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The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss
I enjoyed this book, overall. The writing was decent, and the author wrote intuitively about human psychology with a lovely introspective first-person narration. I found the main character, Kvothe, to be moderately aggravating – he allows his life’s goal, which he seeks passionately throughout much of the book, to be put aside when he could win it with a little effort and patience. Also, Kvothe repeatedly meets his challenges with the care of a bull in a china shop, and somehow manages to emerge from them heroically. Throughout, I didn’t find his story a fair accounting of life’s lessons. In addition, the main character’s tale is largely narcissistic, with little development of additional characters.
The climax of the tale was incongruent with the majority of the book, which was a bit disappointing. The goings-on of the present time (this story is told from the perspective of the character relating his tale to another character) are an interesting twist, and add a bit of suspense and flavor to the story. The antagonists are also highly interesting and mysterious, leaving the reader excited to learn more about them (kudos to the author).
I would like to see Kvothe learn and develop who he is based on the circumstances presented to him, instead of crashing from one situation to the next without and turning his life into a train-wreck (though, granted, the reader knows this to be an eventuality). I would also like to see this character challenged more, instead of getting through situations easily with ridiculous talent and intelligence. Alas, I think the next book transitions from wizarding to sword-fighting.
A recommended read, for anyone who hasn’t beaten me to it yet 
Nisene Marks State Park
The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park is a small state park in Aptos that is popular with local joggers and mountain bikers. There were a lot of people walking, jogging, and biking along the park’s entrance road and main fire road throughout the day. Parking inside the park is $8, and they have a park map for $5 or you can just take a photo of the map posted at the main entrance station. The map was pretty good and the trails were well-signed.
This was supposed to be a 12-mile loop hike from the closed gate at the George’s Picnic Area lot. I’m not sure why it turned out to be 14 miles instead – my best guess is that the distance was measured at 12 miles from the second locked gate, which was about 1 mile up the trail from where we were able to park.
Stats:
Distance: 14.6 miles
Time: 7 hr 43 min
Average Speed: 2 mph
Elevation Change: 1284 feet
A lot of our hike took place along the park’s main fire road. It seems to be mostly used by mountain bikers, and only the bottom few miles show evidence of recent use by cars. Along the road are historical signs that talk about the logging and milling that used to take place in the park. The park wilderness is far from pristine, with a thin understory that appears to be thinned by controlled burns, and only occasional groves of older redwoods. There are lots of pretty redwood trees along the trails, and quite a few deciduous trees as well. The trails were lined with lots of non-native vegetation. There wasn’t any poison oak, though!
We left the car at about 9:15am and chose to hike the Aptos Creek Trail to Five Finger Falls, and then down the Big Slide Trail. The Aptos Creek Trail leads past the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. After this point the trail is technically closed due to a “wash out”, which is actually a giant chunk of missing hillside. There were ropes set up at the wash out so that we could go up and over the missing trail (this was actually pretty fun). The downside to the closed trail was that between the wash out and the falls, the trail wasn’t maintained. We did all right for awhile, but when we hit switchbacks we lost the trail and wound up climbing straight up a steep hillside instead of switchbacking around it. This was exceedingly difficult and time-consuming, but we were easily able to find the trail again once we got to the top.
Five Finger Falls was very cute, and we stopped for lunch there at about 1:30pm. We were quite tired by this point and eager to make our way back to the fire road. The Big Slide Trail was mostly uphill, and it sort of kicked our asses. I made myself a walking stick when we got back to the fire road. The 5-mile hike back to the car from here was easy and downhill, and we passed lots of mountain bikers. We got back to the car at about 5pm, tired and with very sore feet.
Birds seen/heard: Band-tailed pigeon, hairy woodpecker, Nuttall’s woodpecker, Steller’s jay, chestnut-backed chickadee, Pacific wren, ruby-crowned kinglet, varied thrush, Townsend’s warbler.
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Andrew Molera State Park
I’ve been wanting to hike this trail for ages! I walked to the park beach once last year after birding the eucalyptus grove, and wound up wading crotch-deep through the freezing cold river to get there. This time I was prepared with sandals, spare underwear, and a towel. And I found out that the actual loop trail crossing is over a much shallower portion of the river that doesn’t even come up to my knees. …*cough* Hey – it never hurts to be prepared! The park map sends everyone onto the trail from the beach, but my hiking guide sent me down the River Trail and up Hidden Trail to the Ridge Trail. I liked my way better because the sun was at my back all day so I could look at the pretty scenery! Hidden Trail was a butt-kicker though, it went up to the ridge at stair-steepness.
The loop that I hiked was 8.0 miles (12.9 kilometers) long, with an elevation gain of around 1,000 feet (304 meters). It took me a little more than 4 hours. I only passed a couple of people on the trail, and most were near the beach. It was a really nice day overall, and I’m glad I finally got to hike this trail!
Birds seen/heard: eared grebe, Clark’s grebe, Brandt’s cormorant, great egret, turkey vulture, northern harrier, red-tailed hawk, merlin, California quail, American coot, Thayer’s gull, glaucous-winged gull, Heermann’s gull, band-tailed pigeon, Anna’s hummingbird, northern flicker, acorn woodpecker, black phoebe, Steller’s jay, western scrub jay, American crow, common raven, chestnut-backed chickadee, bushtit, wrentit, ruby-crowned kinglet, hermit thrush, California thrasher, yellow-rumped warbler, spotted towhee, dark-eyed junco, golden-crowned sparrow, purple finch.
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