Today C. and I drove up to the summit of the mountain to hike to a lake that turns out to be her namesake.
All the following photos were taken by C. on her iPad, because after thinking I had taken oh, around a dozen pictures, your's truly discovered that she had left her SD card at home next to the computer. Oh I had seen to it that my camera was fully charged and ready for the day, but I forgot to put its brains in before I left home. Sheesh.
Anyway, we stopped at the top so she could take some pictures and I got out of the car. The Pacific Crest Trail crosses the road just at that spot and down off the trail came a lone hiker. I asked him where he had started, and he said Mexico. Wow...that's a long way from here on foot! He told me was from Cornwall, England. We had a nice little conversation and as we parted, I shook hands and told him my name. Turns out I had been having a cozy chat with none other that 'Sprocket' ....of the Cornwall Sprokets don't you know. :-)
On the drive up to the trailhead I saw a little baby bird walking on the road. At first I thought it was a quail, but I had NEVER seen a quail walk so slowly. Then I spied his mother on the side of the road and we realized we were looking at Grouse. I don't think I have ever actually seen a Grouse around here before. They are much more rare than Quail. There were two other babies with her. She finally got too nervous to wait for little mister poke along and took flight with her other offspring. He finally followed. You can barely see him in the road, but if you look hard you will spot him.
It's a pleasant hike to the lake, not too far....
We ended up hiking to that far side in the marshy area and sat on a lovely flat rock and ate our lunch while watching fish jumping in the water.
There were many stops for photos as the place was loaded with wild flowers everywhere you looked...
But I think my favorite of all is this one she took on the way up the mountain...
Yeah.
That.
I took some really wonderful photos too.... with my memoryless camera. They reside in an alternate reality where I actually have a functioning brain.
In any case today we managed to live up to my motto:
On the drive up to the trailhead I saw a little baby bird walking on the road. At first I thought it was a quail, but I had NEVER seen a quail walk so slowly. Then I spied his mother on the side of the road and we realized we were looking at Grouse. I don't think I have ever actually seen a Grouse around here before. They are much more rare than Quail. There were two other babies with her. She finally got too nervous to wait for little mister poke along and took flight with her other offspring. He finally followed. You can barely see him in the road, but if you look hard you will spot him.
It's a pleasant hike to the lake, not too far....
We ended up hiking to that far side in the marshy area and sat on a lovely flat rock and ate our lunch while watching fish jumping in the water.
There were many stops for photos as the place was loaded with wild flowers everywhere you looked...
But I think my favorite of all is this one she took on the way up the mountain...
Yeah.
That.
I took some really wonderful photos too.... with my memoryless camera. They reside in an alternate reality where I actually have a functioning brain.
In any case today we managed to live up to my motto: