The Woods and The Works

Yesterday, we took advantage of the brief break in the rainy season (aka Boston this summer) and spent a little time outside. We recently read an article about an area called Allendale Woods having volunteers work on clearing the trails. The area is just a couple of miles from here and I didn't even know it had existed. When I lived a couple of boroughs over, in Jamaica Plain, I literally drove past it every day on my way to work and was completely unaware what lay behind the view from the road. The Boston area never ceases to amaze me at how many great surprises it has available. Anyway, since reading the article, I've been dying to check it out.

So, yesterday morning, we chanced what might have been really muddy trails to see what the area held. What a nice surprise it was! The trails weren't muddy at all (except for one small section we passed through) and we had a really nice time wandering around the paths and finding out what was in this wooded area. How cool to have such a nice little hiking spot so incredibly close to home! In fact, when I'm not 9 months pregnant, it's close enough that I would walk there from home to hike around for a bit. Here are some pictures from the outing.

Pretty Flower

Pond - Might be a Good One for Fishing

(seemed to be a lot of fish jumping around in it)

Me at the Top of a Little Waterfall

Since time to enjoy "life as we know it" is quickly coming to a close at an unexpected moment, I feel like time is of the essence. Since I didn't know what I would be up for tonight, nor if I'd be "available" to go see Boston fireworks, we decided to go see what nearby town, Needham, had to offer for July 3rd fireworks.

Around 9 last night, we made the quick drive over, parked, walked about half a mile to what we thought would be nice viewing spot and sat down on a blanket to wait for the show. Once it started, we realized some trees would be blocking our view of a lot of it, so we got up and started moving back towards the car (I wasn't willing to walk any further away from it at that point). In between a couple of houses in the neighborhood, we actually got a really nice, pretty much unobstructed view of the fireworks show. We were standing in the middle of the street (it was blocked from traffic) but no one else was around so it was like our own personal show! They had a very nice display of fireworks and I enjoyed it immensely. Probably the biggest plus to the smaller town fireworks is not fighting hordes of traffic to get home. We just walked back to the car and quickly drove ourselves home. Nice!

Now, it's the 4th. So, happy 4th everyone! Still no baby. The wait continues.

PR - Guanica Dry Forest

Well, we've been back almost a week now and boy has it been a crazy one! So, I'll have to finish up the details on our last few days in Puerto Rico then I'll get to local occurrences.

Last Friday, we decided to explore the Guanica Dry Forest which was basically "across the street" from our hotel (of course we drove about 10 minutes to get to the central park of the forest to the trail head). Hiking here was really the only time during the week that we were hot. With it being so dry and us without the benefit of the ocean breeze, we felt the 90 degree heat. However, we still had a great time exploring the forest, spotting lots of butterflies, cool birds, plants and other forest critters.

Since we didn't get any nature guides, nor do either one of us know much about names of insects and birds, we had no idea what these things were called so we gave them our own names. 

Camouflage Butterfly

Green Bird with Little Red Spot (I know, creative, huh?). With the wonders of info on the Internet, we think we've found his real name of San Pedrito Tody.

After about an hour and a half to two hours of walking, with lots of stops to stalk butterflies and trying to take pictures of the wildlife, we came upon this wonderful view of the Guanica Dry Forest with a backdrop of the Cordillera Central mountain range and even a view of "our" bay (where our resort was).

And, of course, we had to do a self portrait shot!

Then we headed back. Right after getting back on the path, we saw a little land crab. I picked him up for a better view and for a photo op. Mr. Land Crab was NOT pleased and gave me a good scratch (hence the somewhat stained face in the picture)!

After our nice hot hike, we went back, cleaned up and then spent the afternoon napping and reading on the beach. That night, we headed to the nearby town of La Parguera for dinner and a cruise of the Bioluminescent Bay. At our resort's recommendation, we ate at a restaurant called Aquazol. If you are ever in the area, we highly recommend this restaurant. It was definitely our favorite meal of the week! We even got homemade pumpkin ice cream for desert! Yum!

After dinner, we bought tickets for the BioBay tour and, after a bit of waiting, headed off. Unbeknown to us, this boat, on the way to a natural phenomenon, was a party boat! Man, those Puerto Ricans LOVE their music and the only way to listen to it is deafeningly loud (yes, I know I sound like my mother but Mike and I couldn't even shout at each other sitting next to each other...that loud). I wondered how many of those lovely bay front homes had to listen to that music several times a night on a daily basis.

So, the sight we were to see was the glowing of the dinoflagellate glowing in the water. Unfortunately, the best time to see this is under a new moon and around 7-8pm. We had an almost full moon and it was almost 10pm by the time we got there. There were a few divers on the boat that jumped in and splashed around. They would make "snow angel" type shapes with their body an you could see an extremely faint green glow in the white of the stirred water but it was definitely not the full effect of the phenomenon. But, still cool to see. Pretty much the only picture we took of the night where you could see anything cool was, of course, a self portrait!

It was a long, great, eventful day and we were ready to get back to the resort for a good nights sleep. So, that's what we did.

For more awesome pictures of the day, click here.

