The inadvertant Hike

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So, remember my legs and the wonderful ugly bright red "hickey" I had? Well it cleared up really fast and there is no more swelling or anything but I was still a little apprehensive about going on any more hikes for at least a few days. Uh, but, yeah... so much for that. So this morning we left at 10:00 for a slow and short walk down the road: regular tennis shoes; 3 bottles of water (one for each of us); no hiking boots; no walking sticks; no food; no overnight gear (okay so the last couple things are a bit of a stretch). In other words we were not prepared for the "road ahead".
The first obstacle we had to face were the guardians in the lower camping area. A camper there has two gi-hugic Great Danes that their owner says are not friendly - which we didn't question or test. We were allowed passage and moved on down a red rock road around the back side of a small hill and down to the floor of our little canyon here (aka a "wash"). We then headed towrds the river behind the Angel Valley compound. We walked across the wash, up a hill and past where the river does a hairpin turn and heads down the hill. The hill we went up turned out to be quite a test for us in the temperature we had today (mid-upper 80's). It probably would have been better to take this one at an earlier time of day - like 7:00 or so. It did take us up to a b^e^U^tiful view. We could even see the trailer from up top. The second obstacle was that I almost didn't make it to the top. It was a pretty easy straight-up hike, but in the heat, my body just didn't like it so much. Had to rest several times, but made it all the way and was able to enjoy a really nice view. We got some great pictures and will definitely do it again, just a lot earlier in the morning. The third obstacle was getting back down. It was pretty steep and in area there was a lot of lose gravel and rock. Allie made it fine, but Bob and I both slid a few times. Pretty scarey when you are up so high and there's nothing but rock below you. We then had to face the number one obstacle, I mean obstacle 4 or, well, we had to hang back from the large unfriendly guard dogs in order to get past them again. After the long trek up the hill back to the trailer, we stayed in, turned on all the fans and had some lunch after which Bob slept and I read up on our new camera. The thing is amazing. Technology gets better and better all the time. It's insane really. Focus on multiple faces at a time? Not take the picture until you are smiling? Delayed shutter in case the camera shakes? Macro pictures?! Seriously? At any rate, tomorrow morning we will tackle another hike - much earlier in the morning, and we're not sure where yet. It will be a surprise!

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