the micro-local (like you live within 5 miles), it’s possible you have never heard of this park. And yet, it’s a perfect place to come hiking and outdoorsing with children. Kennedy Grove is off San Pablo Dam Rd, between Richmond and Orinda, with just…
When I was growing up, my parents took us backpacking in the Sierras every summer. We usually base camped at a lake, and as people familiar with Sierra lakes know, many of them are in basins carved out by glaciers. This means that quite a few Sierra lakes involve a tough climb during the last…
We’ve talked about how much we love #CitizenScience on this blog before. And it’s true. We do. We participated in the Northern California v. Southern California citizen species identification challenge (hope they’re doing it again this year…) and in this current political climate, we can’t do enough to promote science, if you ask us. The…
OK, OK. We were really going to post more about this challenge of getting a little wildness into the 30 days of June. And then it was the end of the school year. And, well, writing blog posts just kind of went out the window. HOWEVER. I am happy to report that we have, in…
OK, my friends! Tomorrow, June 1st, is the first day of 30 Days Wild! What is 30 Days Wild, you ask? It’s a thing (movement? experience? challenge?) that was started by The Wildlife Trusts, in the United Kingdom. The goal is to get outside in some kind of wildness (totally subjective and open to interpretation)…
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and… the kids? While it may not ever show up in “10 ways to woo your spouse,” weeknight picnics with the entire family can be a way of squeezing in a little more outside time. School nights can be packed with homework and feel stuffed to the…
If you have been out on the trails lately, you might have noticed that certain of them are flanked by fungi. I do not claim to be a mushroom expert, but I do encourage you to get out soon and look for some of these fantastic growths. (Let me be clear– I am not encouraging you…
One of my favorite childhood pictures is of me and my dad kneeling by the side of a ditch looking for frogs. What strikes me most about that photo is the fact that it is not based on the location. It is a father and son looking into a small piece of the world to…
Hiking with anyone ages 18 months (give or take a few months) to 8 or 9 years old can be a lesson both in cultivating patience, and in appreciating the journey. As adults we often slip into the mode of destination hiking, cruising the trails with an end result in mind, often passing right by a…
Bay Area Families Outside 