Day 8: Group Dynamics

Debbie, Geo, John, Sang Ay, David

I hereby declare that today makes up for yesterday.

The venue: Point Reyes National Seashore, Estero trail

The activity: 8.5 mile hike with the "Bay Area Everything Outdoors Club for 20,30,40 year olds" Meetup group.

The new pals (interspersed with hike photos):

• Kim, reporter for Wired Online. I mentioned I was in school for writing. The conversation took off from there. Several miles later, we were still talking shop. When I asked Kim if I could take her photo, she declined because of cyber-stalkers. She angers them when she uncovers their schemes, and now she must be careful. Best excuse ever.

• John (I'm 95% sure that's his name), theoretical physicist at Nasa Ames. Owns a cabin in the Sierras. We impressed each other with our respective familiarity levels with each other's fields. I knew "Nasa Ames" and things about the space program without being prompted. He mentioned Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote when I told him what I did. It was great.

• Beate, nurse with a lovely german accent. She's a backpacker, snow camper, shell-picker-upper, seal-noticer, and nice-person-to-talk-to extraordinaire.

• Sang Ay, whose mother insists she keep her Korean name. Public defender who graduated from Danny's law school. She tried to convince everyone that these:

were called Flamingo Flowers and that the cows we passed were dangerous. Made my mouth water with tales of her last 2 vacations, south India and Thailand.

The verdict: I'm sold on this Meetup group even long after the project ends, and I hope many of the same people continue to show up! I'm very glad that Encantada got me off my butt and on the trail.