Wandering Wednesday: Dry Creek

 Our New Year's Day tradition for many years now, is some sort of hiking, usually local. This year we drove over to my sister-in-law's and went for a hike near them in Dry Creek Regional Park. It was super overcast, no blue skies, but no rain thankfully.

According to my fitbit it was 4.18 miles. And the big news is that I made it, and yeah I got sweaty but not too out of breath. All those miles on the exercise bike last year have helped my cardio fitness thankfully. I was sore and tired for a couple days, but it wasn't too bad. And very worth it to spend the time hiking with my family.

Two dogs, both my sister-in-law's, one a puppy, one is three years old went on the hike with us. Their older dog isn't too great with our dog, so we didn't bring her along. Sorry, Meg.

Crunching through the leaves on the trail.

Ahh, this crazy lichen (and maybe some moss too) was such a striking neon. It stood out so cartoonishly in the trees.

Negotiating who exactly is going up the optional hill, and how exactly far it is.

There was an optional extra hill, some of us went up, some of us stayed and caught our breath and took pictures of the ascent.

There they are at the top of the world. The dogs had such a blast running down the hill, they were very invigorated.

This yellow leaved tree really stood out in the gloom. Most of the deciduous trees had already lost their leaves by now, so it was a bit strange.

Almost looks like a bay tree leaf, but it wasn't one.

This is though, a california bay laurel. Smells like the bay leaves you buy in the spice aisle at the grocery store, but this one doesn't work in cooking unfortunately.

Towards the end of the hike, the dogs went crazy all of a sudden. Can you see them there under the trees?

The Lurking Vampire Cattle of the Pioneer Trail. They didn't like being barked at, and we were glad the dogs were on leash.

It was such a grey day (or gray!) but still beautiful because the cloud cover narrowed down the world to what was right in front of us.