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You are seeing these pictures almost a week after they were taken because
I was too exhausted to post anything that night -- and then the next day
I went down to New York City via Amtrak to pick up my grandson Sam, and
when I got back to Rhode Island with him, we immediately went bike riding,
etc. Let's just say that I was rather busy for four days. I did resize
the photographs last night, but I did not have time to write this entry
before I had to go to bed. Oh, and yesterday was my first day back at work
since August 17th. (Have I mentioned that I think I am now definitely looking
forward to retirement?)
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So... about these photographs. The first one above shows how steep some of these hills were. The trails are rated as easy, moderate, and difficult. We tried to stick with the difficult (or, at least, moderate) trails as much as possible in order to have a reasonable simulation of Mt. Washington (although, of course, it is not up and down hills, it is up and up and up for miles and then down and down as you come back). On that first slide you might see a blue mark a bit to the right of center. That is blue paint marking this as part of the blue trail. Uphill from that and slightly to the left you might see another tiny blue spot. That is not a trail blaze; that's Jill's shirt (she is almost to the top of this particular section).
The second picture is another climb. That is Jill about in the middle of
that photo. And, of course, this is Jill in the picture below.
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The Blue Hills site is a collection of multiple hills and so going up hill
is soon followed by going down hill. (The following picture shows Jill
on her way down this particular hill, probably wondering if I've paused
to take yet another photograph.)
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And the next picture shows that Jill is hiking these rocky hills wearing a
pair of her Vibram Fivefingers. She has taken to wearing them for almost all of her running (even eight
to ten miles) as well as for a lot of walking.
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The pictures below were taken at our turn-around point -- that is, after
about two and a half hours of hiking, we stopped here for a rest and some
scenery viewing. That is Boston in the distance behind us (you can just
about see some of the taller buildings on the horizon behind Jill). I had
thought about putting these two pictures together in Photoshop, but I just
don't have the time to play with it.
Down below these two pictures is a zoomed in look at the Boston skyline.
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This is the Boston skyline taken from the Blue Hills -- The Prudential Tower is about nine and a half miles away. (I took this one from on top of a different hill, one that had an old weather observatory tower on it, so it was easier to brace on the tower to hold the camera steady
than just pointing it totally hand-held.)
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And here we are together at our turn-around point -- putting the camera
on a rock and setting the self-timer.
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Then it was time to set out on our return trip. Jill is leading the way
down from our turn-around hill.
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On the way back, my hiking shoes became to come apart -- the sole and the upper part were separating on my right shoe. They weren't new shoes (but I don't think I've put on them the number of miles I typically put on a running shoe) and I guess the up and down on the rocks was just too much for them. Thus, less than an hour into the return portion of our outing, we decided to leave the difficult trails for easy-to-moderate ones. (As in the photograph below...)
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