Tuesday September 2, 2014 Jenner CA.
The Dentist
I got up early today to get to my squeaked in appointment to check out a tooth that started hurting just before the holidays. She took x rays and poked and prodded. The tooth that was originally hurting wasn’t much today. Poking around, she found one next to it with a crown was decaying, so we made appointments for that and put a watch on the other tooth to see what happens after the other one is fixed. It’s good we have dentists to do this kind of stuff, but it sure costs a lot of bucks. I wouldn’t be surprised if she decides I need a root cannel after she gets the crown off, but whatever.
Still time to go kayaking
It was still early in the day, so I headed on down to Jenner for a kayak. Ray and his brother John’s trucks were in the parking lot, so I headed on down towards the river’s mouth area, as I suspected they’d be down that way.
I crossed over the river to Penny Island were these little pipers landed by me and started feeding along the shoreline.
Lots of seagulls catching and eating crab
As I approached the west end of Penny Island there were about a dozen seagulls catching little Dungeness crabs and eating them as I went by.
I found Ray and John sitting in their kayaks just inside the mouth and joined them and shot the bull for a bit.
It was a nice day, so we just hung out for awhile.
Harbor seals
Eventually we headed back up the river towards the back channel of Penny Island. There were a bunch of harbor seals resting on a log in the water as we paddled by.
I think this might be one that hangs out up the river by Seal haven, which I see often.
More seagulls catching crab
There were more seagulls catching crabs. They catch them out in the water, then take them to shore to eat them. They usually pull off the legs and claws and eat them first, then tear into the body. The crab are getting eaten alive. Nature isn’t very kind. They only catch the little two inchers as that is all they can handle and that is what there is the most of in the river at this time of year.
We could see this whitish bird on the lone pine tree on the island, but couldn’t make out what kind it was. Almost looks a bit owlish.
Poison Oak Alley Trail walk
As we approached the swamp rock trail, Ray said he wanted to go ashore for a walk, so we pulled into shore here and went for a walk up the Poison Oak Alley trail, which goes on up along the river’s shoreline.
Looking back towards our kayaks as we started off on our walk, back towards the town of Jenner.
We started our walk along the shore here, then jumped up on the bank and picked up the trail.
We followed the trail along here and yes there is plenty of poison oak mixed in there, but none of us catch it.
Just below eagle’s landing we veered off the trail and walked along the river a bit here.
And came back up to the trail here at eagle’s landing. That’s John there and Ray is just coming up in the brush below him and is hard to see.
Pack rat nest
We poked around eagle’s landing a bit. We found a huge pack rat nest there that a lot of new sticks had been added to, recently. The pack rat nests are very similar to the musk rat nests, except the musk rats seem to like their nests right next to the water as they are water rats and the pack rats are more land rats, so are off the water. This nest is about eight feet or so high, one of the larger ones I’ve ever seen.
After we checked out the rat nest and I gave John some pointers how to continue up the trail to lookout point, which is straight up the hill from here, we started heading on back down the trail.
Here is John as we started back down the trail at eagle’s landing.
I got ahead of them a bit and was waiting for them to catch up on our way back.
Here’s Ray walking back down the trail in his shorts. There is lots of poison oak mixed in with the lush vegetation along this trail. It’s impossible to walk this trail and avoid the stuff as there is so much of it, hence, the name of the trail, poison oak alley.
The parts house
They decided to head on in for the day after our walk, so I did too as I wanted to go to the parts house to get my heater hoses for my van and a headlight for my car.
At the parts house, I got my heater hose, but they couldn’t find out which head light I had in their books, so I had to remove the good one for the numbers which wasn’t very difficult, but that caused another problem later.
A bit of mechanicing
When I got home, I had a nap then went out and removed my car battery so I could install the new head light, which I did. I tested the headlight and it worked, but the other one that was good that I pulled out to find out which one I needed was now not working. Somehow when I pulled it out, it broke the filaments, so now I needed another bulb.
I had another break before installing the heater hoses on the van. I got them started and partly in, but I ran out of light, so decided to wait as the hoses need to be installed carefully to avoid them wearing on sharp metal pieces of the van body. At least I have the right size hoses now.
That was it for my day, mostly a nice one, the dentist wasn’t bad except for the cost. :O)