Hi there friends! It’s been a little while since my last adventure post. I know a lot of people don’t exactly come to a food blog for the stories, but I like to keep friends, family, and newcomers up to date on some of the more interesting happenings in life.
While I’m working on some exciting recipes down the pipeline, I thought I’d take a bit of a break and finally go hiking in the winter.
Many of you know I love to hike. I like experiencing the outdoors, I like prowling the local nature center, and I like enjoying nature. Well, just over a year ago, I was planning to go on a winter hike through the aforementioned nature center when tragedy struck.
The literal night before we planned our hike, we were out on our daily walk and I slipped on an icy hill. Normally, this would be fine, but I landed on my ankle and sprained it pretty bad. Worse, the urgent care people didn’t do anything for me but an x-ray to make sure it wasn’t broken, and it took months to get my doctor to even look at it.
Well, I’ve finally finished physical therapy and my ankle is just about back to full strength, so I felt confident enough to go on a bit of a winter hike, just a year delayed. Luckily, the weather has eased up a bit too — it had been as low as 6 degrees (F) locally, but the other day it was a comparatively brisk 20, so we went out to enjoy it.
I was initially a bit worried that the warmth would make all the paths slippery, but it turned out to be more or less fine. We didn’t go to any of the steep trails, though, just some of the calmer waterside trails.
I love the sound and the feeling of cracking thin sheets of ice. It’s always a joy when we’re walking around in winter and I find a puddle that froze over and I can gently step on. This was down a half-dozen feet of steep bank, so I couldn’t reach it. Talk about teasing!
Even the still pond didn’t completely freeze over. Probably a good thing for all the turtles and other critters! This is the same pond as the turtle picture in one of my first adventure posts.
Someone even left a snowman here to enjoy the scenery. I left it alone, of course.
That’s all for now. It was good to take a breather and get out to enjoy the season, even if it was much delayed. Stay tuned next week for more recipes! I have some exciting things planned, like a dutch oven lasagna and some tasty cauliflower tots coming up. I hope to see you there!