that's gonna leave a mark....

looks like it'll be a few days before i attempt walking in the new shoes.

today's hike was a five-mile (technically 6 1/2, since we had to leave one of the cars a mile and a half away from the trailhead, because what passed for a "road" was almost as rough as the trail itself, minus all the river crossings.) challenge, to say the least. a good portion of the trail was the creek itself, which featured some seriously slippery rocks (several times, i was inspired to sit down rather abruptly and enjoy the view, including one time, when i somehow wound up flat on my back, with my left hand holding my digital camera aloft, a move i perfected during the course of the hike.) and enough crawdads to supply new orleans for at least a week.

which reminds me- i'd never realized the principles of crawdad locomotion. they crawl forward, but swim backward. i'm still trying to work out how they knew not to smack into any of the aforementioned rocks, as some of those suckers would get moving pretty quickly.

anyway- where was i? oh, yes- slippery rocks, large numbers of crawdads.....

i took a large number of pictures, too- which i'm currently transferring to my laptop. unfortunately, it'll be a day or two before i can post any of them, since i can't currently get a wireless connection. perhaps by then i'll also have taken a picture of my left knee, which will surely be a sight to behold by morning. not only did i wipe it out mid-creek (during one of my rather abrupt seats, i managed to take an unintended seat on a slippery rock and, as a special bonus, whacked my knee on another rock in front of me), but i also totally biffed it on a perfectly dry boudler, resulting in a nice scrape on the digital camera (this is why the cheap one goes on adventures with me) and another blow to my knee.

needless to say, wherever SO and i decide to go tomorrow (leaning toward saguaro national park), hiking will not be an option...no matter what my footwear options may be.