City Hike - San Diego

Our 52 hike challenge is tough to keep up with lately because of the extreme heat wave going on right now.  So, my daughter and I decided to bend the rules a little this week and hike in the city...a cool city...San Diego!

I love San Diego and I'm always so excited to go there.  It's only about an hour south of where we live.  There are so many things to see and do in the city and the surrounding areas.  It wasn't difficult filling our day!  And, the temps were much better!  It was about 105f at home but 69-75f throughout the day in San Diego.

We started with cappuccinos at Lofty Coffee in Little Italy.  Yum!  Afterward, we walked around a bit.  We found an awesome art supply store named, "Blick".  They had so much cool stuff!  I bought a couple of Tombow brush pens to play around with.  My daughter bought a really cool map/poster of California to frame.

Next, we headed over to Old Town San Diego for lunch.  We tried a new-to-us restaurant, Miguel's.  It was delicious and the service was very good.  After lunch, we walked around Old Town.  I've been there many times but I always seem to see things I things I've never noticed before.  It's a fun place to visit.

Heritage Park is nearby and we made sure to walk around the beautiful old Victorian homes.  I think this one is my favorite...

We did a little shopping after that and then we went to find the famous Spruce Street suspension bridge.  It's a walk bridge in a residential area that spans a deep ravine.  It was a little nerve racking to walk across because of the movement.  I didn't think it would bug me but it did...a little.  It was cool to see though.  It's amazing they'd go to this much work and expense to make a way to walk to the neighborhood across the ravine!

In a neighborhood on one side of the bridge, there was a tiny library.  So cool! 

One of the things we'd planned to do was to go to an African drumming class at World Beat in Balboa Park.  Unfortunately, it was cancelled.  But, that was ok because it just gave us more time to walk around Balboa Park.  Even though the museums were all closed, there was a lot going on.  There were concerts ending, being set up, a big one about to start, and various musicians performing throughout the park.  And, the weather was absolutely perfect!  It was a perfect evening!

I love Balboa Park so much!  It's a gorgeous and magical place!  Here's sample of the amazing architecture...

We sat down and listened to this concert for a while.  It was 50's 60's and 70's music.  This is the organ pavilion.  They regularly have pipe organ concerts here.

I took a stroll around the fountain before we headed to the car to go home.

I have no idea how many miles we walked on our city hike but my step counter said we did over 21,000 steps that day!   And, we had a wonderful time!  We're actually thinking of doing another city hike but this time we'll head to downtown Los Angeles.  Stay tuned!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Hiking Challenge

Thank you to everyone who left such sweet and caring comments on my last post.  It meant a lot!  I'm still missing our sweet Salsa a lot but it's getting a bit easier with time.

I've always tried to respond to all my comments via email but I've been having trouble lately with most of them coming back undeliverable.  I've thought about posting replies under the comments but, if you're like me and generally just visit a post once, you'd never see any replies posted there.  So, I hope ya'll see this just in case my emails don't go through.  Hugs!

For today, I thought I'd post a few pics of the most recent hikes in my 52 hike challenge.  I've been keeping up pretty well.  The heat has arrived though and that will make it more challenging.  I think I'm behind by a week right now and we're supposed to have weather around 105+ this week and next.  We're planning to head down to San Diego one day to do a hike near the ocean where it'll be a lot cooler.  An idea I have for another hike is to leave before sunrise and get to the mountains very early to hike before the heat arrives.  We'll see how it goes.

My daughter moved home and that provides us both with a hiking partner for our challenge (she's doing  the 52 hike challenge too...in fact, she was the inspiration for me to do it).  We took her adventure cat, Sonora, on a hike with us a couple of weeks ago.  My daughter has trained her to walk on a leash.  When Sonora gets tired she rides in the backpack.  She seems to enjoy taking in the scenery from there as we hike along.  She's a unique and amazing kitty!

We had some "May Gray" days and took advantage of the coolness on this hike.  We hiked in and out through the fog and watched it blow by.  It was beautiful!

This hike is uphill to the top of a hill with amazing views where we can often see the ocean.  Some sections are quite steep as you can see in these photos.  It makes for a great workout!

