Plan B

 We came over the hill at the top of the Lincoln Mountain loop to have the sky clear and Pikes peak reveal herself. Stunning in a way my iPhone will never capture.

 It was a rare cloudy day in Colorado when we set out.

 Wildlife is messing with me. A migrating herd of elk slowed down my Monday morning "commute" to work, Julia and I were almost wiped out by a magically appearing elk as big as a lama in the middle of the road Monday night. I swerved and luckily passed his face by about 6' to spare with my drivers side mirror.

You don't realize how much you are learning on a day to day basis. Maybe I'm relearning it? Or unlearning it?

Yesterday I was up at 4 to teach the 5:15 and 6:45 classes. I got home to find all three kids dressed and fed and ready for school. It was the first time they had to set alarms and take full accountability for getting ready for school without a parent home. It felt like a big deal! My friend Hiroko and I have logged a lot of miles together this week. We ran together Tus and Wed and hiked Friday! 25 miles all in, I think?

Picking a trail is a lot of fun, but can also be a paralyzing pain in the ass. The issue is that you can find what looks like a great trail, and then google it again, and find completely contradictory information. I'm learning that you do a little research and just go or you will never actually get out there.

Hiking yesterday my friend asked me about a local place, Castlewood Canyon. I told her the story of how I had taken the kids alone there last year. It was not long after moving here and we had been doing a lot of fun larger scale trips and hikes on the weekends. I decided that I was ready to take the kids out on a hike, solo. We went to Castlewood. It was very hot that day, the trail was unshaded, and the scenery was beautiful, but subdued. It was one of those hikes where you need to remind yourself that your re having fun. I had to laugh.

I've learned to be smart in my hiking. Well, less dumb, maybe. Yesterday I knew that we had a foot of snow over the weekend, so I had to contend with more snowpack on trails than expected. I planned to go south instead of west as there would be lower elevation to contend with. I googled "meadow trails" as I wanted as much sunlight and warmth as possible (the week before it was 70, yesterday it was 32 when we set out.).  We got in 8.4 miles, completing the Palmer Divide Trail before the Lincoln Mountain trail. https://www.douglas.co.us/dcoutdoors/openspace-properties/lincoln-mountain-open-space/. Starting off in fleece lined leggings and my hiking shoes, a long underwear shirt over a zip up jacket, a gator, hat and gloves, I was pretty comfortable. You can't have enough layers here in Colorado so I had a vest and another zip up mid layer in my cameback, which held my water, the dogs water and collapsible bag, my wallet, phone, keys, snacks and first aid kit. By the end of the hike the gloves and gator had come off and I had unzipped my coat. I love it that this is becoming a "thing" and now I have friends texting on Friday to see if I'm hiking and where. Running was always a great place to catch up with friends, and hiking is even better. You just think, and talk, and talk and think and walk and look and look and walk. There is nothing complicated about hiking, which is one thing I love about it. It's just one foot in front of the other.