Today I'm actually a bit sore from having done a 6 mile hike, At around 9, I donned my hiking shorts while it was 40 degrees outside and repeated the same trail as a few days ago but went in the other direction (and added a miscellaneous mile.) Tomorrow I plan to explore the Ruidoso trail.
The one thing I noticed this time were the buds on the ends of most of the Cholla cactus branches. They looked like the articulated sections of an green catipillar. It was very interesting and I don't recall seeing it last time. And finally, I saw some wild life. I large rabbit crossed the trail about 10 feet in front of me.
Truly exciting news. I bought a new fanny pack for hiking. See, I told you it was exciting. Even though this is "winter", I still work up a sweat and decided I needed to carry more water. My small one only carried one 16oz bottle, the 2nd one carries two 32oz bottles and is also much larger, and the Voyager carries about 1 gallon but that's just too damn much for right now. The new pack is a cheap Walmart $9.99 special and carries two 16oz bottles, which is perfect for 5 mile day hikes on cold days. One of it's features which is surely a sad sign of the times, is a hole in it for headphones. Disgusting. Hiking and listening to music isn't safe and it defeats the whole purpose of being out in pure nature.
Last night was nice. Michelle (from my meetup group) and I went to Ra Sushi in Scottsdale. I had my predictable Chicken Teriyaki but it was prepared somewhat different from other Japanese places. It came with a smaller portion of rice but included a massive amount of large cut flame grilled chicken breast. Very tender and moist. Excellent.