The children gathered round in their white blouses, green ruffled skirts and flower-laden hair. A hush fell over the crowd as these sweet-faced girls put on their smiles and gathered the edges of their skirts. The music started — and so began a dizzying array of twirling skirts and stepping feet.
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No, this wasn’t a Cinco de Mayo celebration; it was one of the activities featured during this year’s Dia del Niño celebration at Maxwell Farms Regional Park in Sonoma Valley. The dancers were the folkloric dance troupe from El Verano School. Their performance was one of the highlights of the day, when everyone came together and rejoiced in celebrating the children. 

“Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves ..."  
— Henry David Thoreau
 
Corby Hines, Sonoma Land Trust’s outings guide, had given me one instruction before beginning the 15.2-mile ascent to the summit of Pole Mountain …