I am a grandma who has lived in Fairfield since 1984. I have been on a number of open space committees and have volunteered in our Solano County community in several other ways. I am not an expert on flora, fauna, or photography. I'm just a fan!

This website has one purpose: sharing the wonderful sights that I have witnessed at Rockville Hills Regional Park. Dan Tilley, a long-time park booster and volunteer once told me that "Thirty minutes of hiking around Rockville is better for relieving stress after a day at work than a couple of martinis!" Hah! Wise words! I don't think you can regularly visit the park without having your spirits lifted. I have used a .com extension to (hopefully) make the URL easier to remember: RockvilleRocks.com.

I would like to thank a number of people who have made this project possible. First of all, my husband, who did the database programming that made displaying all of my photos an achievable feat. And he did it all in spite of having a "real" job besides!

Next, I would like to thank Park Ranger Teri for always being patient with my questions and requests. She and all of the workers at Rockville Hills Regional Park go the extra mile in making the open space a great place to visit.

The vast majority of the website photos are of plants. When I first started regularly visiting Rockville, it was late summer/early fall, and I kept wondering what those dead plants could be when they were alive and growing! And now I can ID a lot of them, regardless of the time of year. My goal with the plants was to document all of the parts of a plant through as much of its life cycle as possible. Because of that, this is not a browse-through online picture book. Most people will not be interested in seeing so much plant detail. So for those of you who want to just ID a flower, click on the Flower ID link and you will hopefully find your answer without going cross-eyed!

Very generous in helping me out whenever I got stuck on a plant identification was Dr. Ellen Dean, PhD, Curator, UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity. I really appreciate her willingness and her expertise.

When I had all of the plants figured out the best I could, I had Dr. Glen Holstein, PhD, Chapter Botanist and Council Delegate, Sacramento Valley Chapter, California Native Plant Society review the plants and give me corrections. Without his knowledge and experience, I could not in good conscience stand behind the plant IDs on the website.

I should note that only vascular plants have been reviewed by an expert. The algae, liverworts, mosses, fungi, galls, and lichens, are all just my best guesses. And for what it's worth, I have no expertise other than being a Certified California Naturalist (as of April 2019).

Visitors should note that there are photos on this website that may be disturbing to many. My curiosity always trumps my aversion. In fact, we have coined a word for 'those' types of photos: grawsome, from gross + awesome. Most of these photos are in the folders "The Dead, The Gross, and The Poopy" under the Other Stuff category, but I can't promise that there aren't others elsewhere.

The "editorial" opinions expressed here and there on this website are mine alone. They hopefully articulate my desire to have Rockville Hills Regional Park remain a treasure for years to come.

Please note that EVERY photo on this website is copyrighted. That means that you may not use any photo, in full or in part, without express permission. I have found other copyrighted photos of mine used in places and publications without my permission, and I have asked for the users to remove the photo(s). Google Image searches will always say, "Images may be subject to copyright," under any of the results provided. That is not permission to use! If you would like to use a photo for education or otherwise, you can contact me at the email link below. You should realize, however, that the resolution of these photos is low (for digital screen display) and not high (for printing).

One more hint for viewing the website photos: many pages have lots of photos, which can take a bit to load for the first time. A clue that both photos and captions are fully loaded is that a number will show up under the left bottom of the first photo when all is loaded. If you scroll down before then, you may miss some of the captions or they may show up wonky. If you are patient--and you have a decent internet connection--it won't take long.

If you would like to make suggestions or corrections, please email me at KD4Rockville@gmail.com.

One last thing: if you want to know more about outdoor happenings in Solano County, check out the Activities & Events page on the Solano Open Space website.