The Ups and Downs of Life

 4/11/22

I'm still at Mom's doing what I can to help out. I took her to a surgical procedure Friday, then just chores and shopping the next few days.

    Just some clouds that made me smile.

    More domino games; we also played Scrabble.

    Mom and I went shopping and did a countryside adventure on the way:

 I'm also cat sitting for my sister's family - they're in Florida. Playful and friendly Ash insisted on some water play. Agnes is far more elusive and distant.

Oh yes, I've been trying to help out my aunt who is losing touch with reality and just having a hard time of life. She has started with the Caring Angels home health aides so that she can stay home. It's not going well. She seems to have forgotten how to use phones so goes silent and I have to go check on her and the phones aren't charged. 😐

I'll head home tomorrow and get ready to hike Wednesday.

4/12/22

I took another mid-state detour to see rural upstate NY and clear my mind. It was very stress reducing and beautiful, and my only regret was not stopping to get a picture of a blue and white peacock at a farm I drove past.

     I settled for some photos of these Highland cattle.
     
 And finally back home.

4/13/22

Bear Mountain State Park contains West Mountain and the Timp Torne which was the focus of yesterday's hike. We ascended and descended a total of 9 miles and many of us were completely exhausted by the journey. The views were wonderful, the trails charming with streams, forests, and the ruins of Doodletown to explore. Quite the contrast between our starting enthusiasm - we'll stop for dinner after! - to our complete exhaustion wherein we just wanted to get home and car conversation took some effort. 


We met the lovely Bruno at the lean-to on West Mtn.

If you look very closely into the haze, you can see the outline of the NYC skyline.

At the top of Timp Torne.


Timp top discussions. Black flies were out and biting - in April!!!

Lunch break with Bruno and the whole crew.


Comments

  1. MargaretApril 19, 2022 at 11:27 AM

    You sound like you're doing a lot of caretaking; it reminded me of my own life with my 89 year old mother. This weekend I had to drop in on my younger daughter's cat while she went on a hike. That is a gorgeous kitty--is it a Maine Coon? You were hiking in my older daughter's area; she lives about 1 1/2 hours away from NYC. Wonderful that you got the beautiful hike in spite of the biting flies. Ugh.

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