Tennessee Valley Trail; Sublime Concert

   

Tennessee Valley Hike

Sublime Concert

On Saturday, I ventured out for another solo hike. My intention was to check out one of the waterfalls from this list that a friend of mine sent me. I picked one in Marin and set out around 7 in the morning. That became my first mistake of the day: the fog hangs over the mountain in Marin and takes some time to retreat for warmth and good views. Blissfully not considering this, I'm circling up Mt. Tam to find the trailhead, when my gas light turns on. Fail #2. If anyone knows me - I'm a worrier. Going to be difficult to enjoy this hike fearing that I'll run out of gas in the early morning cold fog. Yet, I continue forward convincing myself that I'm almost there and can coast down most of the way. Then, I discover fail #3 - the road leading to the trailhead stays closed until 9am. At this point it's only about 8 in the morning; waiting around isn't my strong suit. I decided to go get gas and find a different trail. Hence, Tennessee Valley. I literally googled "trailhead" and picked the one closest to the gas station. 

Finally out of the car and feet on the ground, I set off following a couple of hikers that seemed to know where they were headed. This is a popular trail for hikers, joggers, and bikers alike. The first half of it feels more like a walking pathway than a challenging trail. Wide, clear, and graveled - other than the fact that it was going up, up, up it was easy going. Honestly, I was wishing I was back at Castle Rock until I finally got over the first ridge, about a mile into the hike. At that point, the view of Marin took over. Just beautiful.

From glimpses of the town below to seeing San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge to Ocean Beach, each way you turn is as beautiful as the next. At a certain point, there was an unmarked, but clear, trail veering off to the right. I decided to leave the marked pathway. Now on this section, it began to feel more like a hike. More ups and downs, vegetation reaching slightly out towards the middle,  narrowing at some places, it presented a slightly greater interest than the first half. Towards the end, you are rewarded with ruins from what I assume were look out points at one point in time for the military.

One noteworthy difference between this trail and the last was the friendliness of the people. I'd guess abut 90%, from runners to bikers, smiled and said 'Good Morning.' Also know that you can take a trail ride! There is a horse ranch at the trailhead (that you actually walk straight through) that utilizes the trail. Although I didn't see any riders, droppings from the horses were piled on the first mile of the trail. (Perhaps another contributing factor to why it's not my favorite). Trail rides are by appointment only and you can find their website here. 

Saturday afternoon I picked up my friend and went out to Concord, CA for a Sublime Concert at Concord Pavilion, an outdoor concert venue. Great venue - the one thing I will say is that the food lines move suuuuuper slowly, so bring your own food and drinks!  

Pepper and Rebelution opened and let's just say there was a lot of 'green' air floating around! Pepper by far gave the most energetic and entertaining performance. Rebelution I'd not heard of before, but definitely enjoyable reggae music. Sublime sounded great - just like their tracks, but didn't interact with each other or the audience much. 

Overall fun day!