A hike in the hills

My first weekend in San Francisco, my roommate (whom I didn't know before moving here...I'm living in an apartment with 2 roommates, one whom I knew from the Peace Corps) invited me to go on a hike with him and his friends.  That's how nice people are in San Francisco. 

We initially planned on going up north to Marin County, to Point Reyes where B and I had hiked in March, but it was an excessively foggy and cold day...and that meant fog and cold in Marin Co as well, so instead we headed south.  Where do people from SF go when they want to hike where the weather is nice?  Why to Palo Alto, about 4 miles from where we'll be living, of course.  We did a 6 mile hike, the first 3.5 of which were mostly uphill, but we got some great views.

We were close enough to the ocean on the other side to technically "see" it, but it was so foggy over the ocean that I didn't get a glimpse.  At one point, we walked around a hill and got a great view of...Stanford University!  You can find it in the foreground by looking for the tall bell tower or whatever that building is.  All the red roofed buildings are Stanford.  Then past Stanford is the Bay, and across the Bay are more suburbs and then the big hills that butt up to Oakland.

On the way back down, we had an up-close and personal experience with a snake who had caught a mouse and was trying to make its way uphill with it to keep us from the mouse.  He ended up unsuccessful...the mouse was too heavy...so he just slithered awkwardly around the mouse trying to protect it from us while we took pictures.  Even though it wasn't a poisonous snake, I was afraid to get too close.  Eventually, we left it to its feast.

After the hike we had frozen yogurt in downtown Palo Alto, which is pretty much just a nice suburban downtown.  There are many froyo places, a Cheesecake Factory, a Restoration Hardware Store, etc...but there also seem to be a lot of unique and fun places to check out in the coming year!