Taking a walk with me

Instead of inserting these pics into the previous posts, I'll just show them here. These are the paths I keep talking about that are within my neighborhood, and the hike I found that goes up the hill behind my neighborhood and into one of the parks, and the views from up on the hill.

The start of the biggest, most secluded path is about 2 blocks from my house. Today I found a way to get there in the common space behind the houses so I am off-street nearly the whole time. There are amazing tall trees there you have to pass under - I keep calling them redwoods, but I don't think they are. They are very straight, tall, big around, and have a red-ish tent, so they may be related. At any rate, this is just inside the path, near the start. Notice Audrey is ahead of me - she always likes to lead the way :)























Then you pass a little stream Audrey likes to get muddy in - it should have more water soon when the rains start. And you get to a part which is a bit more meadow-like. My neighbor says the eastern part of this neighborhood didn't have the trees cut; rather it used to be meadow - where our part has these amazing trees. Even though our part is older, I far prefer it. You can see one of the new mc-mansions I have to pass once I exit the path before I get to the park land and the hill just beyond.











It is hard to see in this pic (you can click on it to expand it) but this is the view from the top of the hill. To the left just out of view is the cascades and some peaks that are over 10,000 ft high, and to the right is the smaller coastal range with Mary's peak at just over 4000 ft.




Here is a close-up of the moss that is prevalent here. I think it looks amazing - it is stiff, like starched string. I was so surprised the first time I reached up to touch it and found it was so dry and hard - not soft and moist like I expected.