A Breath of Fresh Air!

Last week my dear friend SL, my daughter, and I got together for an early morning hike. The air was fresh, cool, and crisp.  It was such a perfect day for hiking.  We had on light jackets but by the end of the hike we were shedding our layers!

Annie was thrilled that we brought her along for the hike, and every minute or so, she was stopping to sniff and smell something.

Can dogs smile?

I certainly think Annie has a beautiful smile!

Another beautiful happy smile from Cheetah!

We walked through many beautiful trails.

The sky was a brilliant blue, and just a hint of the moon remained high in the sky.

We encountered some trails that had trees blown over from the terrible wind storms our area suffered this past summer.  No problem... just more of a workout for us, jumping over the downed trees!

Then, my dear friend decided a trip through the brush was in order, and off we went.  We took a shortcut through some deep woods and brush to cut back to the trail we were meeting up with.

It was a pretty steep climb, over some fallen downed trees, and some rocks.  Such a beautiful day to be getting such a great workout!

See what I mean?  Oh yes, this is not your typical hiking trail, to be sure!

 Getting close to the top!

Finally we reached the plateau, and hiked through some low brush land until we met back up with the trail.  It wasn't long after this that we were headed back on the trail to our friend's house.  It was a marvelous day!  I didn't get any pictures of her crab apple tree, but it was loaded with apples, and so we picked a whole bag full to take home.  I washed and de-stemmed the apples, and cooked them until they were soft, and then pureed them for applesauce.  I have been using the applesauce in my smoothie every morning, and they are wonderful.  We hiked a little over 4 miles in just about 2 hours going up quite a few hills and over downed trees, so we certainly met our exercise requirement for the day!  We look forward to getting some more hikes in now that summer is over, and beautiful fall weather is here!