Cochise Indian trail, Coronado National Forrest, AZ, 10/21/19

Joined our Copper Canyon, Mexico, companions for five days of hiking east of Tucson, Arizona.

First hike: Cochise Indian trail, southeast of Tucson, located in the stronghold area of Apache chief Cochise, who defended his people for 15 years against the incursion of US Army in the mid 1800s.  

Century plant.  

Plant too tall to take in one shot.  

Called "century" because it bloom after 100 years and then dies. 

The trail is 5 miles long and starts at the East Cochise Stronghold campground, winding its way up to Stronghold divide.  We made it up to the divide, a 6-mile round trip. 

Ellis/10K/Survey trails loop, Sandia Mountains, M< 10/9/19

NM Mountain Club Wednesday hike, 5-mile loop hike., 9 participants.

 Fall colors in full display.

This tree stump caught my attention:
Note the small branches on the outside of the tree and the corresponding large "spikes" on the inside of the stump. 

Pow wow around a medallion tree.

This Douglas Fir started growing in 1455!

Palomas Peak, Sandia Mountains, NM, 10/3/19

First NM Mountain Club Wednesday hike since late June.  A very short hike, ~ 3 miles round trip, to a very familiar spot on the East side of the Sandias: Palomas Cliffs.
Palomas means doves in Spanish and refers to the limestone bands seen on the cliffs.
See posts 8/5/18 and 7/18/15 for pictures of the cliffs. 

I
nstead of relaxing on the beautiful lower edges of the cliffs, we headed towards the top of the cliffs, curiously named Palomas Peak.  

Short side trip to find a Medallion tree. The medallions are identification markers placed on very old trees.  Apparently, in the 1920s an unknown person took a core sample ancient trees, dated them, and placed a marker on the tree, 84 of them in total. 

The tree above started as a seedling the year Mississippi became the 20th state. 

It's fall: mushroom season!

  An oyster mushroom found on the side of the trail. A little dry; will be delicious rehydrated. 

Slow Roll 505 Bicycle "Tour the Farms." Rancho de Albuquerque, NM 9/29/19

 Slow Roll 505 community bike ride. My thanks goes to riding companions Katy and Marlin for providing encouragement and support during the ride but also for loaning me one of their bikes.
No car transport for the bikes... so we rode back and forth to the event location. 
Strolled by four farms during our ~7-mile tour. Here we are starting the ride at the Agri Nature Center and Rio Grande boulevard.  

 First stop, Jim's Pumpkin and Green Chile farm,  reached after riding through the North Valley for about 5 miles. 

 NM style low riders???

 Stopped at a regenerative veggie farm, and a hops growing farm, before stopping at Los Poblanos Lavender farm to admire the llamas.

and hear about the plight of bees. 

Cape Falcon trail, Oswald West State Park, OR, 8/20/19

The Oregon coast is known

for its large trees, with the Sitka spruce being the most well known.  We were greeted by this giant at the start of our hike to Cape Falcon, just north of Manzanita. 

The 2.5-mile section of the Oregon Coast Trail (OCT) runs through the rain forest along the beach and up to the cape. 

After leaving the beach, the trail slowly winds up to the cape along ferns, salal and salmonberry. 

Nehalem Spit trail, Nehalem State Park, Manzanita, OR, 8/19/19

Just South of Manzanita, OR, is a 2-mile long sand spit.  We walked the 2-mile trail to the ocean entrance of the bay, flanked on one side by the ocean and the other side by the bay. Except that we walked along overgrown sand dunes the whole time and could not see either the ocean or the bay.  It was sunny and hot, and probably the most monotonous hike we every did, all 4 miles of it, round trip!

Start of the hike with views. 

End of the hike at the bay entrance. 

Seaview, Long Island, WA, 8/16-18/2019

After reading an article in the travel section of the Washington Post in the spring about vintage trailers, we decided to rent one in Seaview, Washington.  Yes, that's our trailer. 

We made the rental decision without having any idea about the location.  Little did we know that the beach was a 1/3 mile down the road and that a trail called the Discovery Trail runs along the beach and through the dunes for 1/2 the length of the 28-mile Long Beach peninsula. In short, a biker's, walker's and runner's paradise!

On the Discovery trail north: 

Memorial for a grey whale (skeleton) found by Lewis and Clark in 1805. 

All that is left is the jaw and a section of the spine. 

In addition, we were treated to a spectacle of kites flying over the dunes and beach.  

And not just any flying; 

it was training time in preparation for the National Kite Flying competition to start the following Monday. 

My favorite kite at the World Kite Museum.