Sunday OFF
Monday- dirty 30 (21 day fix beachbody workout) and 2 miles
Tuesday- Yoga and extra stretching
Wednesday – upper body workout and stretching
Thursday – Pilates and 2 miles
Friday – lower body strength workout
Saturday – 1.75 mile walk ‘hike’ with the kids. Our first of many, hopefully, this season. This is mostly to get the kids used to it again. My toddler walked about half of it and my baby walked about 1/3
Total miles – 5.75 miles
Happy Saturday morning!!!
Yesterday the BF and I headed out for a little hike. We slept in and had smoothies for breakfast, I worked a little bit on flashcards for my Medical terminology class and had the last little 1/4th of a cup of smashed potatoes before we headed out. It was just over an hours drive to the trail so we stopped just before we got there for something to drink and cookies hahahaha. The trail was nice, mostly shaded and not too many people, we passed maybe a dozen people so I was able to let Artemis off her leash for about 3/4 of it.
Most of the trail meandered near the Salmon river, which was pretty shallow.
Lots of trees equaled lots of shade. Though being near the river it was a bit muggy.
We did an out an back trail so we stopped at mile 3.3 to turn around and head back. I brought a tortilla, 2 pieces of ham and some cheese and we shared a tortilla roll up for some energy to get us back.
It was a lot of rolling hills so we ended up running back about 2 of the 3 miles, maybe a little more. We made it back to the car pretty quick which was really nice. We decided to go out to Red Robin for dinner for some big juicy burgers, but I was good and got a side salad instead of fries. It was delicious. That was my day!
I really like the trail. AND Artemis went into the river!!!!!! She has never done this, normally I have to stand really still by the edge and coax her down and scoop handfuls of water for her to drink, this time she actually got in the water! More than once! Breakthrough!!!!!!
Hola!!!!
Another hike down this summer! The boyfriend and I went to the very popular Silver Falls State Park. This is a state park that is a little over 9,000 acres. The two most popular trails are the Rim Trail and the Canyon trail, also known as the trail of ten falls. The canyon trail is super popular because you go by and even behind some of the 10 waterfalls. I would like to do that trail at some point but it is SUPER busy because its not a difficult hike and all the waterfalls, but also dogs are not allowed and the last two weekend adventures had not included Artemis, so she was coming on this one, so we chose a different trail.
Never trust the bf to take a picture, it will always be of your backside.
We did the Rim trail to the perimeter trail to the rackett ridge trail to a road walk for about a mile.
None of these were the trail we had planned on doing haha. We had gone there with the intention of doing the Buck mountain loop but parked in the main parking area (as I said it is busy and parking is limited. And didn’t know where the trailhead was from there. So we pieced together a route from the map.
We started on the rim trail where we saw maybe 20 people in 2.4 miles, not too bad.
Then we turned onto the perimeter trail where, after we made the turn onto the trail, we saw no one for the 3.2 miles. It was wonderful and I was able to let Artemis off her leash.
We got to the junction of the perimeter and the rackett ridge trail, from here the perimeter trail was closed due to winter storm damage so we turned on the rackett ridge which is also a horse trail for 2.2 miles. at about this point it crosses a side road and weaves back and forth through the forest and over the road. We chose to just take the road at this point and walk the just over a mile straight back to the parking lot because my feet were killing me!!! I had done a good mile increase this week and my feet had just had enough. This was also more than double the distance of our recent hikes so I was tired. Even Artemis was dragging behind us.
She passed out hard core as soon as we got to the car.
She was snoring in minutes.
I was so tired too
Overall:
The rim trail; you overlook a waterfall or two with plenty of streams and waterfall runoff around you. Busy but not too horrible depending on when you go, hardly any elevation gain, small rolling hills, very pleasant.
The perimeter trail; sparsely populated, 1000 ft elevation gain, slightly challenging at times for me, piece of cake for the bf. In the beautiful forest, because almost no people you will walk into a lot of spider webs crossing the trail, spiderwebs: 1000 spiders: 0. There are enough small streams crisscrossing the 3.2 miles of trail that we did that Artemis had enough natural water, I probably didn’t even need to carry a water bottle for her.
Rackett ridge trail: we did 2.2 miles of this and most of it was down. This trail is much wider because it accommodates horses as well, it also wasn’t as smooth as the others because there were less people and more horses who used it.
Silver falls state park is well marked and it is easy to piece together a hike here with almost any amount of mileage you could want.
All in all I enjoyed this hike very much, though I was dying a bit by the end, and would recommend silver falls state park as a great place to hike. You can choose how difficult or easy and how populated or sparse you want your hike to be.
Here are some fun stats curtosy of my Garmin vivoactive
Until next time, have fun trailing the blonde…………
Have you even been to Silver Falls state park? If so, did you like it?
