Mountain People

I am a mountain person. Not the moonshine and overall type, though I've been known to get along quite well with them. Just saying.

Anyway, given the choice between going hiking in the mountains or walking on the beach, I will choose the mountains every time, no question. Main reason? I love, love, love hiking. There is no better feeling than seeing the top of a bluff or mountain and then looking down at the spot from which you were looking up just a few hours ago.

See that monument waaaaaaay on the top of that bluff? That's where we hiked to.

It makes me so glad we live in New England. Within 10 miles of our house we have 3 fantastic hiking spots, our favorite of which we went to today. We're actually really lucky because not only is it within 10 miles, the entrance is only about a mile from our house so not only do we get to hike, we get to walk to our hike through a quaint and beautiful neighborhood with Easter egg houses. I consider the walk to the trailhead a warm-up, I guess.

Not sure if they were selling children or plants. We weren't in the market for either so, you know, we moved on. 

It took awhile, but we finally got the spring we'd been waiting for. I think all the snow makes us appreciate spring that much more! Our Bradford Pear trees bloomed 2 months later than they did in Atlanta, which is crazy to me. Everyone says they stink, but I like the smell because it reminds me of both Atlanta and Lexington.

Stone sun at one of the trailheads

Side note: on April Fools Day, the neighborhood group Friends of East Rock Park (the place we like to hike) sent out an email talking about a landslide that has happened the night before, complete with photoshopped picture. I hadn't left the house that day so they certainly fooled me, and I was so, so relieved to see it all in one piece. I was pretty upset when I first read the email because it certainly seemed plausible given the steep nature of the bluff. Then I walked by it that afternoon and all was well. 

Photoshopped picture of the "landslide". Convincing, no? 

(Source: FERP)

Was pretty brilliant, though. This is our favorite park, mostly because it's not creepy and there are normally other people around. The downside is that while it's easy to get lost in the park, sometimes you try to get lost and end up taking the short way down and end up in an area that you don't want to be in, like we did this time. Oops. 

(note: I used my point and shoot for this outing, which means the quality is way lower than my DSLR)