the Way of the Turtle

2 Mile Walk at Green Lakes
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thanks to my lollygagging, we got off to a late start and ended up reaching Green Lakes State Park after 7 PM... fortunately that left plenty of time to walk around one of the lakes. We shared the trail which lots of other walkers and quite a few runners... this seems to be a popular place to go on a summer evening.

I continue to be surprised at how green the water is (due in part to high levels of calcium in the water, reflecting back blue and green light wavelengths) as well as how quickly the bottom drops off. I definitely want to get back here during the day and run both around the lakes and up in the meadows to the west... perhaps next year I'll be in good enough shape to finally tackle the 50k at the end of August.

As we were walking through the cedar grove just before coming out into the parking lot, two juvenile hawks took off into the air, screeching all the way. We caught a couple of glimpses of them as they went from tree to tree, not long enough to get any photos but long enough to tell that they weren't the typical red-tailed hawks that are so prevalent around here. Our best guess is that they were red-shouldered hawks, based on the colors and the bands of color in their tails. They were definitely upset... we heard them long after they'd vanished from sight.

It would have been good to spend more time outdoors today, especially given how pleasant it was this evening... but I got to walk around a very nice lake with my sweetheart, so in the end I really have nothing to complain about.

JMH