Now that I've lived in the San Jose area for almost 3 months, I've developed a couple of favorite spots for hiking and biking. But since I like to explore as much as possible, I recently made a trip to the book store to get a hiking guide for the area. I was a bit disappointed at the selection - or rather, the apparent fact that there aren't all that many awesome hikes in my immediate vicinity. A lot of the Northern California hiking books had mostly hikes that were hours away. This isn't good for me because 1.) I like to hike with a certain canine, but she's an absolute nightmare in the car, therefore I avoid long car trips with her unless necessary... and 2.) while I like to do all-day hikes, there are definitely a lot of times when I want to do a hike but don't have the whole day ... [Read More]