Sunday afternoon; the kitchen over-sink light is in, as is the new valance, the large tree in our backyard is trimmed off the tiles on the roof and the gutters are cleaned. And it is only 1:00pm!! Time enough to grab a hike!

We are off to the Lost Lake trailhead, just outside of the Eldora Colorado ski area. Round trip the hike was 6 miles, ending at an elevation of 9783 feet, with an elevation gain of about 1100 feet. Officially the rating is more difficult to most difficult. We would not agree it is quite that challenging, although we did do some huffing and puffing.

We just missed the peak wildflower bloom here. The trail displayed tons of finished flowers on both sides of the trail, making this a promising repeat for next year. The lake is a good sized shallow piece of water nestled in a mountain bowl. The Eldora ski slopes were visible at different points during the outing. Still, we saw good numbers of wildflowers...AND we couldn't help wondering if we had landed back in the Pacific Northwest. The heat wave that has been in the area has been subsiding and on this day we were RAINED on - steady rain that fell continuously, demanded we don our rain gear, and formed puddles on the trail. We forgot what that was like! The cloudy skies, lush terrain, and dripping foliage reminded us greatly of our hikes in Washington and Oregon in the fall.

The weekend is almost over and we got in our dose of playtime before the start of the new work week - a satisfying finish to a productive weekend!