a visit with oma and pops

1st day of school

i've been a stranger around this blog. let's just say summer has been keeping us very busy and outside, far from a computer. to make amends i have a handful of pictures from ronan's first day of kindergarten today. he was very excited to get to class and make some new friends and i, thankfully, only cried a little bit and not until i was down the hall. i can't wait to see his little face when he gets off the bus!

flume trail mishap

girls hiking trip!! monique and i wanted to have a big experience so we decided to check out the flume trail near sheridan lake. it's a gorgeous trail that starts out by the lake, follows the run off stream, and the path of the old fume. we got to cross through 2 tunnels; the short one was no problem but the long one was scream inducing for me. the whole floor of the tunnel was covered with water with a couple boards hovering over the water. each step makes the boards sink down in to the water. there was just something horrific at watching the water creep towards my shoes, like maybe it was acid or lava or BLOOD!! ack!

once we made it through the tunnels we hiked and hiked and hiked. total trail miles one way for the flume trail is 14 miles and i would say we got maybe 10 miles down the trail before my toe was hurting so bad we turned around. (my five finger toe shoes let me down on this one.) since the day was hot and my foot hurt a short cut was needed. unfortunately, the short cut turned out to be a long cut and we ended up hiking hours out of the way. technically we hiked into a shooting range but in the end we scored a ride from a local college student that saved us another 10 miles of hiking. despite everything it was a beautiful, amazing, intense, and intensely fun day! i love hiking!

trail head

thought it was a huge crow...

turned out to be a vulture of some kind.

lots of vultures!

life is so tenuous. poor guy.

they were everywhere!

spot where the old flume came through.

i have never seen anything like this.

dam at sheridan lake.

man, it was steep!!

flume support wall.

nature's puzzle pieces.

long tunnel.

so glad i brought my headlamp, thanks jeffrey!

thats monique.

closer...

made it.

i love thistles.

another trail friend.

we walked a line between life and death.

prickly pear.

there was another red head in the woods that day. :)