This is a hike that Ellen led. Rod joined us at the last minute. We were a group of three plus Zeke. We met at the Brown Ranch house and began just before 8am. The parking lot was crowded. A retired Buena High school math and PE teacher, C Fillman, was there with his wife and Weimaraner Max had pulled in at the same time as we were getting ready to take off.
Luckily I discovered only 0.3 miles into the hike that I didn't have my car keys on me. We went back to the parking lot where I realized I had left the key in the Honda with the ignition on! I had been charging my phone while waiting for Ellen to pull up. She drove up at the last minute and in the excitement to get ready and head out, I left the ignition on. I would have come back to a dead battery otherwise. This detour made our hike 8.75 miles today, as we hiked up trail #115 to the saddle with Ramsey canyon, then turned off into a side trail with a great view into Ramsey. The hike was the same trail as on Sunday, only a mile longer.
The views were nice from the top. We could see the deciduous tress of Ramsey canyon snake down the canyon. We sat on rocks that warmed us up, but I never felt warm enough to take off my black sweat shirt. I had two more Dri-Weave shirt but my hands and ears never really warmed up in the cool canyon. It wasn't warm enough for me until that last mile back to the cars, in the open space around the ranch house, that I could take off my outer layer.
Ellen spotted a rafter of turkeys walking single-file off the trail, camouflaged by foliage, about a mile from the end. They didn't make any noise as they trotted uphill. We saw at least ten of them. Normally turkeys are easily seen in the forest this time of year, but lack of water is taking them elsewhere
People were still heading out as we got back to the parking lot, young and old, cyclists and hikers. We went our separate ways here.
Now it was time to take advantage of the Veteran's Day freebies. I took Rob's advice and went to Applebee's and Texas Roadhouse to pick up free vouchers for veterans. The restaurants were closed, but there were organized lines for drive-through customers. I ended up having a late lunch at Native Wings, where I could enjoy a burger with Zeke on the heated patio. The restaurant wasn't too crowded.
It was quite a different story at Chili's and Olive Garden in the early evening. Kevin was already in bed so I went alone into town. Chili's was packed! What happened to the covid mandate? I was told there was room at the bar, the usual spot where Kevin and I sit, and I ordered a Cajun Chicken pasta (one of my favorites here) and water. No alcohol tonight. Shortly after I sat down, I heard a man next to me say "Connie?" and it turned out to be an old army buddy of mine, Bob Carreira, with whom I served in Haiti. It's a small world! We sat at the bar reminiscing about our time in Haiti on that UN mission in 1995-1996, where we often were on riot patrol together.
The bar got more crowded as it got later. No one was wearing masks unless they were walking by. If I catch covid now, it would have been inside this restaurant. I'm not usually in bars at this time in town and hope now I don't get another potential exposure. The longer this covid lingers, the more I'm quite comfortable in smaller venues. The virus is already raging through Europe again, with France now in fourth place globally, just behind the US, India and Brasil and ahead of Russia, Spain and the UK.
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