Taking a hike

I haven't posted for the past few days. When people talk about their blogs, they often compare it to their living room, as if by posting about their life and you reading the post, you are being invited in, to set a spell on the couch and visit. That's one way to look at it I suppose. But I don't consider this blog an extenstion of my home, or any room in it. This is more about what's going on inside my head, and I'm sharing it with whoever happens to be passing by. And I'm certainly willing to put a lot more out there on this blog than I do in real life, because lord knows, it's easier with relative strangers than people who already know you, or at least think they know you.

Anyway, before I go running off on a tangent, I passed up on posting because I wasn't happy about some of the things that were inside my head, and couldn't seem to get past them to post about anything else. To give the Cliff Notes version, a private discussion between two people was made public and escalated, because one of the two people insisted on making a mountain out of a molehill. I'm at the point of time in my life where I care more about being happy than being right, so I'll leave you to figure out which one of the two people I was. I've been down this road before and it doesn't lead anywhere good. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm done with it. So done. Life is too short to wast time and energy on this kind of garbage so I'm just going to walk away.

On better, brighter subjects - yesterday my friend stopped by my apartment to see if I wanted to go for a hike. I need to add here that my friend is in much better physical shape than I am. Although we used to work out at the gym together a few times a week and work a physically demanding job together on the weekend, times have changed and so I have I. Right now I'm still working my way back from too much time behind a desk. But I know from past experience that when I'm with her I push myself farther than I'd ever go alone, so I went for it.

After we picked up her dog Meg, we headed up the stagecoach road to the summit. Which is a paved road but long and all uphill. To say that what goes up must come down would be appropriate here and we came back down a hiking trail known as The Laundry Trail. (And no, I have no idea why it's called that - but I do intend to find out.) It was a gorgeous day, we saw tons of wildflowers and new growth in the fire areas. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I'd have liked to. Once we were off the paved road and on the actual trail, I spent a large amount of time focused on not slipping and falling down. (Personally, I'm a big believer in taking a voluntary sit-down to stave off involuntary falling down. It works, trust me.) And I have twice before in my life sprained my ankle just days before leaving on a vacation, so I admit this was not a wise form of recreation. But the few photos I did get are below.

I'll admit it, I'm hurting today. My quads are have registered serious complaints and my calves are none too pleased either. But it was a great afternoon and I'm so doing it again! Wanna come with?

Tomorrow I'll be leaving the island to start heading up to Santa Clara for Stitches West. I'm too tired and focused on packing right now, but I'm betting that once I wake up tomorrow morning I'll be wired up and ready to roll. I am planning to take my laptop with me, so I should be able to keep blogging all week if the WiFi gods are on my side.