We do this hike fairly often and it's interesting that there are always flowers blooming but we never know what kinds we'll see next because they're always changing.  Here are some we saw on this hike...

We had weather cool enough one weekend to do the Eagle Rock trail again.  It was so much fun to take our daughter to this beautiful area.  And, that she got to hike a part of the Pacific Crest Trail! There was a creek, huge old oak trees, and expansive views. That's me in this photo.

A couple of weeks ago, we took our daughter to hike around a beautiful mountain lake that we discovered last year.  It was so pretty that we were excited to share it with her.

It was so full this year from all the rain that the trail on one side was closed.  It was awesome to get so much rain this winter.  We needed it SO badly!  I hope we'll be as lucky next winter!

I found some wild iris' on this mountain trip!

We hiked the Santa Rosa Plateau again last week and were surprised to see large patches of purple flowers where the vernal pools had been just a short time ago.  Beautiful!

We saw bushes with brightly colored berries along our hike.  Some glowed in the sun like jewels!

There was one spot on the trail with a few flowers I'd never seen before.  They're so interesting with their freckles and fuzzy edges!

What's the weather like where you are?  Are you having to work your plans and goals around heat or rain or even tornadoes?  There sure is a lot of crazy weather these days!

Wishing you all a wonderful week!

The Granite Dells

My husband and I went to Prescott, Arizona last week for a little get-away and for him to participate in the Whiskey 50 Off-Road mountain bike race.  We love Arizona and have been exploring more and more of this beautiful state.  The Prescott area was totally new to us.  Like much of Arizona, it didn't disappoint.  It's incredibly beautiful and the higher elevation makes it possible to visit and enjoy even more of the year than some of the hotter parts of the state.

We stayed at Point of Rocks RV Campground.  They were very nice and there were full hook-ups for our RV.  The location of the campground was great!  It was right next to the Granite Dells.  We even got a campsite with a view of them!

Before our trip, I'd Googled Prescott and pictures of The Dells popped up.  The photos were jaw droppingly beautiful.  The opportunity to camp right next to The Dells and hike in them was wonderful.  We quickly headed out for a walk after setting up camp to check out the area and see some of the beauty.  It was stunning!

This is a view looking out over Watson Lake...

Click on any photo to see it larger.

There were lots of wildflowers.  Many of the bushes with these flowers were completely encased in flowers.  It was amazing!  Here's a view of just a few that aren't quite so crowded...

The cactus were blooming...

We scoped out the area to figure out where we wanted to hike the next day.  And, what a hike it was!  We hiked around Watson Lake and through the Dells.  It was amazing!  It was beyond words!  It was so beautiful and so varied!  And, SO fun!

There were more beautiful wildflowers...  

There was the beautiful lake (like in the top photo) and at one far end of the lake was a wetland area that made me feel like we were in the South.  It was gorgeous!  I just couldn't stop saying, "WOW!".  There were benches here and there throughout the hike to sit and take in the beauty.

One section of the hike went along a Rails-to-Trails path where old railroad tracks are turned into a trail for biking and hiking.  That was cool to finally be on a section of something we'd only read about and seen photos of.

The rest of the trail wound around, over, and through giant granite boulders.  At one point, we turned a corner to see lush green.  The trail went down into it and along a stream.  At the top of the stream was a roaring outflow of water coming from the center of the dam.  It was a surprise as we didn't realize we'd be seeing water besides the lake.

We came upon this sign as we neared the end of the hike.  It made us laugh but it wasn't joking!  It was a steep climb up granite boulders.  What was also funny was that both ways were just about as steep.

It's really hard to tell the scale of these boulders in photos or by looking at them from a distance.  They are HUGE!

There's a section high above the lake and near the dam for more incredible views.  That's my awesome hubby!

We saw a skink that was olive green with a red head and neck.  We'd never seen anything like it and had to look it up when we got back to camp to figure out what it was.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a photo of it.  It quickly ran away and hid from us.  We also saw a garter snake crossing the trail. There were lots of lizards. And, we saw lots of beautiful butterflies.  I did get a photo of one of them...

