Temp: 25 degrees
Today we headed out before noon to do the three mile hike to Crystal Falls in PoCo. There were a couple of geocaches on the way, so it was a good excuse to do this trail we'd never been on before. The terrain was pretty flat, and we were to the falls in no time. We had packed a Subway picnic lunch, so we made our way to the top of the falls and sat on the edge while we ate our lunch. There were millions of bugs, and fortunately we brought our 'Off Spray", which didn't keep them off of us, but DID keep them from biting.
I guess we spent about 40 minutes at the falls, and when we were getting ready to leave, I happened to notice flecks of gold in the pool at the bottom of the falls ... I was intrigued, and started sifting through the silt to see if there were any gold pieces larger than just flakes. "I should have brought my goldpan! This would have been a fun passtime for the afternoon!" - oh well, maybe next time...
Unfortunately though, those tiny gold flakes got me distracted and I began rock hopping down the stream looking for glimmering silt pools. It didn't take long until I misstepped on a slimy rock and took a crazy spill, gashing open my leg. I was a little worried for about 2 minutes, but the bleeding stopped, the gash wasn't too deep, and the pain was subsiding, so we started the trek back. It was no problem, in fact, compared to some of this spils I used to take when I was a kid, this was pretty dang trivial - it got me wondering if decades without exposure has seriously degraded my threshold for pain - then I remembered "the gallbladder" ... 'nuff said.
Round trip was three over hours, and when we finally got back out from under the trees and into the sun it was baking hot - the thermometer said 25, but it sure seemed hotter after the hike.
I spent the rest of the evening playing Need for Speed - I'm now #2 on the blacklist, and shooting for #1... I'm sooo close to finally being done with this game!
Posted by Calvin at July 16, 2006 09:19 PM