Comforting Favorites

Comforting Favorites
            Having our older son home for the holidays offered a good opportunity to take a long scenic drive for a special family Christmas hike. With luck, we’d have good weather, and I’d shoot photos for a new Hikes post.
            I’d been to the East Peak of Mt. Tam before, but hadn’t covered it on the HikingAutism site. Christmas Day was open for us to go on a long outing, and on Christmas Eve, I pictured the drive to the East Peak in my head. Doing a special hike this holiday was a mini obsession.
            As I got into bed on Christmas Eve, I checked the weather. The forecast didn’t look promising. I lay awake in a mixture of disappointment and determination. We would save the East Peak hike for another day, but I was determined to do something out of our regular walk routine.
            We could drive an hour to Lagunitas Creek for the treat of seeing salmon swimming to spawn. I’d already covered that for HikingAutism, so I wouldn’t get a new post out of it, but if recent reports were correct, we might see a significant number of salmon.
            As dawn approached, I pictured waking my family of late sleepers to drive to the salmon viewing area, take a walk, and get back to open Christmas gifts in late afternoon. The thought of making them tired made me tired. 
            I still wanted our Christmas Day hike to be out of the ordinary. The previous year we visited a small nearby beach in Marin for a memorial event for a family member. Revisiting that place could transform the easy drive and walk into something meaningful.
            The guys slept late, and we left the house at noon. The drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Headlands—following windy roads to the trailhead for the South Rodeo Beach Trail—is an old familiar favorite. We’re used to chilly, overcast days in the Marin Headlands, so the gray ambiance of our Christmas Day felt like home.
            We found an unnamed side trail down to the beach for a dash of adventure. Going on a long drive to a big-name hiking destination was not so important. The comfort of visiting beloved familiar turf and paying our respects to a lost loved one gave our Christmas Day hike a warm glow.
            May we all find something magical in our everyday comforts! Keep putting one foot forward!
 
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This week’s Hike Notes from the Archives:
Hike Notes 145: South Rodeo Beach Trail