Saturday's Hike - Sunday's Reward

I'll admit it, we have a gardener. He comes every other Thursday to do the typical suburban Mow 'N Blow. We had a terrible clover and weed problem in the grass in the back, so we've been treating it and alternatively adding a lot of fertilizer and watering like crazy.

The gardener came and went this past Thursday and the yard looked so great that I dinged Paul on IM and said hey, I have an idea for this weekend....

What if we hike on Saturday instead, and take Sunday totally off. Then we can fire up the smoker, put some music on, sip lemonade, kick our feet up, read, nap, relax, whatever. A day off. Sounds good yes?

We did just that. Saturday morning early, we headed to Grant Park (Joseph D Grant County Park if you want to look it up) in the Eastern foothills, paid the fee, found the parking lot nearest the trailhead of choice and hit the trail by 9:45.

Temperature was middle 60's, light breeze, and only three cars in the parking lot. It was kind of eery actually walking through knowing there weren't very many people around.

The trail we picked is a hard climb up for about 1,000 feet, which we did in just under an hour. We stopped at the overlook, stretched, took a couple photos and saw our first person go by, this one on a bike. The park is mountain bike friendly and after looking at some of the trails I think it could be fun to explore on wheels next time.

We cruised the rest of the way at a steady clip, it was moderately hilly and very scenic, super quiet, and mostly deserted. We hiked just over 3 hours, and just under 7 miles. We saw 5 people on the trail and five more that were in the campground.


We walked up the hill...

Made it to the overlook and stretched...

Looking West at the Santa Cruz Mountains...

Lots of old wood fences surround the property...

A unique view of Mt. Hamilton and the observatory (need to click on the photo to make it bigger to actually see what I'm talking about)

Paul taking a break...


Sunday's Reward:

I marinaded the leg of lamb for an hour in fresh lime juice, garlic, rosemary, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Then it went on the smoker for three hours, and finished on the gas grill for 45 minutes.

Paul rubbed the beef ribs with his special beef pepper mix (he uses cinnamon, star anise, and cloves along with black pepper), and smoked those for four hours then finished on the gas grill for 45 minutes.

Opened a 2000 Chateauneuf du Pape Boisrenard, sides of steamed chard and wild rice.

Paul called his dad after dinner and I reminisced about mine while we ate the lamb...

It was a great Sunday.