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Clouds
It has been a while since I have had a hike of any significance. (For me, that’s 10+ miles with hills. Naked of course!) My muscles have atrophied, my cardiovascular fitness declined, and I’ve put on weight. Triple digit weather hasn’t helped. It is a 180 minute round trip and $30 of gas to get to where it is cool enough to push myself. All are just physical and economic “clouds” that got in my way. I love actual clouds.
I need to get back into the swing of things but I must do it slowly.
Last Saturday did a short out and back freehike of maybe 5 miles. A couple of miles on a trail then maybe half mile cross country. I found myself reclining in the shade of a majestic Jeffrey (I think) pine looking up at the sky.
Supposedly it is monsoon season down here — and so there were clouds up there. Day after day of endless blue skies with nary a white patch to disturb the uniformity gets boring. I grew up in a land where Cumulus humilis, the fair weather cloud, dominated the sky. Here in southern California I have come to consider barren blue to be the norm. It is the curse of the desert.
Not more than a thousand feet overhead a friendly cumulus drifted into sight and then evaporated before my eyes.
