The day started out a little slow because we slept so poorly the night before. However, we had a long hike to three waterfalls ahead of us, so we gathered our energy and hit the road.

We found the trailhead with little trouble, and after dousing ourselves completely in Deep Woods OFF, we set off into the woods. I’ve mentioned before how good of a hiker Riesling is, but she absolutely showed us her full potential on this adventure. She was scaling fallen logs and uneven terrain with no problem. I picked her up for a few of the muddy spots, but she was content to give the difficult stuff a try most of the time.

More than halfway into the hike we caught up with two women and a black lab who gave Riesling a good sniff. We borrowed some of their child-friendly bug spray to mist pup because I noticed the bugs starting to gather around her whenever we stopped to let Eric photograph a waterfall.

We saw some lovely scenery on this hike and generally enjoyed being outside tromping through the forest.

The first of the three…

The top section of the second waterfall…

Pup and I posing in front of the third waterfall.

Directions to and photos of all these falls will be added to our waterfall database shortly!

Just a quick update from Utica, NY… we are heading up to the Adirondacks this weekend and may not have internet, so the Barcelona updates will resume on Sunday when we return to civilization. :)

And after that, we’ll have plenty to share from our time in upstate NY!

On our way south to Colorado Springs to meet up with my dad and Lynn, we took a short stroll around Lily Lake on the southern end of Rocky Mountain National Park. We saw more birds and small mammals here than on any other trail in the park… including this chipmunk who happily posed for us.

I was mostly bummed about all the snow because it meant it was too early for wildflowers. However! We did find some blue pasqueflowers on the southern side of Lily Lake just coming up. Imagine a fuzzy crocus. :)

We finished the southern end of the Peak-to-Peak highway which included a drive through Blackhawk, a town (seemingly) consisting entirely of casinos.

We took a short detour to Evergreen, CO to visit Creekside Cellars. The red wine was passable, but overpriced, and the white was, well, not really drinkable according to Eric.

Once in Colorado Springs we headed to North Cheyenne Cañon Park to see Helen Hunt Falls and Silver Cascade Falls.

Helen Hunt Falls is adjacent to the parking area, so the place was pretty crowded. It was next to impossible to get a shot of the falls without people posing on the bridge or even sitting in the creek above the falls. Silver Cascade Falls is not worth the uphill climb to see it, although you do pass this lovely cascade on the way. Our shot was taken from an overlook further up the road.

The drive out of the park with the sun behind us was beautiful; the light was really making the red rocks stand out.

One of the first things that Eric researched after we bought our plane tickets was potential waterfall hikes. It hasn’t rained in San Francisco for several weeks, so we knew the waterflow was going to be low, but we were hoping it was still early enough in the season to get lucky.

Once we were on the ground we decided to concentrate on the Laurel Dell trail near Alpine Lake because the hike paralleled Cataract Creek and there were bound to be at least some water flowing over the falls.

Compared to other people’s photos after a good rain, the water flow was meager, but we enjoyed the fresh air and gratification that a new waterfall every couple hundred yards brings.

Eric photographed ten cascades along this uphill hike… all the shots are in our San Francisco Flickr set. We’ll also have all the photos and directions up shortly on our waterfall database.

We didn’t have time on this trip to make it out to Sequoia National Park to visit the largest redwoods, but we still got to see some enormous coastal redwoods on a hike through Muir Woods near sunset.

The setting was almost surreal. We were surrounded by huge trees while shafts of light filtered through into the still quiet of the woods. I told Eric that if fairies suddenly appeared, I wouldn’t be surprised.

We took the Hillside Trail, the longest way around, and as the trail ascended, we quickly lost sight of most of the other people sharing the park with us. The two mile walk was a lovely transition from city to nature and warmed us up for the hiking we planned to do the following day.

While exploring downtown San Francisco (specifically Chinatown) was entertaining, this type of stroll is much more our scene. We would take hiking in the woods over hoofing it around a city any day.

Our ridiculously cheap rental car took us out to the desert for the first night of our San Diego trip. ($48 including taxes for five days, the guy even commented that this was why his salary is what it is! Whoops.)

There are shorter ways to get to Julian, CA (our room reservation for the night) but we decided to drive out on I-8 and head north through Cucamaya Rancho State Park. It took about 45 minutes to get out there and the bustle of the city was replaced by desert and mountain views.

Throughout the drive we saw evidence of the California wildfire damage of last year—entire hillsides covered in scorched trees.

My brother, Ryan, drove down from LA for a day of hiking with us. He must have left well before dawn because I got a phone call at 8am that he was sitting in the parking lot! :)

As Eric mentioned, Friday started out unremarkable, but after a filling breakfast at Margarita’s in Julian, we were hoping for the best… there’s only so much hiking one can tolerate in bad weather.

The chilly rain gave way to breaking clouds and finally some warm sun by early afternoon. I swear we went through three seasons on the Palm Canyon trail hike, from downpour to hot sun, but the views were completely worth it.

All this hiking through the mountains and all of a sudden, a palm oasis!

Surprisingly (considering it’s the desert) there was a rushing creek with several waterfalls throughout the hike. So I guess all the rain did have some benefit!

The Anza-Borrego visitor’s center was very helpful in terms of information on hiking trails. We didn’t buy a detailed map ($1) on this visit because we only did the Palm Canyon hike. If the weather had been more predictable we probably would have tried to do more, but as it was, we saw quite a bit on this five mile roundtrip hike.

Eric and I were looking through REI last night for a new backpack to replace one of our rolling carry-ons. While there, we picked up a dogpack for pup.

She was so excited when I put in on her and sat very still for the photos. We plan to use this on long walks and hikes to wear her out a little bit. Plus, she can carry our water, her food, and some doggy bags. :)