Stevens Trail

Twelve of us, including new hiker Bob Moore,  headed down the Stevens Trail.  We were surprised to be greeted by quite a few wildflowers on the south-facing slope.  Milkmaids, lupine, monkey flowers, CA lilac (?), shooting starts, blue dicks, buttercups, hounds tongue...okay what have I missed??  The bay was in bloom giving off a sweet smell quite different from it's leaves.

Seeing John sail along last week, I decided to use poles - actually junior poles from REI - much cheaper and would be plenty big for lots of women - smaller and lighter as well.  Surprised that I liked them (we needed them for our upcoming trip)...they DO help you go up hills.  Is this cheating?  Will I become addicted?  dependent?  As long as I was at REI (Sac), I took my fairly new (last summer) boots and complained that they leaked (on a recent snow trip) - surprisingly, they took them back!!  (Akiko was wondering if they saw anyone from the Wednesday group coming, whether they would lock the doors...) Needing new boots, I headed to the boot department and picked up some Keen's - wore them without breaking them in!!  Since this was an almost 9 mile hike, that was pretty impressive.  I wasn't the only one with something new:  Akiko had a new mini-camera and was carefully testing it on various flowers.  Now to learn how to send it to the blog.

The American River shimmered and ran big enough to be enjoyable, probably due to the recent precipitation.  But compared to last year...oh well...

We returned without a kerfluffle - but wait a minute!!  Someone can't find her keys!  Yikes - they might be in the car in which she drove...so she was taken to that person's house and sure enough!