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Got up nice and early. Ed and I started the day with a bet, can a child enter into the Habitat for Humanity draw? Me no, Ed yes. And Kathy wins! Ed must buy tacos for dinner!!! So already I think it is going to be a good day.
A true adventure today. We decided we would go back to the Coachella Valley Preserve and do the Pushawalla Palms trail, as the woman at the visitor centre recommended. The trail was classified as moderate/difficult. Good lord! That is complete crap – that trail was completely difficult! It is part of the San Andreas Fault System. About 500 feet in elevation and over 5 miles.
Anyways, so we got all packed up, water, granola bars, camera, phone, packsack. Learned something from our last hike, in which we were in the middle of the dessert with nothing but a camera! Ed even had a bit of sunscreen on. The trail head is a short drive from our place. So we get there, and no one wants to carry the packsack! I have enough problems with heat, I wasn’t having a packsack causing sweating down my back. Ed wasn’t going for it
either. So we each took a water, I took the camera and he took his bb. A safety improvement over our last hike either way.
So the hike starts off nice and flat. Then we get to the first hill, which includes a set of stairs. It should have been then that I realized that this was going to be one hell of morning. It is the dessert, it is never cool here. So we start climbing. It was about 15 minutes into the hike and I have to crack open my water. Then Ed starts with ‘if I drink all my water will you share yours with me’. I say ‘of course’. Mistake one!
So we climb. And climb. The views from the top of the first ridge are great. As are the ones from the second ridge. And the third. This is about an hour in. Then finally we go downhill to a flat trail. Excellent, some relief! About 5 minutes later the trail goes back up again. And then down. And up. And down. You get the picture. The trail is now small and sandy, so at some points you are more sliding down the
hill than walking. It was a killer on the way to the Pushawalla Palms. It’s a good thing at that point that I didn’t know that was the easy part!
We get to the Palms. That is where the end of my water happens. We wander around the Palms, get a bit turned around and then find our path. We decided to double back instead of walking the loop (mostly because we weren’t sure it was a loop) because it is very sandy, which is too difficult to walk on. Now we are trying to climb these sandy trails. Killer. About 20 minutes in my thighs have no further interest in climbing. It's really hot. We get to the fork, and I think that we should follow the Horseshoe Palms, looks flatter. Ed doesn’t agree. We go with Ed. Thank God! Once we got back up to the top of the ridge and could see that trail I was very glad we weren’t down there – long, flat, hot.
So we get back to where the trail splits. We are trying to decide if we should stay on the flat trail, but can’t see if it is a
marked trail. So as we are trying to figure out what to do, I get attacked by a bee! It flies into my hat and it won’t leave. So I pull off my hat and I’m waving it all over the place, yelling that I’m being attacked by a bee. Ed says run away, which I do, and the bee goes with me!! It won’t leave me alone. So now I’m not screaming but more skreetching at the top of my lungs ‘it won’t leave me alone’ and Ed is saying ‘it’s gone’ and I’m saying ‘I can hear it buzzing’. So it quickly deteriorates into me shaking my hair, jumping around and just screaming. And Ed doing almost nothing!!! I’m yelling ‘help me’ and he’s saying ‘what do you want me to do’. I’m sure this went on for a total of about 3 minutes but it seemed way longer! Finally Ed manages to get the bee away and yells ‘run’. So I start running. Through the dessert. Kind of got a second wind! So I get back to the place where the trail splits and I stop. The bee is gone. And now Ed is walking towards me
with a smile on his face, asking if I need my hair elastic. At this point I start yelling ‘you are an asshole, a total asshole’ which makes him laugh more. I was yelling loud enough for the entire Coachella Valley to hear. I was glad to get the hair elastic back.
The next 10 minutes was climbing back up the ridge, with me saying ‘you aren’t going to look good in my blog tonight’ and Ed laughing. I do think that bee liked me because my hair smells nice.
The end of the trail wasn’t bad. It was hot but the views are great and it was encouraging when we could see our car. Knowing there was cold water in the cooler kept us going, because Ed’s water was long gone.
Near the end of the hike we decide that the payoff will be Coldstone Creamery. That really keeps me going, since I haven’t fed that addiction in a long time. So we get our water, head to Coldstone. And it’s closed!!!! No one else wants ice cream for lunch? We get back in the car and the OPEN sign pops on! Yes! Luck has changed.
Burnt about 1300 calories on the over 2 hours hike. Ate 1100 calories in ice cream. Seemed like a good trade.
We were supposed to go house hunting in the afternoon but our realtor was busy so instead we had a swim and a hot tub. Then we came inside for a break. Ed hit the bed. Hard. Two and a half hours later he emerged! The hike in the heat did us in. We may have both indulged in a bit of Advil. Plan tonight is to relax and eat tacos. Watching The Town. Will follow the Canadian election results tonight. Anyone but Harper!!!
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