Hi Charles -- you're right. I remember ears ago coming across a family cutting great armloads of stems, having no idea what they were holding.

Liz, our phones do take amazingly good snapshots. Yes our hike was grand--lots of colorful poison oak set off by the dark green of redwood forests. Now that you've had your first snow, have you turned on your heat yet?

Rich, poison oak is tricky; in winter it's bare (although still causes rashes), spring sees shiny amber-to-green leaves, summer fully developed green leaves, turning to yellow, ocher, orange and red. To make it worse, sometimes it's in bush form--like the picture here--and other times a vine, climbing up and around other plants.

Isn't it amazing how good cameras have gotten on our Blackberries, Steve?

Carissa, you can well imagine my horror when I saw people cutting it by the armful! People's susceptibility varies widely, but almost everyone gets it to some degree--or will!

Well, Pacita, if you wander up to Joaquin Miller Park, or Redwood Regional Park, or Tilden, etc., you'll find 'em alive and well. Sidewalk walking in San Carlos has it's own hazards, like buckling pavement.