Peaked Hill Pond Hike

Several weeks ago when we were in NH, I persuaded Mike to go on yet another hike with me.  From our condo, we have a great view of a few smaller mountains.  So, I checked to see if there were any trails on them.  There was only one and it seemed like a good choice being somewhat short in length.  Since we were trying to get some work done on the place, we didn't have a ton of time to play so the trail was a winning pick.  

We drove to the other side of the highway from us, a little over 3 miles and set out up the trail.  The trail was nice and wide and Mike and I walked side by side on it.  Somehow, though, I seemed to catch ALL of the spider webs on the trail.  It was seriously unreal how many I was constantly walking through and picking off while Mike was able to not go through one.  Also, I did a very stupid thing.  I forgot to put on bug spray.  Mosquitoes love me and I should really know better.  I paid for it.  I literally got over 20 bites on this 4 mile, 2 hour hike.  Other than the spider webs and mosquitoes, we really had a nice relaxing time and enjoyed spending some time outside.

We normally see critters on our treks, which is always very exciting.  On this one, we got to see a cool little dude - a red eft.  He was very cute and Mike couldn't resist picking him up for a better look. So, you can get a good idea of his size.  I have to say, I was pretty impressed that Mike spotted him among the leaves.  Note: no animals were harmed in the taking of these photos.

As the name of the trail pretty obviously suggests, our destination was a pond on Peaked Hill.  My trail book description notes that part of the trail is across private land.  At the pond, there were signs that the inhabitants of that land frequent the pond.  We found a jon boat, canoe and assorted fishing tackle at the edge of the water.  It really was a peaceful place and, I suspect, a really nice spot for fishing.
On the way back down, we encountered another couple of critters - a toad and a frog.  The dude below hiding among the grass\leaves is an American toad, I believe.
From the trail, we could hear rushing water so we decided to stray off of it and check it out.  We were glad that we did.  Just a little ways down a somewhat steep slope, we viewed a pretty cool waterfall.  Unfortunately, my camera battery died right after snapping a picture of the toad.  Thank goodness I still had my trusty iphone on back up to be able to snap a memory of the place.  

Hiking on Home Turf

We decided to do something novel - stay in town for the holiday weekend. With all the travel we've been doing lately and rushing around here and there, having a low key weekend at home seemed like the perfect plan. The weather was forecasted to be iffy for Saturday, but we decided outdoor fun had to happen anyway. So, we called up our good hiking buddies, Tamara and Ross, and begged them to bring their new dog, Trucker, to go explore the Blue Hills just south of town with us.

Now, they're no white mountains, but they still give you a great hike with a rewarding view. Here's a view from the top - can you see downtown Boston and the bay?

The view from above was taken from the top of this old tower. Here's the gang (sans me) taking a snack break at the base.

Me with my new pal Trucker and his proud mom, Tamara.

Cool big rocks

Here's the scoop on Trucker. Ross's sister races (mushes? not sure of the correct terminology) dogs in Alaska. She also seems to acquire strays quite a bit and has far more dogs than she needs for her team. She knew Ross and Tamara wanted a dog and Trucker wasn't needed for her team, so she personally delivered him a couple of weeks ago. Cool, huh?

Speaking of Truckers birth land, here's a picture from the Mike and Kara archives. This picture was taken of us right after we had raced some pups, much like Trucker, atop a glacier. The helicopter behind us swooped us away on a tour of the glaciers...seeing those things from the air is one of the absolute coolest experiences we've ever had! (No comments from the peanut gallery on the extra weight I'm carrying in this pic. )

Back to Labor Day weekend. After our hike, we had a cookout at our place. The weather ended up cooperating very nicely and we had a great day outdoors with friends.

The End of a Long Day - Falling Waters Trail

Before heading down back into the trees, I took one last look at Lafayette Mountain.

So pretty!

The Falling Waters Trail was about 3.3 miles down the mountain back into the parking lot. After about 20 minutes of trying to keep up with Mike and Tom hopping down rocks, we heard the sound of water. For the rest of the trail, we followed the water downhill, traversing it a couple of times and saw a lot of really cool waterfalls. I have no idea what any of them were called so just enjoy the pictures that follow without any annoying dialogue from myself.






So, after about 9 miles later (from the start of the day), we arrived back to our cars around 6:15. It was a very long, but extremely enjoyable day of hiking. I honestly enjoyed almost every minute of the exercise (except for the previously mentioned rock hopping part where I had trouble keeping up with the boys that actually have legs of a decent length) and I seriously loved the views so much that I might have to drag Mike and whomever else I can up that trail with me again next year.

I will say, though, that a soak in our hot tub after getting home to the condo never felt so wonderful! After taking a dip there, having a nice long shower and enjoying the beautiful sunset (pictured below), we went to Mexican night at the local tavern.
Now, any of you from Texas that have suffered through a Mexican meal in Boston know that this part of the world is not exactly known for making the best food in this genre. However, after a full day of hiking, I think I would have enjoyed just about anything. So, we stuffed ourselves silly on nachos and burritos and headed home. I think I lasted until about 9:30 that evening and settled in for a LONG night of sleep!


Other than some tight calves, I felt really good the next day....still pretty worn out, but good. It's amazing what a toll that long of a day of hiking can take on your body. We played a little tennis to keep our legs loose but didn't do much of anything else. Hey, what are vacation's for if not lazing around?!?