Anthony Chabot: Just a quick 45 minute drive from San Francisco in the Oakland area, this would be perfect for a quick, last minute camping trip. There are a number of available campsites in the next couple of months and it got good reviews on Yelp. Here is a good link for the various trails near the campground. This location would probably get pretty hot in the summer months so it might be a good escape from the summer San Francisco fog.

Mount Tamalpais: This is a short walk-in site campground with only 7 sites. It is booked on the weekends for the next couple months. This is where James and I camped in January 2011 and got poison ivy. It’s a nice secluded campground, though, with lots of privacy.

Samuel P Taylor SP: This campground is about an hour north of San Francisco, and has some availability through April but it is booked the last weekend of April and all weekends after that for the next several months.

Angel Island: Booked all Saturdays from now through the summer.

Del Valle County Park: Looks like a decent campground with a lot of sites. The campground is pretty open with few trees, but it’s only an hour and a half drive from SF. The central focus of the park is the lake that has numerous water activities and visitors can rent paddle boats, kayaks, and canoes. Reservations can only be made 12 weeks in advance so this might be a good spot to head to in July as those weeks will become available shortly.

Half Moon Bay: Highly booked, but it would not be at the top of my list because beach camping doesn’t really excite me. I’d rather have hikes and trees and grass around me when I’m camping.

Portola Redwoods: Near Big Basin, this park is scheduled to close indefinitely July 1, 2012.

Butano SP: Booked all weekends. Also close to Big Basin.

Henry Cowell Redwoods: Located near Santa Cruz, this campground has some open sites especially later in the summer. It has 15 miles of trails and the forest has been fairly untouched over the last 200 years.

That is the majority of campgrounds in a two hour radius of San Francisco, and fortunately, it looks like there are some pretty good options still available for us. We already have May and June booked at Big Sur and I want to go to Yosemite in September once the crowds have hopefully died down, so we’ll just need to fill in a few months in between. This should be a good start!

“From the Golden Gate to the Farallon Islands, from the High Sierra to the Central Valley—this is the sweeping panorama you can savor from atop Mt. Diablo. Geographers claim that hikers can see more of the earth’s surface from the top of Mt. Diablo than from any other peak in the world with only one exception: Africa’s legendary 19,340-foot Mt. Kilimanjaro.”

We were able to get last minute reservations two days in advance at the Juniper Campground in one of its 36 sites. This campground is located about 2 miles below the summit and is had some spectacular views. There are two other campgrounds lower in elevation that are a little smaller. We got to select our site once we arrived so we chose number 7 overlooking the city and providing some privacy for our group of 5. We had the pick of the campground, though, as there were only about 5 other families in the campground. Later we found out why there were so few campers…

…the Santa Ana winds were blowing, hard. On Saturday afternoon, we got a short hike in before nearly being blown off the ridge, and we quickly retreated back down to shelter where we made some hot beverages to warm up. Then night came, and the winds were probably gusting up to 40 or 50 mph. Now, I’ve been camping quite a bit in my lifetime, and I have never had to resort to sleeping in a car (at least to my recollection). However, the winds were so loud and blowing our cheap Walmart tent onto our faces every 30 seconds, that Emma and I decided to retreat to sleep soundly in the car. In the morning, the wind died enough that we were able to make the short trek to the summit to check out the views.

Highlights of this trip include playing BS in the guys’ tent while the wind was howling, hanging out with good friends, resolving to buy a new tent that won’t cave to strong winds, and of course we had s’mores.

This weekend, James and I explored Big Basin Redwood State Park. Big Basin is California’s oldest State Park established in 1902. It is located in the Santa Cruz mountains 2 hours south of San Francisco and it has 80 miles of trails to explore. We arrived at the park around 11:00 am on Saturday and heading out on a trail the park ranger recommended. It took us up the Skyline to the Sea Trail over on the Meteor Trail and down the Middle Ridge Fire Road back to the Park Headquarters. The trail takes you through thick redwood forests, up to more arid scrub and then back down through new growth Douglas fir and oaks. In total the hike was about 6 miles. James and I decided to race up a steep hill at one point and he smoked me; that was a bad idea to race him.

We then checked into our campsite at Sempervirens Campground (appropriately named after the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)) and found our site: 169. This was one of two sites still available on Monday when we reserved the campsite so we weren’t too picky. We found the best sites in he campground were 185 and 168 so those will be the ones we try to reserve next time. The weather was nice but chilly in the evenings. Weather.com claims it was 60 degrees as the high and 46 as the low, but I think it’s lying. Going into the weekend, it was predicted that it would be 36 and that’s closer to what the evening felt like. But, the air was still and there was no rain, so we were happy campers (pun intended).

