This morning I decided to go with Larry and Gracie on their hike and do one of his longer ones, I decided on the five mile loop. Larry said if he had known I was going to go for a long one he would of gotten me up earlier so we could have gone when it was cooler. We left just before 8 a.m.
Wow is the nasty star thistle everywhere. It was stabbing my shins where the trail goes through the weeds. Fortunately it was only for a small part of the walk. The last few times Larry's been out he hasn't seen a soul, today we ran into a pack of loud talkers and a couple of solo hikers. We saw a jack rabbit and a couple of cotton tails.
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| Going up |
I had decided to tackle the BIG hill. It isn't as steep as the "training hill" trail that comes up from the river but is still a long steep climb. It was wide and had lots of shade, but I still got hot and my cardio fitness apparently isn't what it should be so I kept having to rest. We don't tend to walk slowly either. The last time I rested I thought at this rate it would be lunch time before we got home so rather than rest I just went. very. slow. one. step. at. a. time, so that I was at least making SOME progress. Then it was down hill and up another one, but I was hot, the sun was getting warmer and by the time we hit the asphalt I was resting in the shade of the available trees every chance I needed. But when I started seeing stars and resting didn't help much and knowing that the last mile or so had very little shade I did what I've only threatened in the past. I had Larry go on home to get the car and come back for me. Whoeee. I stood in the shade for awhile and then walked on to the horse staging area where there was a water hose and I doused my head and stood in the shade of a tree and let the timely breeze cool me off. Ticked me off because I was wearing my hat and brought water and it was before ten and the heat still took me down. It was only in the 80's somewhere.
Now the good thing was that I haven't hiked that far in a good long time and my hips did not give me one lick of trouble or pain. My muscles, joints and all that were good, just not good enough lung power and too much sun. I'm determined to do it again, hopefully Sunday morning, but I plan on leaving a couple hours earlier and bringing more water.
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| Still going up! |
The rest of the day I kept working on keeping my muscles from tightening up and I stayed inside with the a/c and out of the sun.
I took pictures with the phone, but of course it is not doing what it is supposed to, trouble with the sd card and another thingy that is supposed to transfer the pics to the laptop. Damn "smart" phones.
Update: After over a half hour of dinking with phone and computer...tada! Pictures.
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I turned and looked back where we had
been coming up from. |
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