Howdy!
I mentioned last week that the BF and I went hiking at Smith Rock State park so I thought I would do an actual review and talk a little more about it.
Smith Rock state park is out near Bend, OR. Weather wise it was almost perfect, after many days of dark dreariness we entered the land of the sun! Bend gets a lot more sunlight than Portland and this particular park looks more like it belongs in Arizona if you ask me. It was probably about 70-75 degrees with sun and a few clouds so it was amazingly beautiful. Of course there was a storm rolling in and we hit the beginning of it but I’ll talk about that later.
It was a Friday morning and I happened to not have lab so we decided a hike farther away would be ok. We did get a little bit of a late start though, by the time we were up and ready, hit the grocery store for snacks and really got on the road it was about 10am.
It was just under a 3 hour drive for us so by the time we got there, got situated, bought a $5 parking pass and headed out it was about 1:15pm.
I took a few pictures of the area before we started. The surroundings were so unlike the area of Oregon we live in!
That is what we are about to hike up??!!!
It was an aptly named trail, at least the ups and downs were but I would say only about 1-1.5 of it was difficult. The rest was pretty flat.
Gotta get a nice picture before we get all sweaty and gross.
The view from the top was great, very pretty.
That is what we had just hiked up. There were actually quite a few stairs, it felt like I got a major step up workout hahaha
The information shop area place had a nice little map that was free that showed you all the trails.
We did Misery Ridge which was the most elevation wise but was only 4 miles. We would have added on a smaller hike but about half way through our 4 miles the wind started kicking up and the clouds started rolling in. We drove the rest of the way into Bend and had dinner at the Deschutes Brewery and restaurant. I had an amazing burger after all that hiking hahaha. I may have also had a beer sampler but being as I was tired and had worked out it only took 3.5 of the 6 to hit me so the BF finished the last 2.5 for me hahaha, I am so not a heavy drinker anymore.
On the way home the clouds really started rolling it and we even hit a little snow going up over the pass back to Portland. It was 34 degrees so the snow wasn’t sticking yet but it probably stuck later that night if it kept going.
Overall I really enjoyed this hike, I wish the clouds hadn’t rolled in so we could have hiked longer. There was only the one difficult part of the hike though going up and over the ridge, Brandon was a little bored the rest of the way and we even ran a little on all the flat parts. Maybe 3/4 of a mile to 1 mile. Smith rock state park is very big with rock climbers, there were A LOT of them, it was fun to watch them but terrifying to think of being up there. There is also mountain biking and on the flatter, rolling hills parts that could be fun.
As far as dogs go, they are allowed but sometimes Artemis pulls and I would have been terrified that she would have pulled me off balance and I would have fallen, there are some definite drop offs. Thankfully I did not bring her on this hike. Also I prefer to hike with her in less populated areas so I can let her off leash and she can go at her own pace.
Overall I enjoyed the hike but it is way to far of a drive for what we got out of it hike wise. I did very much enjoy myself though.
Until next time, have fun trailing the blonde…………
Howdy!
Friday the boyfriend and I thought we would go for a little hike. We picked a spot, got some snacks, and packed up the dog. I was excited for a fun hike, our first one together!! We get there and start walking up the trail and……….it’s almost all ice
This might not have a been problem if my shoes had better traction, if i wasn’t clumsy, and if the below dog didn’t like to run into me at full speed ans knock me over
I turned us around pretty quickly, so our hike eneded up being a grand total of .75 miles.
We picked up a pizza Friday night.
Another yummy pizza. Peperoni, sausage, onions and peppers.
Saturday we mostly relaxed, I got a delicious root beer float from A&W!!! Yumm, i hadn’t had one since September
Sunday was a study and read day for me
Got my HW done
Watched some old episodes of amazing race
Then decided I felt like reading
I had some company…….though my company kept passing some nasty gas
And i enjoyed a bottle of hard cider to go with it!
And now I’m tired and want sleep.
Classes were cancelled due to snow! As happy as I was to sleep in it also stressed me out a little since school is so important to me this time around. Oh well. Deep breathe and let it go.
I had a delicious breakfast
Got some studying done
Yummy snacks
My roommate brought me back a little snack from her trip to Peru
Very nice!!!
I walked to the store again because the streets were still icy and why risk it in a car. I needed to get some stuff for the white chicken chili I’m gonna put in the slow cooker tomorrow morning to simmer away all day.
My bags were considerably heavier walking, i should have brought a backpack to carry the groceries back more comfortably.
Walking on the paths in the snow made me think of the PCT, I miss it. A definite goal for me this year is to get out and hike at least 100 miles of it, hopefully more.
Even though I didn’t sleep very well I woke up to the cutest face ever!
I can’t get over how flipping adorable she is!
