Right next to the entrance to our place is a road to Castle Rock State Park, of which we are part.  One of the responsibilities of workampers up here is to walk down there periodically and pick up any garbage we may see.  Today, Mark and I took the hike.

It’s a beautiful park.  As we were walking down the road, I was reminded so much of hikes I’ve taken in Oregon.  The trees are a mix of deciduous and pine.  Mark walked a little way down a side path toward a redwood tree that, while not big enough to cut a tunnel through, was pretty wide at the base.  There is also a streambed that was mostly dry, but down at the bottom, there was some water running under a little bridge.  I imagine during the rainy season, the water runs all along the streambed.  I think I even saw a huckleberry bush on the hike.  It wasn’t one of those low, blue huckleberry shrubs, but one of the bushes with red berries on it.  It only had a couple berries on it and they didn’t look ripe yet, so I didn’t pick them.

The first part of the trip was all downhill, and relatively steep.  However, we knew that when we reached the bridge at the bottom, we’d need to turn around and climb back up.  We had each taken a bottle of water with us, and there was a campground on the trail with a small water fountain, so on our way back up we refilled our water bottles.  We had to stop frequently to catch our breath and get some water.  Mostly it was because of me we had to stop so often.  I am really out of shape.  I could tell I was getting a good aerobic workout today.  Still, I loved going on the hike with Mark, and we did find some garbage to bring out with us.  I hope we can do it again!