Bonanza of Balls

Satisfied my hankering today for balls to rub my sore feet on. The tennis court in Western Area had loads of them. Now I can rub my balls in every room! (bawdiness intended)

I wonder what the etiquette is for picking up errant tennis balls strewn outside the tennis court's perimeter fence? One of the houses adjacent to the tennis court has an electric fence - perhaps to discourage miscreants such as myself from picking stray balls in out of their yard?

Went up Pajarito Mountain to the Aspen Lift via the Oxbow Road and Zero Road East. I was too sissy to walk on the wooded bike paths by myself. Back at the parking area, picked wild raspberries for a tasty afternoon snack.

Pajarito Mountain Ski Area Bike Trails

David and Faye always say we should hike together when I see them but we've never done it. I hiked with them today, starting from the Lone Spruce lift and following jeep roads and bike trails to the top of Rim Run where they had some lunch and we all enjoyed the views.

Faye took off right away and I walked behind David but next time, I'd like some Elevated Heart Rate (EHR) so I'll follow Faye. I could hike with Dave every other time.

We only did 4 miles and Dave stopped in at the ski area office and got his badge. I've met more ski area employees this one day than in all the years I've been in Los Alamos - Tom Long is the ski area manager, Don Sauer is the manager of the ski area office, and Mike Green, along with Jessie May, a fierce blue heeler, is the maintenance manager.

I walked another mile afterwards and was surprised to see Dave and Faye still there. They had found a bonanza (incidentally, the ski area has spelled "Bonaza" on one of the signs for the Bonanza run!) of aspen wood, which they prefer because it doesn't create much creosote. Ski area employees had cut it down and told Dave and Faye that they could haul it away. They'll go up tomorrow and get the rest and invited me to walk with them again.

Mike Green said that Jessie May (for whom Faye always carries a dog biscuit) had treed a bear and there are several bears in a range of sizes roaming the mountain.

The ski area office has glossy bike map brochures.

After I left Dave and Faye, I saw 2 small deer, one with small velvet antlers, on the hill above me and I flushed a grouse in the woods - gave me a start! Faye said that one time Betsy saw a cougar on the mountain. On Monday, Dorothy and I saw several roadside animals - first a coyote, then a young deer, and last, 2 raccoons running across NM126.

Torn

The thing about a blog journal is I start to feel obsessive about writing in it. Then when I miss a day, I feel like just giving this up all together because it seems too hard to try to capsulize my days. I have this need to write every detail and, even though it seems like I do from the length of the blogs, it pains me to have to leave out details! Also, my mouse-clicker wrist is seeming to dislike too much time on the computer. I'm typing now without resting my wrist on the computer table.

An aside about computers. Ours Apple G5 gets slower and slower. I complain to my computer guru but nothing gets done. I need a computer that writes to dvd so I can take all my photos off and maybe things would run faster. Safari is horribly slow with the rainbow twirling ball appearing and then I have to wait and wait. In some ways, the computer is no faster than before we had dsl. Also, Yahoo! is prone to such idiotic defects like this morning when I tried to delete my junk mail and Yahoo! kept making me sign in again. I think that spouse is wrong not to have some kind of anti-virus protection software. It could also protect against junk and mal wares. I'm complaining but I do nothing about it either.

Capsulization: On Sunday, I ended up going on the SF Southern RR train ride to the Galisteo Basin. The Galisteo Basin is very pretty but the rest of the train ride, through the bowels of Santa Fe and past the Railrunner construction (amazing concrete railroad ties!), is forgettable. Admitedly, we did pass through some nice housing areas - El Dorado? I feel sorry for the people in the poorer neighborhoods that have their houses practically on top of the tracks. At least it was a little cooler than the last time I rode this train. Mary and Dave, son in law's Mom and step-Dad, drove down from the Jemez redrock country to go on the ride. When I saw Mary's enthusiasm for going on the train, I told spouse to buy me a ticket too. I wish I were that upbeat and cheerful!

We got to know Dave a little better. I thought it was interesting that he said he likes dogs better than people. This was in the context of his telling us that his Mom was a real social magnet with people coming over all the time and her always baking cakes. He was an only child and says he was spoiled rotten. The first time we met him, he was pretty quiet. It turns out that Marge Fraser, who used to hike with Bonnie, Mary Ann, Carol, and me, is his aunt. Regarding hordes of people, I told him that when our father was sick in the hospital, our aunt came over and all five of us kids hid from her and wouldn't answer the door.

My forearm feels like it's going to start cramping so I'm now resting my wrist on the table. I think it's from my weightlifting. I don't lift heavy weights but something must not be setting right with my right arm.

We ate at the Zia Diner. I had ahi tuna nicoise (don't ask me to pronounce it!) salad which had a huge chunk of raw tuna cooked exactly as I requested and was very delicious.

Grandson didn't have his meds that day and ate virtually nothing, in part because spouse had unthinkingly bought him a Dr. Pepper, soon before we got off the train, loaded with sugar and caffeine so he was completely wired and did everything but put a lampshade on his head and he would have if one had been available. Mary did her very best to talk intelligently with grandson but he just gave silly answers. On the upcoming La Veta train ride, he'll take his meds.