After the freezing night we woke up to frost on the ground
Artemis in her little sweater
We had a great view!
After some breakfast we packed up and were on our way!
We were tired so we rocketed back to the car. Plus going down is faster than going up so it took us about 1/2-2/3 the amount of time to get back to the car.
On the way back Artemis got bit on the butt by a bug, poor thing, I gave her 1/2 a benadryl and that took care of any swelling and she is fine now. I got stung by a yellow jacket, my first sting in probably 20 years, good thing I’m not allergic!
I’ve never been so happy to be back in my car lol. The dogs passed out pretty fast. We stopped for McDonald’s and Starbucks and made the 5 hour trip back home.
Monday was a lot of relaxing, we all dogs included, spent most of it on the couch but I managed to get some laundry done and a bit of unpacking and some grocery shopping done.
How was your weekend?
Do you like the uphill or downhill better on a hike?
We were out the door by about 7:30 and hit McDonald’s for a high calorie breakfast. Both dogs were excited but unsure what was going on as well.
The roommates little dog dog got too excited/nervous and barfed a little. So our start was cleaning
Then we were off on the 6 hours drive!
It took us about 5 hours to get to the area then another hour to go the 15 miles on dirt/gravel/pot whole road to the trailhead.
And we are off!!!!
The first 3.5 miles of the trail were beautiful!!
Had nice rolling hills and crossed the water several times.
There were some interesting water crossings
Artemis was a little hesitant of the flowing water in the beginning then she got a little more comfortable
We had some fun kookie moments
So after those nice 3.5 miles we took a little break, had some pop tarts and snacks, love trail food, and drank some water and Gatorade. Poor Carra got stung by a bee. Then we headed out to do another 3.5 miles to the top……except these 3.5 miles were straight up! 1500 feet in about 2.5 miles.
I was pretty slow on the uphill so she would stop and wait for me to catch up. She is sooooo freaking cute and sweet!!! Or she would turn around and come find me.
I was dying a little.
I stopped and took a break about 1 mile from out stopping point because the direction milage was a little off and I was dying!!
These block got me through the last mile.
She settled in behind me for a little rest behind me
We slugged it the last mile and settled in.
Got our tent set up
Nice little view from out campsite
Can you find Artemis?
Someone passed out really quickly
We ate, listened to a little bit of a book on tape and tried to sleep
It was a loooong night. I finally dozed off around 9:30 then at 10:30 Artemis got up from our feet where she at been sleeping and bounded up toward me shaking. The poor thing was freezing. I got her halfway in my sleeping bag and cuddled up. She warmed up and I turned my sleeping bag into a blanket for us. She warmed up got comfy and fell asleep. But every hour or 2 either she would wake up and move around or part of my arm would go numb cause I was laying funky trying to keep her warm. Needless to say I didn’t sleep well. Of course once I was awake it took me another hour to fall back asleep.
I got 4-5 hours of sleep.
But overall it was a good day.
I hit up REI with my friend and saw a rainbow
Picked up a new hydration bladder since mine from the PCT got a little funky. Thank you mom and stepdad for your REI dividends!! My bought my new bladder!
Packing can get a little messy
A little lunchable snack before bed
A little Veronica Mars to find down
Laid out my clothes for tomorrow. Always good to be prepared and ready to go
All packed and ready to go
See you in the AM!!
Yes! Thursday is half way through and tomorrow is Friday! I am really looking forward to Friday at 6pm, not just because work is over but because I have a running date!!!!! This is going to be like my perfect date and I am super stoked, I just wish it wasn’t going to be 90, but oh well. But more on that tomorrow night.
After running twice yesterday I slept in this morning, oh man I needed it. And I got some puppy cuddles which was wonderful.
It is my lunch right now so I used the emergency $5 I have started keeping tucked in my purse (for when my funds run out before my next paycheck)
And bought myself a much needed starbucks
Now I am sitting in the shade of starbucks relaxing before I have to go back to work. I needed to get away from the office and take a deep breathe.
Anywho on an awesome note my roommate and I have planned our labor day hike!!!!! I think it’s going to be amazing!!!! Difficult I’m sure but awesome. The guilt comes from the fact that dogs aren’t allowed on this trail so the pups have to be left behind. Artemis will be mad at me.
I can’t believe Artemis and I are coming up on our 1 year anniversary!!! I got her in November of last year. We’ll have to do something special.
Big shout out to my awesome mom who is tiding me over until my next paycheck. Moving wiped out my finances this month and I know some overdraft fees would be coming if she wasn’t helping me out and a shout out to my brother who is sending me some money at the beginning of next month to help get me started on the right foot next month.
Thank goodness for family. I don’t know where I would be without them.
And now I should start thinking about heading back to work……..but I really dont want to. I want to go home to my puppy.
Trailing the blonde 