a walk in the park

My dad suggested that my mom and I hit the local Wilderness Park while I was visiting them last week, so we did this on Wednesday, and then I went again on Thursday by myself. I took my backpack both days and got photos of the affair. Wednesday photos are first.

The dirt isn't really that nice red-orange color that you get in southern Utah, but it looks that way with the light from sunrise:





Looking out over the Inland Empire:



Our lone wildlife sighting for the day:



My mom and my youngest brother:





You can see downtown LA in the distance on a clear day. Wednesday was just clear enough:



As I mentioned I went back by myself on Thursday morning. The sunrise was far better that day due to the clouds in the sky.



















We saw a fork in the trail to go to an area known as Johnson's Pasture on Wednesday, so I took the trail on Thursday to see what it was like, since my dad has often talked about hiking there when he was a kid. I saw a group of four deer along the way:





The pasture was relatively flat and had a lot of eucalyptus trees--definitely not what you would expect for hills and mountains covered in brush and chaparral as these are.







One day, I'll hike over to Gale Mountain to get a close-up view of this microwave tower, which has always intrigued me:



This hike was a good 6-7 miles, so I was pretty beat by the end, but glad I went. More and more I'm finding that life is only as interesting as you make it, and hitting these trails was a lot better than what I would typically do when I visit my parents: sit around and eat. That's all well and good, but since weight loss, improved overall health and doing more photography have been and continue my top priorities, I figured this would be a good way to combine all those priorities into one activity. Needless to say, I was pleased with the results.