Housebound during the pandemic, Silvia Espinoza felt her three kids were developing unhealthy routines. They spent their free time glued to their phones or the TV inside their small home in the Fair Oaks neighborhood of Redwood City.
Espinoza says she became concerned that her kids were spending too much time glued to their screens during the pandemic. Her older son, a teenager, deals with anxiety. She worried about her younger son becoming diabetic after a weight gain. It faces south across a canyon toward a grand, conifer-studded ridgeline, with a slice of the Pacific Ocean visible in the distance. Inside is an airy, 1,square-foot modern living space: two bedrooms, two half-bathrooms, a kitchen with new appliances and a large living room with a giant beanbag chair in one corner.
When the Peninsula Open Space Trust bought the acre site there in , the historic cabin β called the Audrey Edna cabin, then in a dilapidated state β came with it. And then, how do you execute that? The initial idea was to refurbish the cabin as a publicly available hiker hut. Then COVID hit, underscoring the health imperatives of getting outdoors and casting the issue of equitable access to nature parks and preserves in sharp relief. Such programs tend to provide more modest activities β community-center yoga classes or nature walks, for instance β so the cabin is a unique asset.
After a pilot program last year, POST and the county officially opened the cabin this spring. A guest book inside the front door is filled with gracious handwritten notes. When patient-families have questions about the cabin, they call Gonzalez. Many families follow up with notes of thanks or text Gonzalez photos of their children hiking happily in the woods, she said.
Facebook Instagram. About Mental Health. Doctors are prescribing weekend getaways at this remote Bay Area redwood cabin.
