A & J and 52 hikes

It has been awhile since we've hiked!  Julie's back went out in February and she is just now getting strong enough to be able to hike without pain. We went to Raven Run and took the trail to the Kentucky River lookout.  Sunny and 77 degrees with a little wind. Part way down the trail Andy abrubtly stopped because there was a 5 foot snake right in front of him.  The snake was not dangerous and after a few seconds slithered right past Andy's feet and into the brush.    Ate a picnic lunch once we arrived at the lookout over the Kentucky River. Headed back and decided to take another trail called the Freedom Trail.  It is a paved trail that we wanted to scout out in case we could push Mamaw in a wheelcare down the trail when she comes to visit.  We concluded that the trail has a lot of inclines and might be difficult with a wheelchair. 

 We took our 4th hike out at Asbury Trails.  It was 37 degrees but felt like 30 degrees at the beginning of the hike.  By the end we were taking off our coats and hats! It was nice to walk along the Kentucky River again. It felt like we owned the place. Because of the colder weather and rain, we didn't see anyone the entire time we were there. We did see a bald eagle flying down the river at a pretty low elevation;  that was pretty cool.We have 48 more hikes to go. We may be on a two year plan to get all our hikes in, but we are getting out there whenever we have the opportunity. 

On November 5th, we set out for our third hike. We went to the Kentucky River Palisades which is a 30 minute drive from Lexington.  This time, Chantal came with us which made it so much fun. Julie got to use the new walking sticks that she got for her birthday. We got to the trail about 4pm so we knew we didn't have much time to hike before it started getting dark. The trail had a fairly steep incline at the very beginning but then leveled out.  Many trees had lost their foliage but it the trails were beautiful often with large areas of forest. We met very few hikers because we were hiking at the end of the day. We did get to see a whitetail deer cross the path in front of us. We did a 5K (3.2 miles). It was a lovely hike with Chantal with little peeks along the way overlooking the Kentucky River. 

Last weekend we were in Jackson, TN celebrating the 87th birthday of Andy's mom and visiting Nashville with two of our girls, Chantal and Christiana, so we picked back up on our second hike today. It was a lovely day with a high of 61 degrees. We went to Raven's Run and chose a 5K trail. We didn't realize until we got there that the trails would be closing an hour after we arrived, so we had to move fast. The early fall was beautiful and the temperature was perfect with a gentle breeze keeping us cool and crisp. A highlight on this hike was the four wild turkeys we met up with on the trail in front of us who were heading in the same direction. We followed them for a couple of minutes, slowing down to watch them plod along. We were surprised they were not more afraid of us, and thouroughly enjoyed their company. We made it out of the park just in the nick of time.                 2 down/ 50 to go            ...

After a recent hike to the top of a mountain, we met a family on hike 49 of 52. Since we enjoy hiking so much together, we were inspired by this once a week plan for the year, and being in a location that has many hikes within a radius of our home in Lexington, KY, we have decided to try to take 52 hikes at different locations every week this year. We know this may not happen in exactly 52 weeks due to schedules, plans, work deadlines, and family events. However, we are gearing up and getting ready to try to make this happen. We decided that each hike should be at least a 5K (3.1 miles). We began this afternoon with our number 1 hike of 52, after having attending the 10th Annual Heritage Jazz Festival the day before. We decided to hike at Shaker Village. We got off to a late start, and ended up walking in the middle of the day. It was sunny and 79 degrees which didn't seem extreme when we started, but many of the paths were not shaded because the sun was so high. We walked a 7K (4...