A couple things to amuse- What I did with my 3 days off

My sis has a cabin in the local mountains, so I left Mr M to manage the 3 queens while I went galavanting.

My sister and I decided that we needed to be hiking - after all adoptive mothers need to build up their stamina. So we picked out a nice 4 mile round tripper that ended up at a stream.

Only we got there and the ranger informed us that whole area had been burned over so it was an ugly and exposed hike right now. So we punted and went the other way. Don't know what we were thinking. This was 7 miles or so (more I swear) 900 foot loss/gain in altitude, we did a LOT of casting around for the trail because they had heavy macinery in there grading and chipping after the fire (yea, parts of this were burned.) and Ants got into our packs during lunch.

This was one tough hike. the nicest part was the bottom where it followed the Pacific Crest Trail. THAT I will include photos of:

Then - the next day we thought of a better plan . . .

We went on a two mile round trip hike. And it was beautiful the whole way. Just proving that effort does not always = outcome I guess.

We ended at a place called heart rock. Take a good look and you will see why. It was a butterfly hatch and they would fly to the warm rocks around the pond to flex and dry their wings. There were 5 or 8 drifting around the water all the time. I had never seen this before and it was amazing.

So - nice things to think on while we wait.

Moral of this story. I need a WHOLE lot more exercise