Army, and Mission Peak hiking

This week I am on orders for the Army Reserve and I've begun my annual training. I am in Dublin, CA for the next couple weeks.

Yesterday I starting in on a bandwidth-measuring project (using MRTG) to gather some information and I had a couple issues getting all the required packages loaded for it to run. (It now appears to be working as I wished for.) In the morning I called my family to see how how things were going and how Jason was going about his day. Then in the afternoon a Army collegue and I hiked up to Mission Peak (which is part of the nature preserves within East Bay Regional Parks. The peak is about 2517 feet above sea level.

It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get to the monument at the top of the peak. The view out there is great and you can actually see much of the Bay Area and Silicon Valley from the summit.

I hadn't an opportunity to any sort of hiking since leaving active duty army in 1995 so this was a good deal to do. It was an enjoyable experince to go up to the top and get a work out at the same time. It might be something I should factor into my time off whenever I get some. In addition, I got so see some really nice plant

life that I hadn't seen in a long while, such as this California Poppy.

In addition to the trees and flowers, I happened upon a real-live rattlesnake on the way down. I was back on my way down the trail to go to return home and this snake was laying smack-dab in the middle of the path. I managed to not get bit or attacked, but also got to see the snake slither away a bit into the grass, prepare to lunge (as in a prelude to an attack), and hear the distinctive rattle sound the reptile makes. Check this out....

Ahhh...Nature.