Hiking PG&E Trail in Rancho San Antonio

Last Sunday I went for my third consecutive weekly Hike (and third in total in my life as you know) in Rancho San Antonio with my friends. While we initially scheduled for 7:20 AM, I and Shahriar were late enough to make it a start time of 7:45 AM. When we went to Equestrian park parking lot, I was surprised to see Sayeem's car as I didn't know he was coming although he told earlier that he will join our group's (Bay Area Bangladeshi Hikers Group) fourth hike.

Date: Sunday August 9th, 2009 at 7:45am
Start Time: 7:45 AM
End Time: 11: 00 AM
Place: Rancho San Antonio PG&E Hike trail
Cristo Rey Dr, Los Altos, CA 94022
Santa Clara County
Length: ~7.2 miles
Participants: Mostazir Bhai, Shahariar, Tanjeem, Ashik, Sayeem, Tipu Bhai, Lisa Bhabi, Karim Bhai

I got introduced to Tipu Bhai and his sister-in-law Lisa Bhabi. Both of them are expert hikers and were always ahead of the rest of the team. They have some other Bangladeshi hiker friends of different ages and are also interested to hike Yosemite's Half Dome. Mostazir Bhai and Karim Bhai were behind us from the beginning in trail and hence we lost them once we advanced a bit. Tanjeem was as usual comfortable with the hike and Sayeem looked like a regular hiker although this is his first one of this kind. I was quite comfortable and so looked Shahriar during the trail.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ashikuzzaman/Hiking3RanchoSanAntonio#

The trail is so beautiful that I am now sure there are not many trails that can be expressed as not-so-beautiful in bay area. The mission peak trail was not as per but both today's and last week's trails were full of scenic sights. Early in the trail, we found a deer right in the middle in our path and looking back to us. It stayed as a statue for a while and before we brought out our camera, it jumped up to the side of the trail. We finished the 7.2 miles trail around 11 AM . After that I took Shahriar and Sayeem to Starbucks for a long due treat of my Kindle. At noon, as part of initiative from Ezaz and Wali Bhai we all had a all-on-a-sudden picnic in Query Lake of Union City. Wali Bhai made BBQ chicken for us and Ezaz arranged kites that we all enjoyed flying. In the evening we even played tennis and I was too tired at the end of the game.

Nitol, Ezaz and Hasinur took the Mission Peak Stanford Trail instead. As per our initial plan we thought we will take the 9.5 miles steep trail in black mountain and hence we might be as late as 2/3 PM and that's why Ezaz and Hasinur skipped this trail and went to Mission Peak. Nitol was simply late to wake up and hence went to Mission Peak later to join them.

Just the day before I, Shahriar, Nitol, Shusmita, Sachi along with Ahyan & Safwan watched the Bercelona vs Chivas game in South San Francisco. We enjoyed the game, specially Messi's play in the first half although the match ended in a 1 - 1 draw. Looks like Argentina got a good trump card on their hand to counter Brazil in next year's world cup football tournament in South Africa. FC Barcelona is the current European Champion and they played very aggressively throughout the whole game although just after half time, they conceded a sudden goal. My understanding is that the result should have been 3 - 1 in favor of Bercelona considering most of the time the ball was on the opposition's D-Box.

Last week, I had a get together with my ex-colleagues of Philips at Fresh Choice in Mountain View. It was delighting to see Brian, Dan, Jade, You-Roe, David and Bob again. Imtiyaz could not join us although he was planning to come. Two weeks earlier Jade, David, Dan, Brian and another QA were offered to relocate to Boston as they will close the Milpitas location for Lifeline Systems. Dan and Brian are still thinking but others will quit the job. When I was there in Philips 1 year 8 months ago, I knew it's coming after our tour of Boston but I am surprised to see it took so long to make the final offer.

I bought the One Best Hike: Yosemite's Half Dome from Border's Sunday night. I already finished half of the book and finding it extremely useful and interesting. I called Noel last night and looks like he is interested to join the Half Dome project for which Shahriar and I have already determined thte date to be 3rd October. We did a booking of a cabin in Curry Village of Yosemite Valley at 2nd October night and Nitol, Sayeem and Mostazir Bhai are other potentially interested people to join us.

We also watched love aazkaal of saif ali khan and deepika padukone at a 11 o'clock show of weeknight in naz8. After a long time I enjoyed a hindi movie and ladies a long with Ezaz, Wali Bhai, Hasinur and Nitol also liked it.