Even though I set the Podo for a photo every ten seconds, it still ran out of power before the water evaporated. Oh well. For fun, I decided to reverse the footage and add it back, so it refreezes.
The woods are funny. It's all so beautiful, but that beauty doesn't necessarily translate well into photos.
Last time I went straight up the Eastern slope to the top, and I figure at the beginning of the season I may as well assess all the trails, so today I took the lowest one. As I predicted, I had to turn back soon because of mud, so then I followed the second lowest. That one happens to have the clearest water view in the whole place.
Pretty squares.
I made my way through an area that's always annoyingly overgrown and ended up covered in fuzzy plant stuff. All my gear's in the wash now. After that, the trail joins with the center one again, and I figured I'd climbed enough for the day, so I did a couple of passes of the access road for distance before heading down.
There's a swing next to a trail I refuse to use because it's too sandy and steep, and today I noticed what I thought was a bike parked next to where that swing is. The creek is dry enough to cross over to that spot, so I investigated, and it turns out the bike is actually at the end of the swing chain, in place of the bar that used to be there. Are people swinging on the bike? Seems even scarier than the swing's old seat.
The requisite shot from the bottom. I wish it were possible to convey how huge the place really is.
5.6 miles in 2:08, 13,281 steps, 538ft gain
A squirrel ran in front of my car on the way home, and I'm almost positive it was crushed. That was a first. Another first today was putting eyedrops in my own eyes. I'm getting LASIK on Thursday so I have two different bottles of eyedrops to use. One four times a day, the other twice. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought, mainly because Ana showed me a really easy way: pull your lower eyelid away from the eye to form a little cup. I had a tough time getting a grip the first time with my right eye, and realized it's also easy to turn your head sideways and drop it onto the side of the eyeball. I don't really know why anyone looks straight up to do it.
Why LASIK after wearing glasses for 16 years? They're starting to really annoy me. They get dirty fast and I have to clean them several times a day. That's nothing new, but I spend a lot of time inside with low lighting and monitors, so the smudges and crud are just much more visible. It'll be nice to be able to see while swimming or walking. Lately I've taken to wearing my prescription sunglasses in the morning, but that's not really an option in the rain, or if it's too humid. Now I need to find or buy some non-prescription sunglasses, because I've only one the prescription ones ever since right before the last Hawaii trip.