Hiking the Peña Adobe Hills

Yesterday we spent most of the afternoon enjoying the company of Kathy's cousin Rita and her husband Chris.  They popped over to our RV in Vacaville, California, and we treated them to a typical RV campground experience.  The weather was balmy and we started by relaxing outside with some cheese and a tasty champagne Chris brough along.  Then it was on to each adult's favorite beverage (whether a Belgian beer, a Chardonnay, or a Pinot Noir) and the most scrumptious halibut tacos David has ever tasted (Kathy recuses herself from this characterization because she was the chef).  After catching up on all things family, and even the solar eclipses of 2017 and 2024, we parted ways sadly.  Chris and Rita drove off into the setting sun while we turned to things RV.

We slept the sleep of the well-visited and woke up bright and early today -- only to find that the Napa Valley Balloons were floating across our campground and the adjoining fields, heading for some perfect landing sites in fields around Vacaville:

We had a wonderful phone chat with our daughter Katie and then turned to some physical activity to walk off the drinks and foods of yesterday.  Luckily, there are many hiking options around Vacaville.  We decided on a 5 mile hike in Peña Adobe Park. Our choice took us up the hills above the lagoon, to cell towers with view both east to Vacaville and west toward the Bay Area beyond the nearby mountains.  Here we are at the trailhead:

Peña Adobe Park (also known as Lagoon Lake Park) is a 314-acre park that includes the historic Peña Adobe home and museum.  It offers many miles of multi-use trails that provide public access into several hundred acres of Open Space, a 100-acre lake that may be used for non-motorized boating, a 27-hole disc golf course, an outdoor archery range, an electric model flying field, a rentable small-group picnic shelter, and - most impressively - a 30,000-square foot fenced in dog park complete with shade trees and canine drinking fountains!

A road leads up into the hills to the cell towers, and we started by following it up through the trees, which look like they probably graced the entrance road of a ranch that had preceded the park:

Rising quickly, we got some beautiful views of the mountains to the west --

-- and of the lagoon near our parking lot and the trailhed below:

After a mile or two, our cell phone tower goal came into sight:

Our path curled around the cell phone tower and dipped down over the back of the hill to where a grove of trees offered shade for our picnic lunch.  We enjoyed a view of Vacaville while we munched:

Kathy was happy for the shade, as the afternoon temperatures had already reached 80F and the sun was high in the cloudless sky:

After lunch, we decided to hike back along one of the side trails, rather than retracing our steps down the gravel road.  Here we saw the beauties of a swale that guided us a little more gently down the upper hillsides than the road would have:

Where there were drainages, simple wooden bridges guided us on to the dirt path across the hillsides:

Kathy calls this the "Golden Dave" shot:

The trees and sky offered beautiful contrasts to the hillsides of golden grass:

Eventually, we wound our way around the hills and back down to our traihead.  As we finished, we thought it would be appropriate to end this blog with a photo of Vacaville in the distance, this hillsides of Peña Adobe Park in the middle, and us waving "until we see you again" to our family and friends: