Numb

Welp, we did it again. How stupid were we to think that a bi-racial woman could beat a felon? This time I'm just not going to engage with the drama. I haven't been on the news or social media, and I'm planning to take at least a week off. There were some teary folks at work today, but mostly everyone was resigned. We did get free lunch, so that was something. 

I met a friend at the climbing gym after work. We went to metrorock in littleton, which actually isn't my favorite because it's very overhung, but it's close to my friend and she's a member. She did get me in for free, so there's that. I did mostly 5.8's and I could not get over a single overhang. I need to do more lifting!

I got home and discovered my cat had thrown up all over the couch. Yup, that about sums it up, Tigger.

Welch Dickey and a quick dip

I've been wanting to hike Welch-Dickey for the past few weekends, but I keep oversleeping or not sleeping, etc. But, today we "fall back," and so I had an extra hour in the day, perfect for sleeping in and taking a hike. It was a good one!

I got up at like 8, ate breakfast and thought that I would just bail and go climbing, but as I was eating I started feeling more energetic, and by the end of my coffee I was all in. I made sweet potato tofu veggie burgers yesterday, and packed one, in a bun, for lunch. On the drive up I stopped at a rest area, and snagged some condiments for it :).  Anyhow, even though I left a little later, I knew it would be OK because it's just a little less than 2 hours drive, and a 4.4 mile hike.

The parking area now has a credit card machine to pay for parking - crazy! It took forever for it to verify my card, though. Not a lot of signal I would guess. Anyhow, I paid and got all geared up and headed out. I wore my North Face hiking pants, my Smart Wool long sleeve top and a tshirt, and I carried Big Puff and an extra pair of pants. As I started hiking I got pretty warm, and actually pushed up the sleeves of my shirt - it was sunny and a beautiful day out! It took about an hour and a half to get to the top of Welch - as always it was a really pretty climb, and kind of intense at the top, but with really nice slab. I had to stop and breathe and listen to my heart a fair amount close to the top. One I got up, I admired the view and ate a snack. There was actually no one up there with me, and I admired the view and the sound of the wind. It was cold, and I put on big puff. 

I remembered that the steepest downhill was right after the top of Welch - it was pretty steep, but less so than I remembered. I think the last time I went it had rained a bit, which would have made a huge difference in the slipperiness. Dickey is so pretty, with these pine trees and moss, and then more slab and really nice downhills that are slabby. For some reason, though, they were a little stingy with the trail marks, I kept wondering if I was on the right path, and eventually finding a blaze, but there were a few times I wasn't sure I was on track. 

There's a really nice ledge where I like to stop on Dickey - I sat and admired how far I had come, even though it's not really a big hike. I ate my veggie burger with mustard, ketchup and relish, and enjoyed listening to the wind and watching the view. After that it was just a mile down.

I was planning to go to a nearby lake for a dip after, but right at the start I saw a couple pools in the stream that goes close to the trailhead, and decided that I could probably take my dip right there, and not have to drive out of the way, or walk far. I changed in the parking lot and headed into the woods. The pool I chose was about two feet deep and probably big enough to fit 2-3 people. The water was really cold! I brought my fish-momiter, and it said the water was about 45. I kind of crouched/sat for 5 minutes, and felt pretty good about that. My hands were really cold, but the rest of me felt fine, chilly but fine. I put on my dry robe and got changed at my car. 

I looked at my time for the last time I did Welch-Dickey and it was pretty much exactly the same as this time! All and all a successful hike. I'm glad I got off my lazy butt and went. Tuesday is election day - I've been avoiding the news, but it's going to be an intense week coming up. Might need a hike next weekend too.

A mile-ish at 56

Today I met a couple friends at the beach for a swim. It's been really warm out recently, and so the water is warmer than last year, it's still 56 in the lake. A couple of us decided that we were going to try for a longer swim to really start acclimating for the colder weather, and maybe another slush mile. We started by heading to the point to see how it goes. Because the last time I went swimming for 30 minutes I got a little claw hand and numbness, I wore gloves, which made such a difference!

It was really cold to put my face in the water, but by the time I got to the point I was completely fine, and so was my friend. We decided to do a little loop swim that we like, that takes us to the other side of the lake and then back to the beach. My goggles were totally fogged up, so I took a little detour because I couldn't tell where I was at all. I finally stopped and was pretty far off track, so I had to do some turning. We got back to the beach in a little less than 30 minutes, and were like, "think you could do a mile?" and we both thought we could, so we did. The triangle is about .6 mile - we decided to swim back and forth at the beach for the rest of if because we didn't want to get too far away and then get cold. In total it wound up being about 45 minutes, with a few short stops. I'm suspicious that it wasn't a full mile, but it was pretty close. 

After, we put our feet in hot water and drank tea, and had a little bit of an after drop, but not too much. It felt really good! I'm excited to try another slush mile soon.

56/57 Degrees

Winter is coming again! I was going to do a hike today, but last night my pre-hike insomnia got worse than it's ever been, and I didn't fall asleep until like 4 am, which is just silly. Especially because the plan was Welch-Dickey, which is no joke, but is also not a killer hike. I woke up late and decided to wait for next weekend to hike. Which left me time for a nice dip at the lake!

Today was the first day of the fall that I was really cold. It was really windy and the water was choppy, so I wasn't super excited about swimming swimming (also because I'm feeling a little low energy), so another friend and I just hung out and chatted for about 30 minutes. Towards the end I could feel my left pinky getting a little claw hand from the cold. When we got out it was pretty hard to get my hands to work, and took a little longer to get my swim suit off and clothes on. Fortunately I'd brought my heated gloves, so they did warm up. But, it was a reminder that it's cold out! Two people measured the temp at 56, though I think my thermometer said 57. But also I think we should go with 56 :)

There's a new guy in the group who brings hot cocoa that's made with cacao, ghost peppers, stevia, and some other things. It's really good, and really warming! Definitely a good addition to the group.

I'm thinking I might wear gloves for long swims this winter, and just keep no gloves for days when I'm doing a 10 minute or so dip. 

Bought a 10 pack at the climbing gym

Yesterday I went back to my fav climbing gym, metrorock in everett and climbed with a swim friend and his son. I did two 5.7's, two 5.8's, two 5.9's and a 5.10. Most of them not completely clean, but I did get up all of them. It was so nice to be in the climbing gym again, I really would like to be more into climbing. I'm gonna keep working at this one - we'll see how it goes! 

Mt Major and Slide Season

On Thursday night we had the opportunity to see the aurora in new england! I was looking at the posts and news about it at work, and decided it would be fun to drive up to NH, hike up a mountain, and watch from the top. It was a good plan, but sadly I had bad timing. 

I decided on Mt Major, of course, because it's my fav mountain, isn't too far, and isn't too hard, and it's got a beautiful view of the West from the top. As I was driving up, I questioned my judgement a lot. There was a ton of traffic and driving was stressful, plus I could see that the sky was red and I was probably missing the aurora that was going on. But, I kept going. When I was 15 minutes away I was like "this is stupid. Am I really going to hike this mountain by myself at night? I could turn around now and save myself a half hour of driving." But I didn't turn around. There's a lookout spot right by Mt Major, so I decided I would stop there and look. I could see a little bit of northern lights from there, but I could tell it would be better from the top of the mountain. So I decided I would just check out the parking lot to see if there were other people there. Which there were - I was not the only one who thought it would be a perfect viewing spot!

So, I hiked on up. On the way up I met two groups of people coming down who said that the view was amazing. But unfortunately by the time I got up there clouds had moved in and I couldn't see anything. I had brought my big puff, a wool blanket and my down sleeping bag, so I got all cozy and decided to wait to see if anything happened. Sadly, the clouds didn't move much, though it was windy as anything. I could tell that it was auroraing behind the clouds because I could occasionally see bits of color, and my camera picked up some lights, but I didn't really see much. I stayed up there for a half hour hoping for a view, but by then it was 10:30, it was going to take me an hour to hike down and two hours to get home from there, and I had to work the next day, so I reluctantly left. Sigh, stupid clouds. I drove home and got to bed around 1:30. A good adventure, even if I didn't see much.

Yesterday a group of us went for a swim off the docks. It's getting colder it the water, about 63 or so, but we were still able to swim over to the club, jump of their platform and go down the slide! So fun. I love that part of October.

My favorite yoga teacher is leaving the studio I currently go to. It's the second time that she's change studios, which is a little frustrating. She teaches in the North End, so I may have to follow her there.

100 feet in 2 minutes

Today in swim class we did 4 100 feet swims where you were meant to do each one a little faster than the one before. My last one was the fastest and I did it in 2 minutes exactly! Of course, now that I'm sitting down to right about it I realize that 100 meters is longer, but whatever, I'm pretty happy with how my speed is improving. I've got plenty of work still to do, but it's in progress at least.

As I was driving to mit there was a ton of traffic and then police sirens. I was stuck at a light and saw there was a protest and there were a ton of police there - stuff was going down. The police were holding someone down to arrest them, and then hauled them off in the van. There were so many police, but then once you got a half block away, it was like nothing was happening.