Son in law read a book a lot on the train and the car ride to and from. I wonder if he's shy.

Monday's Dorothy hike was longer than I thought it would be - 3.65 miles. I was thinking that we'd drive all that way and only hike a mile but it turns out there is more country off NM126 and FR144, down to FR376, than I had thought. Dorothy zoomed in and xeroxed a portion of a map from the travel management rule people that showed a road going from NM126 to FR376. I haven't yet seen the map of our actual route but I think we found it and it's called FR126C. It might have been part of old NM126 and is a really nice, wide gravel road that connects NM126 and FR376. So, now the problem of getting down from the west rim on FR144 to the continuation of the west rim on FR376, without having to walk on paved NM 126, is entirely solved! The main obstacle remaining is to find a way down from Virgin Mesa to Battleship Rock. We're taking a 2 week hiatus and will resume explores August 21. Thankfully, we met no oncoming, homicidal maniacal semi-truck drivers on the blind curves. Oh, I was so grateful for that but I was prepared, putting the car in 2 and going slowly around the curves, with the windows open.

Yesterday, I was researching about how to strengthen the muscles in the leg and foot that prevent pronation. It seems that strengthening the butt muscles and the adductor (inner thigh) muscles might help. I really wonder if I need to go to an orthopedic surgeon. I think that any stiff or rigid orthotic would only hurt my feet. But, maybe the orthopedic surgeon, even if he's not really what I need, would direct me to a good podiatrist or pedorthist who could fix me up. I also ordered 4 more shoes from Roadruner Sports now that I have received the credit for the last 4. This time I ordered stability plus shoes. The neutral shoes didn't help my heel at all but made it hurt more.

Quiet Day

Took grandson to Española Walmart Supercenter. Spouse took him to Wendy's for lunch. We rented him the Spiderwick Chronicles movie and bought him a new Bionicle (a Lego toy which he madly loves!), peanut and pretzel granola bars, salted pistachios (he loves those to death!), and a tube of mini M&Ms. The cashier handed the M&Ms right to grandson and I amusedly told the cashier about the good deal grandson was getting with his grandparent's. She said that he would remember those times for a long time like she remembers those with her grandparents. We're all more alike than unlike!

Tomorrow, everyone but me goes on the Santa Fe Southern Railroad Hotshot train. I know, I know - I should go but I went on it once and don't want to go again so tomorrow's memories won't include me. Grandson will have his other grandparents there though - son in law's Mom and step-Dad. We'll all eat out at the Zia Diner afterwards.

East Fork Flower Walk

Went with BESC hiking group to East Fork. Only 6 of us. Art went back looking for a stick to cross first rocks (only non-bridge crossing on trail) and then decided to do his own hike going up the hill west of the East Fork, going through some private property and finding an old cross country ski trail that Mary said was the first Roland Pettitt Trail, put in by Jim Burns and some middle school students. It had to be abandoned because the forest service said it was illegally put in. Times have changed apparently as there are plenty of unauthorized trails in the Jemez Mountains nowadays.

Natalie and I turned it into a flower walk. We saw lots more of the White Prairie Mallow. I wonder why Dorothy said she's mainly found it in the Sangres. We saw Parry's Harebell. I plucked some dogbane to show Natalie. There's still a profusion of flowers in bloom. The new bridge is in which replaces the last of the rickety bridges. They cut the old one off its moorings to put it out of commision.

The hike was only 3.3 miles. Natalie asked if I could drive her back to the senior center so Mary's car would be less crowded. On the way back, we encountered another maniacal semi-truck. I was following a car around one of the blind curves and I heard horn honking. I saw the car ahead of me had stopped so I stopped too and pulled my front end over toward the guardrail and would have moved over more if I had time but around the curve came blasting this god-awful, huge semi-truck that looked like it was going to clip me for sure. Amazingly, I didn't scream - maybe because Natalie was in the car. I've called the state highway transportation department to complain. This is going to go on until August 1 according to flashing warning signs that say watch out for heavy truck traffic. Someone's going to get hurt. The pumice trucks were never this reckless.

I finished my 4 miles on the Quemazon Nature Trail. Not a whole lot of shade since Cerro Grande but pretty nevertheless.

Next Friday's hike, spouse's Friday off, will be a hike around Cerro la Jara. Art wants to go to Cerros del Abrigo but Mary chose la Jara because that was the majority opinion. Most of the hikers don't want to do the 7 mile Cerros del Abrigo hike. I wouldn't mind but spouse and I will stick with the main group. We'd never see Art anyway!

I had time this afternoon to do upper body weight work, a smidgeon of yoga, and leg work which made me very happy!

Camp May Road

No rain but could hear distant rumble from dark clouds but was mostly sunny. A bejeweled hummingbird buzzed around my red jacket at one point. I stopped and enjoyed the show but eventually told it "Sweetie, I'm not a flower!"

The wood gatherers are helping to clear the woods near FR2998.

