My husband and I took advantage of a break in the rain and our schedules to head out for a quick getaway for some early Spring hiking. We always feel the most rejuvenated by short getaways for a night or two–no airports, no need to stop the mail or water the plants, no hours-long traffic to wipe out every moment of hard-won rejuvenation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found what we were looking for in Sunol\/Ohlone Regional Wilderness. We’ve been many times before, and it’s always a winner. Even though it’s a stone’s throw from Silicon Valley and the massively congested Highway 680, Sunol\/Ohlone lives up to its wilderness moniker. Such intensely green hills!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This time we explored some new areas off of Welch Road. We didn’t see a soul–at least not of the human variety, but of course my cow-whisperer was his usual magnetic self:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On our way home, we checked out the new-to-us Vargas Plateau, at the base of Mission Peak in Fremont, overlooking the South\/East Bay metropolis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a little early for wildflowers, but there were definitely some great harbingers of the peak season to come:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And, of course, the Johnny Jump Ups have us jumping for joy on this first day of Spring!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My husband and I took advantage of a break in the rain and our schedules to head out for a quick getaway for some early Spring hiking. We always feel the most rejuvenated by short getaways for a night or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[8],"tags":[823,824,825,826],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2F8Ch-OO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3166,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3150\/revisions\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}