the mama trail

Last week I did a super long (for me) run. I did the length of the Kachina Trail. It came to about 10 miles, which like I said, is really long for me. Plus the day before Agnes and I had done a pretty decent mountain bike ride so my legs were already tired. Throughout the run I kept thinking to myself, This is awesome. This is brutal. It truly is one of the most beautiful trails I’ve ever been on. Fields of ferns spotted with purple flowers. Amazing views of the peaks. Rocky ravines. You name it. It reminded me a lot of Crested Butte.

We just got back from camping above West Clear Creek. We drove over on Friday with our pop up camper on the truck. About half way there I realized I forgot to bring any bedding. So we made a quick trip down to Pine/Strawberry and went to this great thrift store where we got out of there with a flannel sheet, a pillow, and a hat for Troy all for four buck fifty. Camping out that evening I realized I also forgot to pack any underwear. Oops. I wasn’t planning to purchase any of those at the thrift store. Saturday we tried to go for a ride on the dirt roads with McKenna in the trailer, but even smooth dirt roads are just too bumpy so the ride was kind of a bust. We went back in to Pine/Strawberry that afternoon for the 4th of July celebration and dinner. Sunday we did the burly hike down to the creek (I’m not so sure there should really be a trail where they put this one…it is uber steep and rocky!). Then we hiked up the creek to the natural amphitheater, gushing spring, and crawdads aplenty. Troy and I had been there together before with Sazi years ago, and Sazi had just as much fun this time around trying to pounce on the crawdads. We saw so much beauty down there: fields of flowers that had a butterfly on top of every one, massive cliff walls, snakes, tiny bright green grasshoppers, the list goes on. Good swimming holes too!

McKenna loved the camping out. She ate probably 9 pounds of rocks, dirt, bark, and sticks. With the gap between her two front teeth and dirt smeared all over her face and clothes she looked like such a hill billy. But all cleaned up she looked like this on her 10 month birthday a couple weeks ago:

Although she is an enthusiastic crawler I think she is just weeks away from taking her first steps. I’ve seen her balance several times without holding on to anything, and when we were in Strawberry she walked like 6 steps with me holding only one hand.

She is also an enthusiastic self feeder of solid foods and when I say enthusiastic, I mean shrieking for more when her plate is empty!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 5:48 pm and is filed under blah blah blog, McKenna Pics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.