Anniversary Walk

October 17th is the anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake and our wedding anniversary. We got married three years after the earthquake, and picked that date for the earth shaking event that our wedding was. Hah! I've written about it here on the blog.

So, today we celebrated our 21st anniversary by taking a nice long walk up the Yuba River to Hoyt's Crossing. It's a 1.2 mile walk in to the beach. The South Yuba River Park Association says this about the trail, "Numerous down trails lead off the main trail to small beaches, smooth, water-sculpted granite perches, and pristine swimming holes." All true, it's beautiful even when the river is low at the end of the dry season. The granite and sunlight, the crazy clear water creating caustic rainbows, the sound of water flowing over giant boulders. It's a delight for the senses.

We were the only ones around, and despite the Hoyt Sign prohibition against CLOTHING, we kept our clothes on. We played a bit on the rocks like little kids, climbing around and acting goofy, getting to the top of smooth granite boulders and sliding down on our butts. Let me tell you it's fun to be ten years old again for five minutes.

We were lucky too to see these beautiful displays of caustics. The way the light and water interact is pretty spectacular. It doesn't always look like this, but when it does it makes me wish I were an artist of some sort, so I could try recreate this and hang it on the wall.

I think I would like a house to look as if it had been painted by someone who watched light and clouds and water. The natural world has color displays in places that you would never expect it. Who would look for shiny-rainbow-y peacock feather-like swirls in the shallows of a river? We do! We do!

The mountains are in full fall mode here too. We were surprised by these autumn colors. The day was warm and bright, and we had a perfect anniversary walk.