I could post a lot more photos but none of them truly capture what we saw and experienced on our six and a half mile hike.  It turned out to be one of my all time favorite hikes...so far.

It counted as number 18 in my 52 hike challenge.  My ankle did great!  Yay!  And, I was able to wear my old hiking shoes.  I'm going to try my boots on again and see if my ankle is ok wearing them yet.

Hubby had a blast doing the race.  He rode 54 miles in about six hours.  He said there was a lot of steep climbing involved but he'd trained hard and enjoyed it a lot.

We explored the town of Prescott a bit.  There are lots of antique stores and restaurants, and a few saloons left in the famous Whiskey Row.  We went to the Palace Saloon on Sunday for a drink.  We even saw old time western dudes walk in...complete with guns on their hips.  We had a great time in Prescott and plan to return again someday.  Maybe next time I'll even visit some of the yarn shops in town!

Hike 16

Number 16 in my 52 hike challenge was up in the mountains.  I was still a bit unsure of how my ankle would do after twisting it a few weeks prior.  So, we chose a trail to hike that wasn't very technical and wasn't very steep.  I wore my running shoes because my hiking boots were still uncomfortable on my ankle bone.  My ankle did great!  Hooray!  We hiked over five miles that day.

We had expected to see a lot of people because the Ernie Maxwell Scenic Trail is popular.  Luckily, there weren't very many people up there that day.  The weather was perfect, the birds were singing, the trees were sprouting new leaves, flowers were blooming (we even saw daffodils), and...a special and rare treat...the streams were flowing. They were flowing so well that the sound filled portions of the trail like a big, beautiful song.  It was wonderful!  Hooray for all the rain we got in California this winter! 

There was switchback section of the trail where there was a small waterfall a few yards up the hill from the trail.  We hiked up to see it and saw a Western Rattlesnake warming up in the sun.  I was a bit surprised by the place it decided to snuggle into as pinecones don't seem like they'd be comfy.  But, it was very content.  I saw it's eyes look at me but it was perfectly happy where it was and had no plans of moving.  So many people are terrified of them.  And, yes, they can be dangerous.  But, they don't want to be bothered by us any more than we want to be bothered by them. As long as hikers are aware and watch out for them and keep a safe distance everyone will be fine.  They're an important part of the ecosystem and help keep rodent populations in check.

Speaking of things that need to be kept in check.  How about this....litter!  I've been finding more and more litter on trails and in nature.  On this hike, we found several bags of dog poop at the end of our hike.  They were sitting just a few yards from the trailhead and just a few more steps away from a trash can.  Why that person or those people didn't take the few extra steps to finish the job just boggles my mind!  I've heard others complain about finding poop bags on the trail too.  It's great that people are picking up their poop but that's only half of the task.  It needs to go in the trash!  I just don't understand what people are thinking when they do this!  I care about our planet and the experience we want when we go into nature....for it to be clean and beautiful.  So, when I see trash on the trail or poop bags I can't just walk by and leave it.  I know of other caring people that feel the same way.  Everyone needs to be responsible and not leave things like this for others to do.

A video was posted recently of a problem in our local mountains that was created by those who went up to play in the snow over the winter....trash and broken plastic sled pieces all over the mountain.  It was unbelievable to see how much was left behind and how wide spread it was.  They've been having clean up days and some residents have been going out for an hour or more every single day to try to get it all.  They said that it's so bad they're not sure they can ever get it all picked up.  So sad!  So ugly!  And, so bad for wildlife and our beautiful mother earth!

52 Hike Challenge

I love hiking!  So, when my daughter told me she was going to challenge herself to 52 hikes in 2017, one for each week of the year, I just had to join in the fun!  It's such great inspiration to get out there regularly and do something I love and get fit!

We started while she was home on winter break.  Our first hike was a nearby trail that is short and steep.  It's such great training that I decided to try to do this trail once a month.  It's called Monserate Mountain Preserve and it's in northern San Diego county.  The views are amazing!  You can see the ocean on a clear day.  There are beautiful hills all around.  There's a box at the top with notebooks for hikers to write their names, notes, etc.