There were several noteworthy highlights of the trip. First, our new Mountain Hardware 6 person tent is amazing! It’s so roomy and surprisingly easy to set up. Second, we tried a new breakfast recipe now that we have our amazing Coleman stove. We cooked small pieces of sausage beforehand and then whipped up some eggs (uncooked) and put them both in a ziplock bag to freeze overnight. In the morning, we threw the ziplock into our cooler and on Sunday morning, we pulled them out and cooked them up in about five minutes. It was so simple and delicious! Lastly, I learned that I get much less queasy on winding roads when I drive.  And of course, we had s’mores

Which leads me to an obvious alternative: If you are going to set up machinery offshore to harness energy, why not make it renewable, clean, energy like wind? To me, it seems like a no-brainer, but then again I’m not being swayed by millions of dollars that gas companies kindly placed in my pocket.  Stay tuned for more on wind power’s pros, and possible cons, in the next post.

However, until those discoveries are revealed, I will continue trying to do what I can to protect the Earth. So, on this 40th anniversary of Earth Day, like New Years Eve resolutions, I would like to make an Earth Day resolution to become more aware of legislation being passed and to write my representatives urging them to vote with an environmental focus. My goal will be to write a minimum of one letter a week. I’ll be reporting back periodically on the success or failure of this mission…

The article is titled The short-term impact of dolphin-watching on the behaviour of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in western Australia. The focus of this paper was to determine whether or not the presence of dolphin-watching tour boats influences the behavior of dolphins. For a “control”, an investigator boat was sent out to note the dolphins’ behavior under “normal” circumstances. The scientists then sent an observation boat out with the dolphin-watching tour boat to determine whether dolphins acted differently with the tour boat present.  After reading the paper, I was reminded of the concept in quantum physics where a photon acts like a particle when an observer is present, and it acts like a wave when an observer is not present. The simple presence of an observer greatly influences how a photon acts. Which made me question, “Does simply the presence of an observer in a scientific experiment ever alter the intended results?” Now, in this case, it was found that the dolphins’ behavior was altered when the tour boat was present vs. when it was not present. But, if the presence of an observer affects the results of an experiment on a microscopic level, could it also affect the results on a macroscopic level as well? If there had been no observer boat present, would the behavior be altered even more significantly? The dolphins’ behavior was, most likely, affected minimally by the observer boat’s presence, but it is a factor to consider. More than anything, this article made me recognize the importance of making connections and coming up with the questions that will take an observation deeper.

Instead of increasing the amount of turtles that can be caught, I would suggest Obama’s administration implement some positive changes like using circular hooks instead of the typical “J” hook or altering the type of bait used. To take action in an effort to reverse the decision to increase turtle bycatch click here and send a letter to President Obama encouraging him to reconsider.

HOW TO AVOID GMO FOODS:

1. Look at the stickers on fruit - there is a PLU code with either 4 or 5 numbers. If your fruit’s label has 4 numbers, it is conventionally grown. 5 numbers starting with a 9 means it was organically grown, and 5 numbers starting with an 8 means GMO. (I have blogged about this before.)

2. Buy local & talk to your farmers - this is the best way to ensure you’re eating real foods. It’s estimated that up to 85% of pre-packaged and processed foods contain GMOs, so buying fresh from the farm is a great way to avoid that. (My husband and I enjoy buying our produce from a stand run by a great Italian man passionate about good food who gets 90% of his produce locally.)

3. Avoid the Top Four GMO Crops of Soy, Corn, Canola and Cottonseed - most blended oils in North America contain canola and cottonseed. Replacing these with 100% extra virgin olive oil is a safe alternative. (EVOO is healthier too!)

4. Encourage your favorite food providers to label their food GMO-free. We don’t need the government to force companies to label their foods, and we’re seeing more and more that we as consumers have tremendous power, and if enough of us ask for GMO-free labels, and support the companies that use them, we’ll see a huge increase in labeling. And we’re already starting to see this.

5. Buy Organically Grown Food - For now, the organic certification process is a relatively safe bet to ensure your food is free of GMOs, although this may not be the case in the future. Help support global sustainability by purchasing certified organically grown food.

6. Conventional Sugar - Over 90% of this year’s sugar beet harvest will be Monsanto’s GM Roundup-Ready Sugar Beet. That means if you are using sugar, or eating anything with sugar in it, you’re eating GMOs. Alternatives to sugar are listed here.(I never knew!)

7. Grow your own food - Plant a garden using heirloom seeds! (Home grown produce tastes great, and it is incredibly satisfying.)