There’s something soothing about fog. Driving around the Bay Area you can go from brilliant sunshine one place to chill fog and mist just a few miles away. On a recent morning I set out (in the sunlight) to hike to Martinez Benchmark, a high hill above Carquinez Straits, where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers flow out to the Bay. It was just me and the cows, this rock, and acres of green. Only a couple of miles from the freeways and the town center, but it seemed a continent away; it could easily have been Ireland or the Scottish moors.