We have taken some beautiful morning/afternoon walks the last week. You can see the effects of all of the rain we've had recently with rain puddles, greenery and flowers blooming! So beautiful. And one night we went out back and enjoyed roasting marshmallows for s'mores!
I'm having some back trouble right now, but I'm thankful that I can still take morning walks pretty much pain free. This morning we took an extra long one out at Snow Canyon. We did about 5.64 miles to see a rockfall that we had noticed from the road a few days ago when we drove through the canyon. It could be seen from quite a ways up the West Canyon dirt road. What a wonderful walk it was. We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful place. There truly is "beauty all around". We went about 7 am so it was still cool and shady for most of the walk. We did see the rockfall scar with the binoculars. We took the Hidden Pinion Trail for part of the walk and also the Red Sands Trail as well as the West Canyon road. It was wonderful. After that we came home and pretty soon Supe called and reminded us that we were missing JJ and Siera's reception after their temple sealing. Thank goodness he reminded us! We just forgot to look at the calendar. It was right there and we were looking forward to it. It was actually JJ's birthday too. What a great birthday present...an eternal spouse! I'll be glad when my back is better and I can ride my bike up that West Canyon road again I hope. You can see the rockfall scar on the mountainside in the left picture below.
There have been so many terrible fires in the area this year. There's one going on right now up by Kanosh. One morning last week Paul and I took an early morning walk down by his yard and the sun rise was effected by all the smoke in the air. It made the sun look like a red ball! Ferf was out on a run about that time and she also took a picture of it! I hope they get the fires out soon. We are losing so much beautiful forest land to these terrible fires. We have also lost some firefighters and helicopter pilots. So very sad.
I just recently started riding my bike again! I had it tuned up last year for my birthday, but with school starting too early for me to ride in the morning, I just never did ride. Now I'm not going to be going back to school and I have time in the summer, anyway, so I have started riding again. It's hard, but I'm glad to be "back in the saddle again!"
Another thing I'm getting back to with Paul is walking in the hot summer evenings at the golf course. We were getting to where we were just watching movies in the evening or playing games. Getting out to walk is a much better thing. The golf course is much cooler, especially when they have the sprinklers going and you can walk through them! I'm glad we remembered this nice evening ritual and are reviving it! If we find golf balls, we play hand golf too!
A couple of other places we've enjoyed are Liberty Village and the Kayenta Art Village! Love getting out to enjoy new places!
Right now I have to take morning walks without Paul. Sometimes I vary the routes since I have more time since I'm retired. This week I found some fun things on different versions of my morning walks. One morning a little bird was enjoying taking a bath in the overspray from a neighbor's sprinklers. It was so cute! We also had our first ripe tomato one morning this week!
Saturday Paul and I made Owen's Loop our morning walk on the hill behind our house. It got spiced up a little by some cool critters we encountered. First we saw a coyote. It was strange that it was still out and about in the early daylight time. It seemed very curious about us and stayed in sight much longer than I expected it would. On the way down we saw a pretty cool bird sitting on the edge of the cliff. It looked like some kind of bird of prey, but we are not sure what kind. Paul kept inching closer and closer for a better picture, until it finally flew off. Pretty cool to see these critters in our own back yard! Not the best pics of either one, but the best we could get.
