Olive walk when I got home from work. Did some things around the house and Ben made dinner. Yellowjackets!
Thursday (21,051 steps) - Walk with Olive to the lake before I clocked in. Trails were pretty muddy thanks to the (much-needed) rain we got last night. Decided to take my run to Little Dry Creek (mainly so I could get the uphill out of the way at the start rather than at the end). This was a semi-workout and it went really well too!
Did a quick Peloton ride when I got back. Laundry, shower, took Olive for a walk around the block and squeezed in some strength training at the end of the day. Normal Thursday night Torchy's date and then home for a little bit of packing for the weekend and more Yellowjackets.
Friday (13,650 steps) - Walk with Olive before going to work. Even though she always goes in with me on Fridays I opted to leave her at home since I only planned on working in office through lunch. Left the office around noon and took Olive for a longer walk to the lake.
In between getting work done, I had to finish packing for the weekend. We were able to get out the door around 3. Traffic wasn't horrible, but it did rain most of the drive up. I had convinced Ben to go to the campsite first so we could get everything unloaded and setup before it got dark. Glad we did as we had a weird, sort of small site. We of course stopped at Outer Range after, and it was chilly and we had to pull out the truck blanket for me and Olive.
Of course I was hungry so we just got food at the brewery. By the time we got back to the site it was cold and we decided to just sit in the camper and watch an episode of Yellowjackets.
Saturday (37,317 steps) - Took Olive for a quick walk to find the bathroom and around our loop.
I was procrastinating going for my run because it was VERY chilly out. Had coffee and some breakfast and then finally got dressed and headed out.
I had created a point to point route with plans of Olive and Ben meeting me at Zak's to then backtrack and go to Rainbow Lake. I was finally trying out the new Mount to Coast M1 shoes I've been wanting for ages.
I stopped to use the bathroom at the end of the campground before starting my loop around the peninsula. Even with all the rain the trails were in pretty decent shape. My only major concern early in the run was how high my heart rate was - especially since I felt like I was running easy and my pace was slow.
This has always been one of our favorite selfie spots - the lake is shockingly low.
Saw very few people in the early miles, maybe 2-3 bikes total, which was very nice.
Moved off the dirt and onto the bike path for a short time. More people out on the paved areas. This section was basically the reverse of what we do in Summit 200 before the first aid station. I was having some trouble with navigation not giving me great cues of where to go. I always run into the navigation telling me about turns when I am on single track and there is nowhere else to go, yet I'll come to a fork in the road and it isn't clear where I should go.
Even though Summit County is supposedly past peak colors, it was still a beautiful morning!
After miles of running, I finally got to do some hiking instead. Other than a small group of hikers at the start of the trail (behind Gold Hill?), I saw ZERO people for a long time.
The higher up I got, the windier it was, and I actually started to feel a little cold! I was looking at the clouds and hoping I hadn't made a mistake in not bringing more than my rain jacket, which I didn't put on anyway. I did, however, go through the on again, off again with my thin gloves.
After being on some "new to me" trail sections, I finally recognized where I was, heading into Miner's Creek.
There were a LOT more people in this area. Groups of hikers and cyclists. When I got to Rainbow Lake, it was pandemonium. SO MANY PEOPLE. It was annoying trying to run, but since I was just out for time on feet it wasn't a big deal. I knew Ben would be SO annoyed.
Got to the parking lot and it was a ZOO. People were parking anywhere there was a space of dirt and I knew that in addition to the sheer volume of people on the trails that Ben would NOT enjoy parking in this lot. He picked me up and we drove down the street to the North Tenmile trailhead where we actually found a spot to park. The goal was just an easy hike/walk to round out my trail time for the day. We walked basically to the first river access, let Olive play for a few, then headed back.
It was a pretty strange time of day by now for food. I wasn't especially hungry, but we went into Frisco for a very late lunch at Ollie's.
We went to Outer Range, but we weren't able to stay as long as usual because someone bought out the whole brewery for the night!
We went back to the campsite for a bit and relaxed for a while before taking Olive for a walk. Then it was time for dinner and a campfire! First one we have been able to have pretty much all season because of how dry it's been.
Once we got cold it was time to go into the camper for another episode of Yellowjackets.
Sunday (14,630 steps) - We had a relaxing morning of coffee and slowly packing up. We had thought about trying to stay another night. Our spot wasn't reserved, but they only take cash and the hassle of trying to get $29 meant that we went with our original plan of going to Lee's house. Stopped at Dunkin' to get coffee and a donut and then dropped off Shelly at Lee's.
Thankfully, it looked like the weather was going to cooperate for our last trip up Berry Picker for the season. The parking lot was more full, but there didn't actually seem to be as many people out. We had to make a quick run to the general store since we had left Olive's treats at the house :(
We were all tired and happy to be relaxing at the top for a bit. When the wind started to pick up and it seemed like it was going to rain on us we decided we better head down. I had initially planned on getting a coffee in town but I didn't like the menu and got overwhelmed. Back to Outer Range where we met up with Lee. Picked up pizza from Whole Foods again and had dinner, hung out for a bit. We tried to watch Yellowjackets but had a lot of technology issues.
Monday (20,490 steps) - Took Olive for a walk around the block and had coffee before logging in for the day. We had plans of not leaving until morning rush hour was over. I had thought about doing my run in Dillon, but then it started raining and I decided I would just do it when I got home. We left around 10:30 and it rained most of the way home, but at least we didn't have to deal with any traffic. We unpacked everything and I went for my run. It wasn't bad, thankfully!
After work I took Olive for a walk and then Ben and I assembled Skelly!! Ben had bought it for me for our anniversary. I have been asking for one for YEARS, this was really exciting!! I will say that the box weighed over 80 pounds and it is suggested that three adults do the assembly. I told Ben we would have to make to do with one and half adults. Isn't Skelly amazing??!
Made dinner - mango chicken (too spicy for Ben) and rice. We watched more Yellowjackets and are almost caught up so that we will be prepared for the last season coming out in November.
