I ride a mile up Red Creek Road across Paradise Flat, one of the only flat areas in Henry Coe State Park, and I feel hotter

Paradise Lake, my destination, is hiding behind the ribbon of green trees between the two closest large hills. The low spiky plants in the foreground, vinegar weed, give off a bracing citrus-vinegar-turpentine scent that I enjoy, but is disliked by some.

The Las Pilitas native plant nursery web site jeers that, "[Trichostema lanceolatum] is one of the many native plants that separates the people that should be here from those that shouldn't. I have no idea why city folks move to the country and then complain about the smelly plants that live there."