Tuesday 9-3-24 Island Lake Trail & Rain

 

Island Lake

We woke up to a steady rain, it went away by 9:00 am. Then the rain came back at 2:30 pm. and stayed around for the rest of the day. It would stop now and then. The rain finally stopped at 7:00 pm. 

 

When I got up it was 43 degrees in the cab of the Minnie. Larry had the heater going so it wasn’t too bad. I lit the stove and cooked up some french toast sticks for breakfast.

After breakfast we relaxed with a book. We weren’t sure if the rain was gone. I finished reading The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. The book took place in the 1830s, slavery was going on. It was about an aristocracy family, the Grimke's, who lived in Charleston and the relationship Sarah and Handful (a slave) had with each other. It was very well written and I enjoyed reading the novel. Then I started a new book called Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

 

Relaxing with a book

 

The rain had stopped so after lunch we decided to go on a three mile hike. We ended up doing five and a half miles. We hiked along Island Lake up to the third lake and back. The hike was easy/moderate. We climbed over boulders, walked over big rocks in the trail, crossed over creeks using boulders, saw wildflower, 7 backpackers hiking up to the next lake and couple hiking just like us. We started on the west side of Island Lake, we didn’t see where the trail Y'd over to take you to the east side so we continued hiking the trail to the next lake, from there we turned around and came back. Larry had the trail downloaded on his GPS so he looked up the trail. He found where the trail should have Y'd off and we followed where it should have been. At times the trail disappeared entirely and we had to find it. We climbed over boulders and found the trail again. This part of the hike was difficult. Larry kept pushing because the clouds were starting to look threatening and we could hear thunder. We saw a couple of guys hiking up the trail. Larry explained the trail disappears and the clouds look like they could open up any second. They said they may turn back but they continued hiking. We got back to the Minnie just in time. The wind was howling ant the rain was coming down hard. We had a great hike with a lot of beautiful scenery.

 

The lake above Island Lake

A group of five ladies backpacking to the next lake

 

Rocks we hiked over on the trail

 

Boulders we hiked to get over creeks 

 

Island Lake where we crossed

 

We hung around the Minnie the rest of the day reading. I ended up doing 17,000 steps.

For dinner I baked burritos in the oven. On top of the burritos I put enchilada sauce and pepper jack cheese. For dessert I baked apple cinnamon muffins using Martha White mix, you just add ½ cup of milk. Both dishes came out very good. By using the oven it took the chill out of the Minnie.