Because Nancy and I trained on the Mineral King Road, North Fork and South Fork, the dreaded Hurricane Hill wasn’t very hard to us! The reward at the end of that hill is the Bixby Bridge, which looks like the larger brother of my favorite bridge, and it was such a treat to march across it to live piano music. (They must have the world’s best sound system attached to that piano!) We heard the Charlie Brown theme and then Piano Man – just about made us both cry!
The Big Sur 21 Mile Power Walk was on Sunday. The weather was perfect, and Nancy and I walked faster (and further) than in any of our training walks. The hardest part of walking 21 miles was the training, not the actual event. What a beautiful walk! Because there are so many photos, I’ll post them thumbnail size and if you want to see them larger, click on them and they’ll get bigger for you.
Predawn gathering at Andrew Molera State Park, 21 miles south of the Carmel finish line.
We started slowly, to avoid early burn-out (the dreaded “wall”) and because it was crowded!
As the sun rose over the hills on our right, it shone on the waves on our left.
Can’t remember why I took this photo.
The mile marker signs were fabulous! This was mile 4 for us 21-mile walkers, but mile 9 for the marathoners. The next mile was where the leader of the marathoners caught up to us – incredibly fast and strong, and way out in front of anyone else – he was a blur so I didn’t get his bib # to later learn if he was the winner, but he HAD to be the winner!
The views were fabulous. Looks like this will be a long story about the Long Walk, so it will be continued tomorrow!
And here is a cowboy to go with that roper yesterday.
Say what? This is a roper! It is at the Lion’s Roping Arena, and this weekend is the annual Lion’s Roping Competition in Three Rivers.
One day while walking, instead of looking out for that yappy squalling ankle-biter named Miles, I looked up. What a nice surprise!
As I walk around in Three Rivers in preparation for April 25, this sight never fails to amuse me:
In case you can’t tell, the upper mailbox says “WHITE”. Because you now know I am a color junkie, listen to this: there are people with the last name of Gray and people with the last name of Brown and a guy with the last name of Green too! And, the people named White got together with the people named Brown and formed a company called “Beige”. (I’m not making this up!) On the subject of first names, there is a man who goes by “Red” (not all that uncommon), I had a drawing student named “Teal” AND I have a cousin named Pink (somewhere in North Carolina). As you can see, I have lots of thinking time on these training walks.
This is an undoctored photo of a daffodil. In my regular walking route in Three Rivers, I encounter a yard with several of these. Really! I used to think all daffodils were yellow – many different shades and combinations, but always yellow. Guess I was wrong!
I may have mentioned that I walk a lot. April 25 is coming, and my friend Nancy and I plan to walk 21 miles in Monterey. Nancy and I get together just once a week for our long training walks, so during the week we are walking alone. My walks are usually in Three Rivers. This provides a great deal of time to look at one’s surroundings, think, pray, mumble to oneself about how long it takes, use a borrowed iPod, plan blog posts, fret over the amount of work one isn’t doing while walking. . . a person could stay very busy while walking! Here is something that struck me this week – there are a number of peculiar items on one of my regular routes. Let’s start with Ruby:
Ruby is a boxer with a leopard spotted couch, complete with an awning for shade. This couch is parked directly along-side the road, and Ruby watches people go by. I make a point of greeting and petting her. If I happen to be wearing shorts, she will get up and lick my knees. Now, that is peculiar!
Purple, or “violet”, as it is more correctly called, is a color I haven’t liked very well most of my life. A few years ago, something changed, and I began to crave periwinkle, that almost blue shade of violet. Think lupine, brodeia, dutch iris. . . Someone told me that as we age, the cones in our eyes see purple better than when we were young. Oh-oh – is that the reason? (Brings to mind that poem “When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple”.) While on our photo trip over Yokohl, I was knitting a sweater in that wonderful bluey purple color; I actually asked Michael to stop next to a lupine so I could hold the sweater out the window and compare the colors. I was thrilled to see they were an exact match! (You just never know what will set off a color junkie.) I have found that to be a difficult color to mix, working only with the primaries, that has been a difficult color to mix. I finally asked Diana Moses Botkin about it, and she advised me just to buy a tube of violet! Wow – if she says it is okay, it must be! Just one other thing – I’ve noticed many men refer to burgundy or maroon as “purple”! I wonder why. . . can’t get a helpful explanation other than “It looks purple to me!”
Sweater colored lupine (ok, I might have messed around with the color in this photo!)
Periwinkle, the plant (also known as the dreaded invasive vinca major)
Lavender and I have a history. My older sister had a lavender dress that I thought was Absoloootely Beyoootiful, and I couldn’t wait for her to outgrow it. After about a zillion years, I finally made it to 3rd grade, and the dress was finally mine. I tried it on, stood in front of Mom’s full-length mirror to admire myself and was horrified to discover that my skin looked yellow! T I ran from the room, yelling for Mom! She said, “My goodness! Looks like lavendar isn’t your color!” It was a terrible moment, one that sealed a poor opinion in me toward lavender and its stronger cousin purple (or more correctly known as “violet”). Since then I’ve learned that anyone can wear almost any color. It is the shade that matters, the hue, the variation. That particular shade had too much red in it, and still makes me look like an advanced case of jaundice. Put me in a shade with lots of blue, and the compliments fly my way. Lavender, violet, purple, lilac – there are many names for this color.
Lilac, the plant
