Best Western Novato Oaks Inn

School Support

by karenincalifornia

Marin County is made up of 19 separate public school districts. Like the rest of Marin County, Novato strongly supports its public school district and is willing to tax itself to supplement the substandard funding provided by the State of California. Novato recently passed a school bond that enabled it to make substantial renovations to its aging facilities. One of the uses of the bond money resulted in this beautiful all-weather track and football field at San Marin High School. My daughter, who is on her high school track team, got the opportunity to compete on this track when the county track championship (MCAL) was hosted by San Marin High School.

Olompali is not overly crowded...

by JeanCooke

Olompali is not overly crowded for being so close to populations. I hiked a Saturday and Sunday with only 5 other people. Benches are located for rest and spectacular views of the river basin and bay. Figure about 1 ½-2 hours to complete the Loop. Wear hiking boots and hat. Shade covers 80% of the hike.

Novato VT BBQ with friends

by Martin_S.

Meet Jessica and her husband Mark, they opened their home to us and provided a great atmosphere for the BBQ. Jessica I DO know it is easier to take people out to a restaurant, but having the BBQ in your home made that day a very special day. Everyone who was invited brought their own homemade foods, especially Carol who I think brought enough for 10 people...and Jessica made Calfornia SOUR DOUGH bread especially for me ^O^, something that I have been missing...This is the BBQ that I brought my chili to and I have heard rumors that Jessica's father is a "mean" chili maker himself..... I sure do hope he can make the next BBQ here in Israel...

I have to laugh when I see this picture, sorry guys...meet (from the left) Greg, (me), Josh and Mark, non-VTers, but still nice people, both Greg and Mark are married to Vters so they at least have an idea about what VT is all about, but I spent quite a few words with Josh telling him some of my personal experiences with VT and VT members...now we only have to see if they will all appear here on VT soon, come on Karen, Jessica and Carol, convince them ^O^

We also met Linda, that is the petite woman with the huge smile between Zohara and I, of course the girl on the right is Tal. We were lucky enough to enjoy some sound tracks off a new CD that Linda had just done at Josh's studio, "fresh off the recorder" so to speak.

4th of July in Novato - Down Home America

by jessicadf

"Pancakes in the making"

The Novato Presbytarian Church sponsored a big pancake breakfast in the parking lot of the former Pini's Hardware store, just around the corner from our house. In fact, that parking lot is behind our back fence. So we were awoken at 7am to the sounds of their PA system playing bad neo-country music. We should have asked for a discount on our breakfast fee. ;-)

"Breakfast?"

Okay, so in a moment of madness, Mark accepted a piece of ham with his pancakes and eggs. Unfortunately, he doesn't like ham. But he seemed to enjoy the rest.

"Hometown Parade"

This year's theme was "Home Town Heros," and started with convertible cars parading about fire fighters, police officers and military veterans. I'll admit to getting teary eyed from time to time.

"It's a big town"

But still quite rural. Novato's the most populated, and largest town in Novato, but it's so spread out, you might not realize it. Also, it's one of the towns that have rural enough areas that there are plenty of horse stables and corrals. Here we see some horsemen and horsewomen on parade

"Heros"

Firefighters -- some of my favorite of the public service folks. Anyone who risks their life to save other's lives and posessions is a-okay in my book.

"Super chicken!"

Local businesses, of course, were included in the parade. Chicken-man was representin' for one of our favorite places to grab a bite - California Grill and Rottisserie.

"Irish pipers?"

When you hear the irish pipes a-callin'....

"Basset hounds on parade"

Okay, one of the best parts of the parade were the basset hounds. Who knew there were so many? At least 100 bassets trotted, meandered or were wheeled down the parade route at one point. It was delightfully ridiculous! The old and gray ones being pulled in carts brought a tear to my eye in their sweetness.