Tuesday 9-16-25 Camping, 2 Hikes & Rain

 

Rain and Sunshine

 

We had a very nice day. It started out at 42 degrees with a little breeze. It got up to 62. When the front came in at 4:00 the temperature dropped to 46 degrees.

I crawled out of bed at 7:00 because I had to go to the bathroom so I stayed up. I made french toast sticks for breakfast.

At 8:00 we went on a hike. It was chilly so we wore a light jacket. We hiked for an hour and forty-five minutes for 3 miles. We started the hike on the trail to Turtle Rock Trail. From the trailhead for Turtle Rock we hiked the trail for about a mile. The trail Y'd off left for Turtle Rock and right to a longer loop trail. We went to the right. We hiked the trail about .25 mile when we got to a creek we had to cross. The creek was too wide to jump and flowing way to fast to try and cross, we decided to turn around. Yesterday, we walked by the creek and it wasn't flowing fast at all. Today, while hiking Turtle Rock we heard the creek and checked it out. It was really flowing. We hiked back to where we saw a marshy area hoping to cross there but there was nowhere to cross. We went back on Turtle Rock trail. Once we got back to the trailhead we hiked the trail we took yesterday around the boundaries of the campgrounds. Even though we couldn't do the trail we planned to we still had a great hike. Because we hiked the trail the opposite way we saw things we missed going the other way. The rock formations even looked different. 

 

Beautiful meadow 

Crossing the creek to the other side

 

When we got home it was a little before 10:00 so we read a bit before having lunch.

After lunch we decided to go on another hike, it was suppose to start raining between 3:00 and 4:00 so if we wanted to do a second hike we had to do it early. The rain was suppose to hang around all evening. Larry had found another possible trail called the Pipeline Trail. We decided we would hike it. We started from the campground and hiked to where the Nautilus Loop Trail begins. We hiked Nautilus Trail until it Y's off. We went to the right because it was where the Pipeline Trail was. This trail was down an old pipeline road and we saw a lot of vent pipes. The trail was out in the open. As we hiked the road we saw three snakes. I couldn't get a picture of them because they were too fast. They just slithered across the road in front of us and disappeared in the small growth. The road took us up and down hills and curved around to the creek. We crossed the creek by taking a giant step. It took me awhile because I over thought it. Larry showed me what I had to do. Once I did it, it wasn't that hard. The trail took us along a fence line and up a hill. We were grateful Larry had the map because we would have missed where to get off the road and get on Nautilus Loop Trail. We hiked Nautilus Trail for about 1 mile. Nautilus Trail took us through trees and up over boulder and in between boulders. The last mile we hiked faster because we saw that the sky was getting dark and we heard thunder. By the end of the hike we had gone 2.3 miles for an hour and fifteen minutes. We made it back in time because it started to sprinkle.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing with a book. Larry started a new book and I continued reading The Oceans and the Stars by Mark Helprin. So far it's a good book about two people finding each other and falling in love. The gentleman was 51 and the lady was 48. It's also about being in the Navy.  

In the evening we turned on the Wave3 because it was getting cold. The heater warmed it right up. I also baked cookies so the oven helped.   

 

 Reading is fun

 

By the end of the day I had done 14,200 steps.