First Saturday of Autumn

Beautiful sky over Lake Padden

This morning twenty women met at 8:00am to walk twice around Lake Padden. Two of them, Ellen and Chris, also went on the Thursday hike, and I wondered if either of them are as sore as I still am. Friday morning when I tried to get out of bed, my poor overused thighs screamed at me, and today they are still almost as bad. I think it was all that downhill. Ellen is sore, but of course Chris isn't, because she just finished a 93-mile, 13-day backpacking trip around Mt. Rainier.

Just as we started out on our walk this morning, someone shouted at me to take a picture of this scene. I whipped out my cellphone and without stopping, just slowing down a bit, I captured the above picture. Not only a fabulous sky, but also a calm lake that reflected back the sky and the bit of fog. I'll probably also put this one on Facebook so it will get maximum exposure. A serendipitous picture, for sure.

By tomorrow I should be back to my usual self, but I have been feeling every last one of my years as I recover from that strenuous hike. It's the hardest one we do: almost nine miles (which isn't our longest), but it was the 4,000-foot (1,200 m) elevation gain and loss that caused my agony, I suspect. While I was walking this morning with the ladies, I didn't hurt at all, but now I am happy to be ensconced in my favorite chair.
:-)