Confessions of a hiking junkie!!

I had a great time hiking with W., K., M., M., and L. this Sunday at Nissene Marks to Five Fingers Falls but I must confess I kept a small secret from them about my physical condition. Saturday night I continued my recent trend of having accidents. I left a plate and a fork on the floor next to the couch and forgot about it and next time I was walking back to the couch ... OW ... I stepped on the fork and one of the tines inserted itself into the side/bottom of my left heel. It didn't go very deep but was painful. I pulled out the fork and headed upstairs to clean it up, put on some neosporin, and a bandage. If I weighted my heel as usual it hurt but I could manage to walk in such a way as to not weight it so much. I spent most of Saturday night debating "to hike, or not to hike." I finally decided to give the hike a try as I really really wanted to do this hike with the gang. I decided to remain mum about the injury though as I didn't want to have to have a big discussion with everyone about whether I really should be doing the hike or not. If it turned out I couldn't handle the hike then I would come clean so to speak!

The hike was awesome. I love long hikes with varied terrain and varied views. We got to do three stream crossings, climb up to a ridge with awesome views of the valley with the woods rising around it, see Five Fingers Falls, and even do a boring but nice bit on the fire road. The falls were nice but it was a bit cold as we munched on our lunch since the sun was blocked by the falls and tall trees. I believe only two of us managed to stay dry on the stream crossings. For others the rocks were slippery or their shoes were slippery! I had the advantage of having my trekking pole with me for balance. Other things of note on the hike were we got to see the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and W. rescued 2 banana slugs stranded on and near a piece of wood in the middle of the stream. After the hike we were planning on getting some food at Pacific Rim restaurant right outside the park but alas it has closed so we went to our old standby, Saturn Cafe. I had a root beer float and it really hit the spot.

The hike did not make my heel worse so my "junkie hiking" behavoir was OK this time. However I spent the entire day hiking so that the right side of my left heel did not get weighted very much. As a result I had one sore left leg especially the muscles on my inner thigh and my calf muscle. Its Wednesday and the muscles are still sore but I can tell they are getting better. Hopefully the cut and my muscles will recover in time for Saturdays 17 mile hike at Henry Coe. I don't have any major plans for Sunday other than to recover from Saturday's hike!

Too bad I don't have a digital camera. I have a lovely 3 by 5 inch bruise on my right leg from a fall I took on my hike yesterday. And get this, it looks sorta like an Easter egg! He He.

I was sorta tired on the hike yesterday and my left foot slipped off the trail. I fell over with my left leg hanging and my right leg wrapped desperately around a rock after having been bruised by said rock! I started to slip off the trail which would have meant a 4 or 5 foot tumble into a gully. I managed to shift my weight enough to grab a root and not fall but my was it scary for a few seconds there. One of the fellows hiking with me, N., ran back and grabbed my arm also. I sure was shot through with adrenaline and glad to have escaped the fall with just a big bruise. I also got a smaller bruise on my left leg where it also hit the rock. Its a very colorfull set of bruises. My Easter egg bruises! I did have a good time on the hike despite the fall. The weather was marvelous. It was sunny and warm. We had a marvelous lunch stop on a big sandy mound with great views of Big Basin State park and a nice toasty sun beating down on us.

Today I had a nice short hike with my friend L. We went to see Brooks falls in a park near Pacifica (so we got to see the Pacific ocean today on the drive). It was a nice mellow 3 mile hike with only water falls not Cathy falls! Afterwards we stopped for ice cream at Baskin Robins. I had a scoop of jamoca almond fudge and a scoop of chocolate fudge ice cream. My was that tasty!

I had a great 41st birthday yesterday and a very lazy enjoyable weekend. I slept in till ten oclock on Saturday morning. Then I lolled around watching TV and doing computer stuff till it seemed about time to go to REI to spend my dividend! I got all sorts of neat stuff: a locking carabiner, a NOLS wilderness first aid book, a new Eagle Creek wallet, a padded glasses holder, a light weight coffee mug for backpacking, a rain hat, and a new really soft comfy pile jacket. After REI I headed to Footlocker shoe store to buy myself some new tennies. I got some New Balance tennis shoes. I have been enjoying wandering around in them. They are very comfortable and light weight and way cool looking! At night I watched Stanford lose to Colorado in the NCAA regional finals. It was a very close and exciting game. I just wish Stanford could have won.