My second hike was very short but I counted it anyway.  It was a small hill in Tucson that overlooks the city in almost every direction.

Hike three was with hubby.  The destination was a waterfall in San Diego county!  That's pretty amazing to see in Southern California after years of drought!  It was beautiful!

I was sick for the fourth week but managed to do a short hike in the hills above our little town.  Our dog, Salsa, came along too.  The surrounding mountains were covered in snow!  Beautiful!

Hike five was at Monserate again.  Hubby went with me this time and we made it a little longer by taking a different way back from the top.  That added another mile or so.  There were stairs in a section of the east/back side.

Hike six was to Eagle Rock.  It was longer than the previous hikes in my challenge.  And, it was oh so beautiful!  Here's the eagle shaped rock at the turn around spot.  The rocks are huge!

The landscape was just starting to turn green from all the rain we were getting.

Part of the trail meandered through beautiful, old oak trees.

Other parts of the trail went across open grassland.  It was beautiful!  Much of the trail was part of the famous Pacific Crest Trail.  That was exciting to hike on that!

Hike seven was in Tucson!  We started out just before sunset and finished with our headlamps in the dark.  Fun!  Here's a cool silhouette of hubby.

Hike eight was back to Monserate and the flowers were really starting to pop!

I got a pic of a bee enjoying one of the flowers...

Hike nine was to the beautiful Santa Rosa Plateau.  There are vernal pools there and they are very full this year!  Yay for the much needed rain!  There are walkways over the water.  It's fun to look into the water and see fairy shrimp, tadpoles, tiny frogs, and an occasional little snake.

We saw a chocolate lily that day!  We've heard they're rare but we do see them now and then.

On the way to the preserve, we stopped to see a local poppy field in full bloom!  Gorgeous!

Hike 10 was on Mount Palomar.  It's an area we've been curious about but had never hiked.  We were surprised to find a little pond up there, small streams, and even deer!

Hike 11 was back in Tucson with my daughter.  We decided to try Pima Canyon Trail.  We were stunned by the beauty!  There were SO many flowers and it was GORGEOUS!  Pictures don't come close!

Hike 12 was also in Tucson.  We hiked to Seven Falls by Sebino Canyon.  We hiked eight and a half miles that day.  And, I did it in my brand new boots!  It was awesome!  No pics of the falls though.  The falls area was filled with hundreds of people.  That doesn't make for great photos.  There was added interest that day as we saw a woman injured on the trail on our way up.  On the way down we saw that the rescuers had reached her and her family.  We saw search and rescuer people on their way up all along as we headed down.  Here are two that were going up on horses.  The injured woman was later airlifted in a Black Hawk helicopter!  It was a good reminder to be very careful.  And, that if you ever get hurt on the trail that help arrives slowly and might cost a LOT!  I hope she was ok!

I wish photos could come close to how stunning the landscape was with all the flowers.  It was amazing!

Hike 13 was an evening hike back up Monserate.  There were even more gorgeous flowers this time.  Here's one of them...

Hike 14 was in Anza Borrego to Maidenhair Falls.  It's a hike we've wanted to do for a long time.  It was hot that day but gorgeous and the hike was a ton of fun!  There was a lot of way finding and climbing around, over, and under giant boulders to some desert oasis' with palm trees and lots of greenery, and ending at a 20' waterfall.  Ahhh!...Refreshing!

Unfortunately, I twisted my ankle pretty badly on the way down.  I eventually made it to the car but had to rest it for a couple of weeks before I was able to try another hike.  Luckily, I was one hike ahead in my challenge.  That gave me time to let it heal without getting behind.

Last weekend, I went for my first hike after resting my ankle.  It felt SO good to hike again!  However, it started to hurt a bit after about 20 minutes.  So, even though I wanted to keep going, I forced myself to turn around.  I didn't want to go backward on my progress.  I'm glad I did that because it's feeling better and better.

I'm so excited about this challenge and fully intend to succeed.  It's such a great incentive to get out there more often.  And, hiking is a great way to exercise.  Nature is so good for the soul too!  I'm excited to see all the places this challenge will take us!