a walk in Clayton

Anna had this great idea of going out on a walk along a trail in Clayton, a city adjacent to Concord. Daddy and I joined her but with a time limit because I had to catch the 4:30pm train to San Francisco (I had an evening class that day). Along the way, we noticed interesting markers that told this city's history. 

From what we've learned, Clayton was named after a multi-hyphenate from England. It's a mining town in the beginning and became a cattle range later on. 

Clayton is definitely less hectic than Concord. There are a lot of parks and green spaces. While we were walking, we saw quite a number of flowers in bloom.

The trail we were following led us through the roads facing backyards. There were beautiful rose bushes along the way and there were a lot of pets peeking through their houses' fences, making this walk not very boring.

There's a bit of highway we needed to cross so we waited for the pedestrian go-signal before proceeding.

And then we entered the trail. It's drier than I thought... but I should have expected this because the hills were visibly dry, even from a distance.

We walked through a winding road. I thought that it's such an isolated place, until I heard someone yell, "Fore!". We were walking right beside a golf course! And the contrast in foliage could not be any clearer. On the trail, there's a sense of wildness. But the golf course... everything's manicured and green. 

And then we finally met the cows that call these hills their pasture. I'm not comfortable being in close proximity to them because they're huge and they can potentially hurt me if they get agitated. But they seem to used to human presence and remained as relaxed and docile... as if we weren't there.

We wanted to go further down the trail but I was afraid that I would miss the train. So we started doubling back. And the timing couldn't have been better...

because we passed the road just in time to catch the flight of a flock of wild turkey above our heads. By the time I got to take a picture, many of them were already settled on the other side of the road.

If anyone's going to ask "why did the wild turkeys cross the road", my answer is "because they can". I just saw them fly!

And as we neared the highway, we noticed the path where golf carts crossed the road. If anyone's going to ask "why did the golf carts cross the road?", I will respond "to get to the back nine".

A good exercise and break for me from all the coding and data analytics I do in class. With the load only getting heavier each time, I'm sure that my next walk like this will be when the boot camp has finished.