Homestead Hoffman / Vista Trail - O'Neill Regional Park

The weather has been wonderfully warm so we headed out to O'Neill Regional Park today for a New Years hike.



Wild cucumber



See how it travels?



Oaks with all kinds of personality provide a wonderful canopy along the trails





Mountain views



California sagebrush grows all along the trail. You can see it's budding here.
It is wonderfully fragrant.



Even a 2 year old can learn to identify it and enjoy its fragrance!



Beautiful colors of lichen



Because the trail is hidden from the sun by the mountain most of the day, it was wet and dewy



This looks like the artist's fungus in my field guide



The trail was still muddy from the recent rains



Here's my daughter asking me if I want another "daughter" holding out the "dodder" in her hand. Kids make hiking so much more fun :)







Here's a gall. These are pretty common on the oaks at O'Neill. I haven't been able to figure out what type of creature makes these - I think they're all made by wasps. Here's a page with pictures of many types of galls found in California. So interesting!





This looks like some type of mistletoe on this tree. I see it often, but don't know much about it other than it is parasitic.



Deer tracks - I read that they spread their toes like this to prevent sinking into the soft ground







Would you look at that beautiful sky!



Slow pokes!



New segment shoots on the prickly pear





Look at all the beautiful prickly pear fruit!



Setting aside wildfires and landslides, the house tucked away in the middle of this picture is where I'd love to live



Vista point. Since my camera doesn't take wide pictures, I took multiple pictures to show the 360 degree view, starting with this horrible eye sore of a cell phone tower that marks the location of our vernal pool.















This is the picture I doctored for my new header



Now look at this picture, can you find my 2 older kids in the middle of the dried up vernal pool?



Here's a closer shot



Here's what the ground around the pool looks like - little frogs make their dens in these cracks and I assume they overwinter in there



I made her pose for this one :)



A lot of little droppings around





Here's what my kids built while I was taking pictures.



Man in his element



Here's a nice trail map at Vista Point.



Can't wait until spring to see our favorite little pool filled again!