I thought I heard our leader say there were 16 of us. We saw the WI gathering at the Back Gate for their hike of Obsidian Ridge-Sawyer Mesa. I only know that because I asked Ginny to put me on the email list for them and she did. Adam, our leaders's grandson, was on the hike again. He's such fun to watch at lunch - very entertaining.
It looked cloudy and we heard thunder and felt one or two raindrops but we got off scot-free from any monsoon shenanigans.
On the way back, the workers at the VCNP entrance road upgrade were stopping all the vehicles and telling us to watch out for heavy semi-trucks coming up into the Jemez. They are stepping up the efforts to finish the upgrading of the Valles Caldera National Preserve entrance road and beginning paving. On the way down from our hike, we met a huge, speeding semi-truck that was partially on our side going up the curves above Frijoles Canyon. It was a real seat gripping moment! I saw an assortment of heavy equipment parked near the Back Gate this afternoon where the WI had left some cars.
I want to know more about all the roads and trails and the Corral Canyon-Peralta Road area. With the maniacal construction traffic in the Jemez, though, it may be a good time to avoid the Jemez.
Our leader's knees are feeling better than they have since the operation. On top of the knee problem, she also developed a piriformis syndrome affliction that gives sciatica-like pain but isn't sciatica. She does stretches that are helping that to improve. I stayed behind a lot and talked with her so I felt like I connected with people on this hike and didn't feel lonely like after last week's hike.
We went back on the Calzada Trail. I'm really impressed with how well our leaders's son, Eric, is able to maneuver around deadfall while carrying his son, Adam on his back. We did 4.9 miles.
I spent about an hour this afternoon trying unsuccessfully to straighten out a $100 bill from Los Alamos Medical Center stemming form spouse's speech therapy (as a result of his second bout of Bell's Palsy) in October 2007. LAMC did a random audit on July 2, 2008 of spouse's account and they say we owe them $100 for co-pays. Now it's up to us to prove whether or not we actually paid them. If spouse never got the receipts, there's not much we can do to argue that we don't owe it. He'll check it out more thoroughly when he gets back tomorrow.
This very hungry woman is going to eat supper now!