The Road Taken

Since it's now Spring and the weather is wonderful, the girl and I have resumed our hiking expeditions. I love them.
They complete me.

I run on the treadmill, and still continue to do so. And when I say run, I mean, walk at a very fast pace at a slight incline and then right in the middle, I run for 2-3 minutes, just to get my heartrate up. I don't mean that I actually, like run, for a large amount of time. I'm just not built that way.

The hubby, on the other hand, can run 3-5 miles on any given day, just for the heck of it. *ugh*



But when I have the time, and the girl isn't busy with homework or her friends, we jump in the jeep and go to one of the two close parks that have access to these trails. There are a ton of different trails and we have tried most of them.

We take off and explore and it feels like there's not another person in the world out there. It feels remote and removed.

Can you see the deep valley's? We got down in them and the forest is all around us or we stand up here along one of these ridges and we can see for miles. It's exhilerating.

Sometimes we stumble across fallen trees like these. Huge things that once stood high in sky.

There's the girl climbing it. See how large it is?

This day, we stumbled upon an old settlement of some sort, I'll take more photos the next time we visit it. There was an old rusted pump with the base of a pumphouse around it and the foundation of a house-like area off to the side. Deep, deep in the woods.

Just yesterday, we took another trip, this time with the fireman and the youngest boy! They don't normally go with us.

We took an extra long hike this time, exploring further than ever.

We'll walk about 30-45 minutes or so, running here and there and then when we think we've gone far enough, we turn around and head back, or try to find another path back.

We're gone around an hour, sometimes more.
It's peaceful and I pulling feel on my body, my muscles working and stretching. I didn't used to enjoy this. It's a learned thing. I like the feel of exercise, like I'm doing something good for myself. Lean and strong. Or, well... leaner than I was...

I love it. I love the smells of spring, the blossoms, the wind, the quiet. You can hear the birds overhead and see squirrels run out and around when you get too close.

Then the path home. This one was littered with little blue/purple flowers that seem to be in abundance in this forest.