Monday 12-15-25 Happy Monday, Hiking Trails & Games

r

 

 

Gorgeous Day

 

We woke up to a chilly morning with the temperature of 31 degrees, fortunately the wind was gone and the sun came out. We had setup both of our electric heaters last night. Before going to bed I turned them down to 66 degrees and when Larry got up he turned the temperature to 72 degrees. They had a hard time keeping up. Its great having electric heaters. The high was in the low 50's. 

I woke up about 7:45 am and made blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Larry was already up doing his morning thing, reading his forms he follows. He was bundled up under our unicorn blanket (over 45 years old). He loves camping when it is cold. I slept dressed in sweat pants, socks and a sleeper. When I got up I changed into hiking pants, a sweat shirt a lite jacket. 

After breakfast we finished getting ready for a hike. I put water in my pouch and put it on. We started our fitness bands to track the hike and got our hiking poles. We were ready by 8:45 am. By the end of the hike we had hiked almost 5 miles. We hiked two trails, which were Scenic Overlook Trail (red arrows) and Sandstone Crossover (orange arrows). The trails aren't well marked but Larry had printed out the trail map. We started at the campground, walked to the parking lot and picked up the red trail. It took us up the side of the hill, it was challenging (moderate). Lots of loose rocks but it was mainly well packed by being used a lot. The trail was narrow but not so narrow that you were afraid of falling off the side of the hill. At the beginning we passed a couple walking towards us, we said our hellos and continued on. While hiking the trail we saw a lot of beautiful scenery, the hills looked terrific with lots of trees showing their fall colors. We stopped at two more water fountains that were built by the CCC, they no longer work but it is amazing to know that they did work 90 years ago. We stopped a couple of times, where the trail Y's off to look at the map to see which trail to take. There was a sign where you either took the purple trail and red trail. We continued on the red trail. We met a few more people on the trail and said hello to them. One had a dog and we stopped and petted the dog. She wasn't too sure about us so we didn't stay too long. About halfway through the hike (2 miles) the trail exited at a parking lot with a CCC Overlook building. The views from there was magnificent. We sat on the bench and rested before continuing on. We walked across the street and picked up the trail once again. The trail was sandier than on the other side. We hiked over a beautiful bridge that went over a huge ravine, the bridge was made entirely of composites material. Other than the bolts holding it together Larry could find no other metal. It was made by a company named Creative Composites Group. They did a super job and the bridge should last a long time. We stopped at another Y, which is where we had hiked to yesterday. We got on the orange trail. While hiking this trail we saw a lady and her dog. We said hi but she didn't. We walked by the CCC water fountain we saw yesterday. We saw three CCC water fountains and each one was a little different. But they all had two faucets with two levels and steps to reach each faucet. They were very cool. 

 

First CCC water fountain 

 

Second CCC water fountain

 

CCC water fountain from yesterday

 

CCC overlook building

 

View of the surrounding area

 

The Composite Bridge we crossed over

 

By the ended of the hike we had hiked just under 5 miles, 12,500 steps and 2 hours and 47 minutes. We had a super hike. It's the first time we saw so many people hiking the trails. We're usually by ourselves on the trails. It was great to see.            

In the afternoon I played my games. 

It's Sunday so it starts a new week of playing Solitaire. I like playing games so I do the challenge of unlocking the golden ticket by playing 16 games of any Solitaire games (Klondike, Spider, Free Cell, Pyramid or Tri Peaks). When you unlock the golden ticket your scores double whenever you the Solitaire. It really doesn't mean anything but I enjoy it, its fun. After doing this I played the event, which was Event: Two Game Tango of 20 games (10 Klondike and 10 Spider). It took me 1 hour, 12 minutes and 10 seconds to complete, which put me in 4th place in my group. Then I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

While I played my game Larry read. He finished his book he started yesterday and started another one. After finishing all my games I started to read Knave of Diamonds by Laurie R. King. It's a novel about Sherlock Holmes and his wife Mary Russell.

 

Reading is relaxing and fun

 

After dinner we walked around the campground for a half hour. By the end of the night I had done 16,000 steps. We had a super day of camping and hiking.