Won't be running today!

I am waaaaaay too tired!

Yesterday morning about 9 am, Wen and I loaded up Wil, Cos and Ang into the car and headed north to Happy Valley to plant the 7 Ancient Wonders series. It was forecast to be hot and humid but we hoped it would be cooler in the woods.

We easily found the trailhead and after giving the dogs a good last watering, bugspraying all of us, and loading up all our supplies, we moved out for a 7.5 mile hike.

It really was a gorgeous day. After some early morning thunderstorms, the sky had cleared up beautifully and turned warm but most of the trail was shaded. There is some kind of infestation going on up there. Caterpillars. Millions of them. Billions of them. Gazillions of them. We had never seen such a thing. The trails were covered. They were falling out of the sky (lucky me, I wore a hat!). It was disgusting! Appalling.

We hiked along, planting boxes along the way, chatting, enjoying the day and the dogs, everything going along fine until............we got lost. We couldn't find the trail we were looking for. We came to an intersection and had to choose.......and we choose wrong! After about 45 minutes, we decided to cut our losses, head back to the trailhead and retrieve the car and plant the remaining boxes by car.
On the way back, we stopped for about 20 minutes at Whitney Pond and immersed the three dogs in the water to cool them down. They didn't want to get out! Ang did his usual thing, swimming out to the end of his lead and then swimming in place. This was right over a 20 foot spillway so we were sure to keep a tight hold on that leash! The two hounds didn't do any swimming put stood in the water up to their chests and Wil actually laid down in the water.
Upon returning to the car we drove off the distance we had hiked - 8 miles - a good distance on a very warm day!

In the car, with the a/c blasting, we quickly found the correct trail and planted the remaining boxes in no time flat. The trailguide lists this hike as a 7.5 mile loop. It is, in actuality, going to be close to a 12-13 mile loop.

We left the woods behind us and headed back to civilization - namely the nearest Nice 'n' Easy to load up on more water and some frozen fruit bars. By this time, everyone was nicely recovered from our exertions so what do we decide to do? We head out to Mexico Point to score a few boxes. Hey, as long as we were up there......... We got a mystery box which was a driveby. Then we went out and searched for 'Spy Island' by the Senoritas and 'Bird of a Different Color #5 - Blue' by Craftymouse. These last two boxes were at the end of short walks on Mexico Point, nicely shaded and cool. Nice boxes in a great location.

It was an exhausting but great day and finally the 7 wonders is planted:-) Oh, and I had an awesome foot rub from A that evening!