Life’s been pretty good round here …

So wow – it’s been a great couple of weeks here and I am feeling really happy these days. I am absolutely LOVING our hiking days – and we’ve had a couple of doozies! I think I mentioned that Brett and I had decided to try to hike the 53 miles or so portion of the Appalachian trail that runs through CT this season and so far we have done two pretty good chunks. Okay, pretty good for people of “a certain age” that have very little experience hiking more than a couple miles at a time. LOL!

Our first stretch was from Hoyt Road at the NY / CT border to Bull’s bridge on slave-hubby’s 63rd birthday! I am pretty sure he would not have chosen to spend it that way if it weren’t for my enthusiastic support of the idea, but he’s a very good boy and loves to see me happy.

We left his car at Bull’s Bridge and then drove mine to the border, so we would just have to hike one way. It would have only been 4.5 miles or so if ONE of us had not remembered about a mile into the hike that he had left something REALLY important in my car, causing us to double back and then start over again. 🙂 It would have been tough to start his car without his keys so it seemed prudent to take the do – over. <wink> But it was a glorious day for a hike with a pretty good amount of incline!

We were on a bit of a time crunch that day because we were heading to a birthday pizza party celebration for my favorite 20 year old who’s birthday was earlier in the month, and I NEVER have to twist Brett’s arm to indulge in pizza. Haha after that hike we deserved it!

Here are some pics from the first AT hike. The Housatonic was lovely to stroll along and I really enjoy snapping pics of flowers and critters (saw a couple of snakes). I also truly love beautiful trails or stream crossings with lovely stepping stones etc but I promise not to bore you with ALL of them – Hahaha. 🙂

The next stretch, from Bull’s Bridge to Route 341, has a tremendous amount of “up” and it is almost 7 miles long one way, with no place to park to break it up so, we decided to skip that piece for now and figured we’ll come back to it when we have a built up a bit more stamina and endurance.

Well, the stretch from Route 341 to St. John’s Ledges – was shorter in length, but still pretty freaking tough! We decided to take our sweet time with this one, so we backpacked a lunch and loads of water and ended up being out there for nearly five hours. The rolling hills were tough enough, but the final descent down from Caleb’s Peak thru to the St. John’s Ledges parking area was brutal. Some sections were more than a 60 degree down grade on a really rocky slope. I do pretty well on the “up bits” thanks to my treadmill training (although higher incline is a bit more challenging for my guy) but the down was killing my knees due to a couple of old injuries. 🙁 (wahh) I had to basically slide down on my butt in quite a few spots and trust me when I tell you the pics do not really convey the difficulty or steepness of this dang trail! The final pic of my face might tell you how I was feeling half way through it – lol! That was absolutely the most difficult terrain I have ever hiked and I am at least somewhat gratified that AllTrails considered that a “hard” difficulty so I guess I am not a total wimp. LOL 😀

All that said, this week Sunday we have decided to just take it easy with a fairly flat section from the base of St. John’s Ledges to the foot of Silver Hill along the Housatonic. We’ll tackle the next double incline on another day. I definitely think I am dreading Bear Mountain but we’ll see how well we do as the hikes go on right? One day and one hike at a time!

Hmm… Oh and loads of fun and excitement back at home too! Baby bear from last year has grown quite a bit over the winter, and he and his mama have been making a bit of a nuisance of themselves lately! After they finish with all the trash pails up and down the street, they love to stop at my place to polish off the peanuts and birdseed before grabbing a drink out of my little pond. :-/ I wouldn’t mind but they occasionally do a fair bit of damage! Last week Junior yanked one of the barrel chairs out of my hot tub tent and mauled it pretty good. I am glad I wasn’t sitting in it at the time but that was definitely NOT my favorite part! Still, it is fascinating to see such massive creatures lumber though my yard and then just wander off again. I am grateful that it’s not alligators!

I am definitely going to be needing a new fence in the near future but it is not in the budget at the moment because I am in the process of FINALLY upgrading my hot tub tent! I have wanted to spruce up my tub space for years but every time I tried to get a price on a “Florida or 3 season room” I found it way out of my budget. Then I found this lovely unit through Amazon & Purple Leaf ! Yes it is still a bit pricey but I really like the look of it, and I think it will do everything I need it to do for way less than hiring a contractor to build one. We have a dumpster coming next week for Brett and I to get rid of the old one and the wooden deck. And then next week we have someone coming to map out and pour a concrete slab for us. I am super excited and can hardly wait until it is finished. Of course I am going to need some new furniture in there too! And some curtains and rugs and … well you get the idea. 🙂 I might like the space so much I may even do some more water boarding sessions in the hot tub – who knows? <evil grin>

I have also had a bunch of REALLY awesome sessions in the last few weeks! So yay for kinky good times too!! A couple of truly lovely new people and old fav of mine that booked a 4 hour rope session! I truly love those! Sadly these were mostly folks I couldn’t photograph for privacy reasons so your stuck with a smattering of selfies again.