I made an appointment for September 23 with Dr. Richard Miller, an orthopedist in Albuquerque, to talk about my foot problems and possible orthotics.

Slept poorly last night - probably because it was so hot.

LL Hike: Corral Canyon Area

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!

Perimeter Trail South

This trail spooks me. There are so many bushes that it's like walking in a narrow corridor in places. I'm afraid of mountain lions and prefer when I walk alone to do it where I can see for long distances. Although I hasten to add that my one mountain lion sighting since moving here in 1985 was on Burnt Mesa and you can't get any more wide-open spaces than that!

I'm especially spooked because I read Listening to Cougar recently which is a collection of essays reflecting on cougars. At the end of the book, there is a list of known human fatalities from mountain lion attacks since 1890. It's true that there aren't many but the ones there are are grisly and frightening. The book doesn't list non-fatal attacks. A child in Albuquerque was attacked recently by a mountain lion when he went ahead of his parents on a hike but he survived. In addition to the usual set of precautions - don't run away or you'll look like prey, make yourself look big, don't stoop or bend down, and fight back if attacked, there was also the very good point made that mountain lion will be where there is prey, namely deer and elk. They also like to hunt at dawn and dusk. In summary, do whatever you can to convince the mountain lion that you are not prey and in fact represent a danger to it.

Going up out of Valle Canyon I saw some bear poop which isn't surprising since the hillside has some gloriously ripe raspberries growing on it.

On the way back, I got confused when I got to the Fireline Trail just like Jim did on the LL hike. I have to fix that area one day with some rock cairns. What happens is that on the way back from American Springs Road (FR181), you first intersect the Fireline Trail on your right, marked by a cairn. The thing to do is continue on the Perimeter Trail to the left and soon you come to another cairn marking the right turn downhill for the Perimeter Trail and then the Fireline Trail crosses the Perimeter Trail and goes off to your left - confusing! It was made more so by the darkening skies and rumble of thunder but I made it back before any sky pyrotechnics developed. Maybe I should call this area the Perimeter Trail Triangle (as in Bermuda Triangle)!

A bicyclist inadvertently scared me when he came from behind and I gasped. I called out to his retreating back that at least he wasn't a mountain lion and laughed but I don't think he got my humor!

Short Trip to Colorado Today

That's what it's feels like on the drive up to the north rim of the Valles Caldera on FR100, FR 99, and FR144. Everything is so green. It's unbelievably, scrumptiously lovely and it will only get lovelier as summer turns into fall and aspens turn from green to gold.

Ed came to the parking lot to give Dorothy some maps of the Garita area that he copied off a map he had Travel Bug make for him. He wasn't going because he needed to get his 96 year old Mom a new walker. We didn't leave Mesa Public Library (MPL) until 8:34am because we talked with Ed for a while.

We turned right onto a dirt road off FR144 right after the cattle guard at the sign in the west direction that says end of latilla cutting. Dorothy parked and we went searching for a road that went out to a view. Our 5th road was the winner. The rest all deadended at confrontational landscaping, i.e., enormous berms and deadfall filled forests. The view of the entire northern Valles Caldera was to die for but we didn't stay long because it was looking ugly and thunder was booming. The rain began on the way back but no big lightning strikes. We only walked 1.47 miles in part because of the weather and in part because Dorothy developed a sore toe on the Valles de los Amigos Cerro Seco hike on Sunday.

BTW, Dorothy says that she does these projects to get out and could easily have others do it faster. She anticipates 2 more trips on the southern part of the West Rim and a trip from FR144 to FR376, crossing NM126. She's hoping that our scouts will take a look at the feasibility of a car shuttle trip starting down from Virgin Mesa to Battleship Rock. Then she says that Harry (?) McGavron contacted her about an old road from Scooter Pass to Pines that she wants to check out. Plus there are still a few more items to check out on the north rim, including finding a road that goes from Cerro de la Garita to the Hilton Gate.

When we got back into town, I drove up to the Ocean and finished my 4 miles through the woods alongside Camp May Road. I saw evidence that paint-ballers have been cavorting on the Route. The distance is about 1 mile from the Ocean to the top of Guardrail Hill and then about .25 mile from there to FR2998. A gray SUV was stuck in the big puddle on FR2998. No one was around. It was in water up to its gunwales.

Today I asked Dorothy to tell me again how to tell the native thistles from the invasive musk and bull thistles: Look at the back of a leaf at the midrib. There should be no barbs on that or down the entire stem of the thistle.

Yahoo! Dead

I give up. I tried earlier and just now but it's dead. I wanted to email Dorothy that the Brown's won't be coming tomorrow and see if there . I have to get up at 6am tomorrow so I won't try again. Maybe it will revive itself overnight.

Finally gave spouse the web address to this online journal. Seeing all the blah, blah, blah will probably abate his curiosity about it.

Daughter and I may go together to see Mamma Mia because the "boys" don't want to see it as it has a reputation as a chick flick. Men should be happy to go to chick flicks!

Spouse goes to Albuquerque for a 3 day "bomb" refresher course at Sandia this week.