Jun 25, 2010 - I picked up my friend Birdie at the end of her conference, up in the Santa Cruz mountains. She got a ride to the road from someone at the retreat, so I didn't have to drive down their steep, primitive driveway again. (Whew!) We stopped at a vista point, where the whole of the Santa Clara Valley was spread out before us, and we could clearly see San Jose and the southern end of San Francisco bay. Impressive. Then we drove a short distance to the Portola Redwoods State Park.
We hiked a trail to Tiptoe Falls, which was surprisingly strenuous, with climbs to the top of the cliff, then back down into the valley again. I think rangers need to be held to some kind of "truth-in-telling" policy that would require them to accurately describe trails before they send unsuspecting hikers out on them! 
But the walk was worth it. The beautiful redwoods are incredibly tall (some at 300 feet), and there isn't anything quite like a redwood forest. You just can't get any perspective from my little pictures, but I try. 
There was one memorable meadow where the sun illuminated chest-high horsetail, and we saw exquisite lavender and purple foxgloves as tall as I was. The falls itself wasn't much, but getting there was worth the hike.
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