On Friday, Todd and I decided to go on a fairly long hike on Russian Ridge, in the hills above Palo Alto. We took a long, winding drive through country roads punctuated by many "Horse X-ing" signs (and at one, a rider was actually crossing!), made some wrong turns, discovered a fabulous little square at a junction way up in the mountains, stopped at the "Skywood Trading Post" to get drinks to go with our packed picnic lunch, and finally made it to the trail head. We started the hike, through wide, grassy slopes filled with hundreds of varieties of wildflowers (I judiciously decided NOT to take the camera, as I wanted to enjoy the hike without documenting it...). It was beautiful - brilliant yellows, pinks, and purples, blue and white and orange butterflies, dells cluttered with ancient gnarled oaks and brush-choked streams. There was good mix of sun and shade, steep climbs and easy rambling downhills. We ate on a lichen-covered boulder overlooking Stanford University like a tiny red speck in the distance.
However, much like our drive to the hike, our hike was also filled with a few wrong turns, meaning that a five miler ended up being more of an eight miler, a hard eight miler. We were very relieved and happy to turn that last bend and see our car waiting for us in the parking lot.
On our drive back down the mountain, we again stopped at the trading post and got a huge bottle of water. The proprietor recognized us from our first visit (when we were much less exhausted and bedraggled looking) and chuckled at our further hydration...
When we got home, we decided to reward our tired, hungry bodies with dinner so we headed to Domino's to try potentially the most "wedding day diet" destructive food on the planet: PASTA, covered with CHEESE, in a BREADBOWL. And, boy, was it good. And totally worth it. :-)
Come on, we still have two and a half months to go before my dress has to fit, right?!
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