Savoring "60"

Today is the last day I will be sixty, tomorrow I turn 61. My husband & I are celebrating my birthday week on the Oregon coast. He asked me where I wanted to go for my birthday.
I said to the Ocean, so here we are.

I thought about what I wanted to do on the last day of my 60th year. I decided to run 6.0 miles, I thought that would be nice. I started at the Otter creek overlook & then veered off of hwy 101 to the Otter Crest drive. It runs parallel & below the hwy.  

Some of the views along the way -

I finished right at the Beverly Beach turn off. 

It was the perfect way to close out my "60th year.

I wonder what "61" has in store for me?!

Ten mile run

What wonderful February weather we've been having. The weather forecast for today showed sun and mid 50's for the temp's, so I was very happy. I usually try to do a long run on Sundays. Today I had decided it would be 10 miles. I haven't ran that far for awhile, so I thought I'd give my endurance a test. I'm hoping to get some longer distances in throughout the summer, so this is just the beginning.

Back in October I did a post inviting my readers to come along on an 8 mile run with me. 

You can read it here. I thought I'd do the same thing today since it was so beautiful.

I did an out and back course starting in Cornwall Park.

Here are my views as I ran -

Squalicum Harbor 

Looking towards Zuanich park 

South Bay trail

5 mile turn around point, time to head back. If you click on the photo below to enlarge it you can see some of the Sail boats in the bay.

Heading back through town -

and happily back along the water again.

Bellingham Shipyards 

Passing Hotel Bellwether

Squalicum way - almost done, 

and past one of Bellingham's newest city parks Squalicum Creek park.

Cornwall park

Done!

Now, wasn't that a beautiful 10 mile run?

Picture of the week ~ Valentines Day

Campbell Valley Regional Park Trailblazer hike

We are indeed international hikers. 

Every once in awhile we go across the border into British Columbia, Canada to hike. Thursday we went to Campbell Valley Regional Park. We went there before in November of 2013. You can read about that very cold hike here. 

This week's hike was much warmer (mid 50's) and just a slight sprinkle off and on.
11 of us carpooled for our journey into another country for our hike.

New "early" leaf growth

A very high bridge railing

 

Packs at rest, for our lunch break

An unusual tree

Our great hiking day ended with an exclamation point!

We were asked at the Border crossing coming back in to the United States:

 "What were we doing in Canada?" 

Pat (our fearless) leader replied, "We were hiking". 

The customs agent said,  "Aren't there any trails in the U.S. that you could have hiked on?"

Pat then replied, "We occasionally enjoy coming to Canada to hike"

The agent then replied, "Why aren't your clothes wet?" 

*note - it was raining quite hard at the time we were at the border crossing.

To which Pat replied, "It hadn't been raining enough for us to get wet."

The agent then asked us what were we bringing back in to the United States, a fellow hiker in the back seat replied, "oh only a little mud".

The agent quickly said, "turn off your car and unlock the trunk."

He then proceeded to go through our packs that were stowed there. Finding nothing of interest, he gave us our identification information and let us go. Whew....

Upon arriving back at the Senior Center in Bellingham, we asked the other drivers of the cars in our caravan how their crossing went. They all replied that they were asked "if they had been hiking why weren't there clothes wet. They however weren't searched. 

Lesson learned by our quippy back seat hiker, don't try to be funny. 

Border crossing agents don't have a sense of humor.

I trusted Pat for our distance. We hiked about 5 1/2 miles mostly flat, with about 164 feet of elevation gain. 

I use my iPhone & the endomondo app to track my activities. Since we were in Canada and I didn't want to pay for *roaming data fees, I turned on "airplane mode".

*note, I'm adding this because I had an aha moment. 

I'm such a silly, I had a lightbulb moment & realized why I can't get my GPS to work when I try in Canada. On my iPhone I've been turning on Airplane mode instead of turning off data. Oops, apparently I didn't understand the difference. Hurray for me though, I'm happy to discover my brain still works. 

Picture of the week ~ Red Cedar root

          

Pine and Cedar Trailblazer hike

I was pleased and very encouraged of our hiking group today. The weather forecast was for rain and wind, so I expected a small group, but lo and behold 10 brave souls showed up at the Senior Center for our hike. We were assure by Joe that the worst of the rain would happen after our hike, so with that in mind we carpooled to our starting point. Our hike was originally to be Raptor ridge from Pine and Cedar and Arroyo. The hike was to be a point to point one, so we left a car at Arroyo park trail head, with the plan that the drivers of the other cars could be taken to the Pine and Cedar lakes trail head after the hike ended for their cars. When we got to the Pine and Cedar trail head parking lot it was overcast and just drizzling.

We enjoyed a nice "uphill" hike up through the forest and mist.

We heard what we supposed was a tree falling and we did come across a downed tree in the trail, but Pat "our fearless leader" didn't think that particular tree was the one we had heard. We are fortunate that several of our hikers are on trail work crews and carry saws with them, they have come in handy more than once.

As you can see below, they did a great job. 

We ate lunch at Cedar lake.

Then on to Pine lake -

Pat looking at Pine lake

Walking along on the bog trail

 Pat decided that Pine and Cedar lakes would have to be our destination today since the weather was getting a bit wet and windy to continue up to Raptor Ridge, so we made our way back down. We just began to get a bit wet by the end of the hike. Not too bad since we expected a bit worse, and yes we did manage to remember to get Pat connected back with his car at Arroyo park :-)

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 6.38 miles

Minimum altitude - 236 feet

Maximum altitude - 1688 feet

Total ascent - 1938 feet

Total descent - 1838 feet

Picture of the week ~ January Hummingbird

Cub/Smith Creek Trailblazer hike

14 of us headed "up" the trail to the power lines above Lake Whatcom. The parking lot for this hike is above the North Lake Whatcom trailhead lot. The hike really is on the Smith Creek trail, but our hiking group calls it Cub Creek. The last time we did this hike we stopped early because it was NOT a nice day. Today was just the opposite, what a glorious day we had for our hike. 

The sun peaking through the forest was a welcome sight.

I love to look at trees and this forest gave me some wonderful pictures.

I thought the tree below looked like a Brontosaurus (?).

and this one below, like some kind of forest monster. See his eye and mouth?

The trail crisscrosses roads and power lines, so our view had some power lines in it, but wow what a view. The sun was even warm while we ate. 

Wonderful!

After lunch we headed "down", yes this trail is definitely all up and all down.

I played with my camera plus app "macro" setting on our hike today. I found these wonderful little plants beside me while I ate, they were only about a half inch tall. 

Below is the normal camera view -

and here's the macro view.

I also took a macro picture of some seed pods on a plant.

I think the two pictures below are my favorite of the day. The first picture is of the stump with small mushroom growing up it. The second picture is a macro of one of the mushrooms.

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 5.8

Minimum altitude - 343 feet

Maximum altitude - 2022 feet

Total ascent - 1645 feet

Total descent - 1589 feet