Sunday was my birthday and I got up at 9 a.m. and then drove to Hobbees at 10 a.m. for brunch with D. and L. I had my favorite Sonoma Browns dish (hash browns with tomatos, chicken breast, pesto, and cheese), a tall glass of apple juice, and a couple cups of coffee. The conversation was great and the three of us kept exclaiming about what a good decision we had made to cancel the backpacking trip since it was so wet and miserable out most of the weekend. After brunch D. took off and L. and I went to see the movie, The Lord of the Rings. I really enjoyed it. It was very much like I remember the book. We had heard it was rather violent but to both L. and I who are fans of the book it seemed to very much match the book. There is a bit of violence in The Lord of the Rings. After the movie I drove home for a small break and then headed to Santa Cruz.

In Santa Cruz I went to K. and W's house for a watch the Oscars and celebrate my birthday party. We had great fun making fun of the Oscars and groaning when the films we liked were beat by films we thought were poor. We ordered pizza and had lots of munchies. M., D., and A. came by to join us at different times and left at different times. It was good to see M. and D. and to meet A. By the time the Oscars ended everyone but me, W., K., and their housemates were gone. Then W. remembered about the cake so we finished off the evening with cake and I had a cup of coffee. During coffee I had a nice long talk with W. about work problems. It was good to bounce my woes off someone. When I finished my coffee I headed home. It was a great birthday and a great weekend despite the fact we cancelled the backpacking.

What's new. I'm tired again. I went to see the Stanford vs Tulane basketball game on Monday. It started at 9 p.m. so I didn't get home till 11:30 p.m. and then got up the next day at 6 a.m. as usual on a work day. I haven't really recovered my sleep yet. But the game was excellent. Nicole Powell was incredible to watch and the rest of the team played well too. They beat Tulane fairly easily.

I had a good time at work Monday hob nobbing with K. and S. I was complaining about the Open Cascade documentation online and asking to use internet explorer on K.'s PC to see if my problem was related to using a Mac browser. They were commiserating with me about what a pain the documentation online must be. Turns out the online documentation doesn't work right on a PC either. However later in the day I accidently stumbled on a solution and was able to gain access to the documentation that I needed. I wish my work involved teaming up with K. or S. I like them both a lot.

D. and I have cancelled the backpack trip this weekend due to low turn out and a lousy weather forecast. It is supposed to rain on Friday and Saturday. Backpacking in the rain is just not fun so we cancelled the trip. Maybe I can finally get caught up on sleep this weekend. I hope so!

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I wore myself out this weekend. Saturday I was up at 7:30 a.m. and went to pick up P. to go on a hike at Big Basin State Park. We did the Hollow Tree loop that was listed as a 10 mile loop on the park map but since it took us nearly 6 hours to do the hike, I'm convinced that it was actually more like 12 miles. I was sore and tired but happy after that hike. The hike was beautiful with lots of great views from ridge tops of the park landscape with the Pacific ocean in the background.

Then I get home, shower, and take off for Maples Pavilon at Stanford to watch the first round NCAA tournament games. Colorado State took on Tulane in the game one and Tulane came out on top. At first it looked like Tulane would win easily but in the second half Colorado worked really hard and got to within 3 points of Tulane before time ran out on them. The second game was Stanford versus Weber State. Stanford won easily and Nicole Powell had a great game and was beautiful to watch. I got home at 11 p.m. and spent a little time checking email before I finally succombed to my exhaustion and went to bed at 11:30 p.m.

Today I got up at 7:30 a.m. again. I'm just a glutton for punishment. This time I was driving to Santa Cruz to meet W. and K. and possible others for soaking in the hot tubs at Kiva during women's hours. It turned out only W., K., and I showed up for the soak. We had a nice long 2 hour visit and soak. It was pouring rain much of the time but that served to cool us off as we sat in the wonderfully hot water. I had to drive back home in pouring rain but it wasn't too bad. People were being fairly safe about driving on highway 17 in the rain. When I got home I was totally exhausted from Saturday's activities and from 2 hours of soaking. I lay down on the couch and was quickly off in la la land catching up on sleep. I slept for 2 hours! It was a great nap!

The rest of the day I have been checking my email, reading my boards on ivillage, and watching NCAA women's basketball games on TV. I'm starting to feel tired again now so will sign off now and hit the couch to watch some more TV and then probaby in a couple hours, head to bed.

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Hey ... just like an Enterprise captain, I have my own logs. CLOGS stands for Cathy's LOGS!

Good descriptors for this week: dull, dreary, and blue. My depression reared its ugly head and brought me down on Tuesday followed by quite a land slide on Wednesday. Yesterday friends and family helped me pick myself up and dust myself off. Now today I'm gingerly climbing back up the slippery slope. The weekend is looking good though. Hiking, hot tub soaking, hanging out with friends, and women's basketball! Now that's a set of real antidepressants for me.

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