On May 3, 4, and 5, we walked for about 35 miles through the beautiful rolling hills of Marin and Sonoma Counties. We used the following maps:
Jack London State Historic Park
Millie, David, Adrian, Richard, Amy, and Julia joined Donna and me for all or part of Leg 11 of our round-the-bay walk. We spent our first two nights in Fairfax with Millie, and we stayed in a hotel in Petaluma our third night. This leg was especially social, to boot -- we played music with Donna's family one night, had dinner with Julia's aunt another night, and stopped in to visit Donna's sister-in-law as we walked through Petaluma on our third day.
Millie, David, Adrian, Richard, Amy, and Julia joined Donna and me for all or part of Leg 11 of our round-the-bay walk. We spent our first two nights in Fairfax with Millie, and we stayed in a hotel in Petaluma our third night. This leg was especially social, to boot -- we played music with Donna's family one night, had dinner with Julia's aunt another night, and stopped in to visit Donna's sister-in-law as we walked through Petaluma on our third day.
But first, the turkey eggshell. We found this as we walked up into the hills above Novato on our first morning. Further down this page you will also see Donna's hand holding something else we found.
View of the San Francisco Bay from the ridges above Novato
Heading up towards Little Mountain Open Space Preserve
Birders on the flanks of Burdell
still ascending...
Lunchtime on Mount Burdell, elevation 1558', overlooking the Petaluma River
Mount Burdell is an anomaly in this region of ancient, sedimentary ocean floor. The mountain is a 12-million-year-old volcanic intrusion punching through the sediment, and andesite is quarried near the summit. Andesite is a light-grey volcanic rock named for the Andes. Here is a link for more information about the geology of this region.
Olompali State Historic Park
The name
"olompali" comes from the Miwok language and may be translated as
"southern village" or "southern people." The Coast Miwok
inhabited at least one site within the area of the present-day park
continuously from as early as 6,000 BC, until the early 1850s.
Olompali contains "kitchen rock," a
large boulder used as a mortar in which early people ground acorns and seeds
into a fine flour for food preparation. Many women would gather near such
grinding rocks to prepare food and socialize.
Worker's house at the Burdell Ranch
Camilo Ynitia [a Coast Miwok chief who received a Spanish land grant in 1843] built an adobe using in part bricks from the earlier adobe on this site constructed by his father and the Spanish exploring party of 1775-6. Camilo’s adobe was so strongly constructed that it was incorporated in 1870 into Dr. Galen and Mrs. Mary Black Burdell’s two story home. This ranch house was encased in 1915 by their son James Burdell with his 26 room mansion, which survived until 1969 when fire destroyed all but the walls of Ynitia’s adobe.
You can see the 1915 house below, from a 1940 photo.
http://heritage.sonomalibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15763coll2/id/20640
Petaluma bird house
Petaluma countryside
Petaluma tick
