Exploring Upper UCSC Campus And A Loose Sock

Friday: (11/17) Up early to drive to Santa Cruz for my hike today. Dawn joined me for the drive. I prepared ham egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches for breakfast. Nice no rain day. Traffic was light. I dropped Dawn off at Peet’s Coffee and proceeded to a trailhead on Highway 9 about 2.5 miles North of Highway 1. I was joined by 15 other SJMW hikers for this exploratory hike led by Bob. We proved the naming correct as we hiked through upper Pogonip Park into the campus and wandered around trying to locate some points of interest.  

The Buddha Hut, Totem Pole, and Cat Shrine. The Totem Pole and Cat Shrine are evidently Wiccan coven circles known as Caer Ellillon. Very interesting. A number of other points of interest are hidden in the forest of upper UCSC campus so future hikes will need to be undertaken. A total of 6.9 miles for the hike.

After the hike, I returned to Santa Cruz and met Dawn for a late lunch at Zachary’s Cafe. Then we returned to the Santa Cruz Bookstore for dawn to finish examining before we returned to Palo Alto about 1630.

At home, Lou wasn’t feeling well but still had started pork sauerkraut and potatoes in the slow cooker for dinner.

For the past few months, I’ve had an extra sock with no mate in my drawer. A couple of days ago Lou found an odd wet sock on the garage floor after having done the socks the day before. I had already matched them up and put them away. No missing socks. My socks are all Darn Tough of two colors. Most are tan but I also have three pairs of dark gray.  One of those dark gray socks was what was missing and the wet sock was a dark gray sock. So I now had all my socks again. This morning when I dressed for my hike I put on my Injinji toe socks then the Darn Tough hiker socks. I always wear two pair of socks for hikes. Later I noticed a dark gray sock on the bed. I thought that Lou had found another and I was back to being out of sync again. This evening, when I peeled my clothes off for a shower I discovered I was wearing two socks on one foot and only one on the other I only had the Injinji sock on one foot. I had forgotten to put the second Darn Tough sock on. It’s amazing I didn’t walk in circles all day. So the socks are actually happily paired after all.