Very interesting and involved dreams last night. One seemed to be a repeat, but I got to take it in a different direction than last time. I didn’t lucid dream, but I took control in that one. Taking things in a different direction.
I was slow to get moving this morning. I felt great inertia. I didn’t want to do anything but sit on the couch and while away the time on my phone. But I eventually got my butt up and drove out to the trailhead.
As I expected, the road to the trailhead was muddy once I turned off 71. No more snow, just muck. I went slowly, and had to stop for a moment where a truck had pulled off not quite far enough for me to go around. I was surprised to see a truck with Ontario plates all the way out here, but I know at least one of the mining concerns is Canadian. For some reason, I thought they’d be based out of BC, but I suppose not.
I drove all the way up to the trailhead this time. The trail had snow visible from the road, so I decided to go up the road again. I don’t want to damage the trail by hiking it while it’s muddy, and also it gets really steep. I didn’t want to hike on a slip-n-slide.
Past the gate, there was a 4×4 parked and empty. I thought maybe that someone had broken down and left it there for later retrieval, but not too long after I passed it, I heard it roaring up behind me. The young man who had moved his truck on the road and another young man were inside and I waved.
I kept on walking, moving at what felt like a good pace. But I didn’t hear the announcement of a mile where I expected to from my app. I suspected that it was malfunctioning again and I wondered if it would get stuck at 0.66 again. The 4×4 came back down with just the driver. I wondered what the other young man was doing, but I never found out.
I decided to take a different route this time. There is another gate up there, and I decided to check it out. No motor vehicles! This section was grassy rather than rocky, and had a bit of snow on it. I like it, and wondered where it would lead me. Turns out, it lead me right back to the original road, but it was a nice shortcut.
I kept on hiking up until the road was covered in snow 4 to 6 inches deep. I decided that was far enough for this trip. There’s a slip risk, and it was just tough to keep walking in snow that deep. I had brought my YakTrax in the car this time, but with no snow at the trailhead I’d left them there. At my turnaround point, I turned on my GPS unit and noted how long it had taken me to hike up. The MapMyRun app had me at 0.14 miles, but I’d get a true distance by retracing my steps and recording with the GPS.
On one of my breaks, I found the perfect sitting rock. I thought about how Ambrose and I would have shared it if we had been together. Him on the lower side so I would be falling into him rather than him falling into me and pushing me off. There were a lot of birds out singing as I had my snack.
My feet were complaining a bit by the time I got back to the car. My one way distance was 2.63 miles, making the round trip about 5.25 miles in about 2 hours and 50 minutes. I topped out at just over 5900 feet elevation, giving me about 1000 feet of gain for the hike. I’m liking these road hikes. They allow me more distance while the Cuddy Mountain trail is too muddy or snowy to hit.
I showered when I got home, and had a snack rather than a lunch because it was getting close to three and I didn’t want to spoil my dinner. Popcorn and a cheese bite, yum yum.
For this week’s dinners, I did a red bell pepper, an onion, a jalapeno, a can of water chestnuts, and two cloves of garlic in the frying pan. I thawed, then sliced, two filet mignon into thinner portions so I could fry them up instead of messing with the oven. I cooked up a Knorr stroganoff noodles, and mixed everything all together, with the cooked meat at the bottom of each bowl. I only made four portions, so I’m planning on soup for one meal this week, and Friday will be a peanut butter & jelly sandwich with an apple, because that will be on the road or in Boise.
I tried smashing my flax seeds a bit, using a plastic baggie and a rolling pin, but they didn’t really want to smash. I don’ t think I’d have any better luck with the chia seeds. I’m going to need to get either a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle if I want to break those seeds up before I eat them. I got my eggs boiled up. I’ll be bringing one jar of oats and two eggs to Boise with me for Saturday breakfast.
I got my exercises done after I did the dishes after eating dinner. I’m pretty pleased with myself in getting the meal prep dishes into the dishwasher instead of letting them linger overnight in the sink. It’s the little things. The things I have control over.
I thought about control on my hike. How when I was on probation, I wasn’t really in control. I was beholden to my sentence. Restricted by it. Like I was in a tunnel, with no choice as to which direction to face, let alone which direction to go. Now that it’s over, I have control. I did make the choice to restrict myself while serving my sentence; I wanted to do it right and honor my punishment.
Now, I can direct myself. Face in the direction of my choosing and seek what lies beyond the next bend in the road. Beyond the next ridge. Find the mountaintops beyond the foothills…