Hiking on the bluffs at Kincaid

We had a wine-tasting event on Friday night and went to see "The Judge" on Saturday - that's a full weekend for us!  The weekend started with my pulling in the driveway and realizing there was a big bull moose right next to the driveway!  As I got out of the car, he made his way across the street and began chomping on a bush of our neighbors directly across from us.  A few days later, I went out to walk to work - I can walk 40 minutes right to my office on trails!

  

The wine tasting was fun, but I'm a lightweight drinker, so we were finished in no time!  We did order 1/2 dozen bottles to be picked up at the Brown Jug Warehouse this week.  And saw several people there that we knew!

 Sunday it cleared a little (at least it wasn't raining), and we picked up Lance and went to Kincaid, a shorter ride at least to explore the bluffs there again.  We didn't have snow tires on yet so didn't want to drive up in the mountains - they have a fresh coat of snow!  Kincaid has a large network of trails, but we started on the bluff trail that runs along Cook Inlet. 

We were able to make our way down to the beach along Cool Inlet - not exactly a beach I'm more accustomed to on the ocean or even the Great Lakes or Cape Cod . . . and not the kind of beach that you jump in the water from!  A beautiful day though in its own way with the mountains mixing with the clouds.

 

We had a pretty good 2 hour hike with a lot of up and down, and that seemed like enough for one day!  We hadn't seen Lance for a while and really enjoyed hiking with him.  

Moose have been around a lot lately as attested by the two sightings above and then more when Brian was biking this week.  He ran into these two right in the middle of the trail and was forced to stop and wait until THEY decided to move on.  They do take their time.  The week before the encounters above, I was walking home from work and had to slow down behind the biggest bull moose that I've seen in the middle of the trail.  He wasn't in a hurry either, and he kept turning to look at me - not a good sign - I had to wait until he lost interest and moved off the trail into the brush. 

And finally, this weekend was a lot of catching up and cleaning house, plus organizing the garage for winter (Brian!) Bikes are hanging from the ceiling, and THE SKIS are in residence now!  A sign of things to come - and before too long if we have our way.  

Well, you can see where we're headed!  Any day now - I read they've had snow in Hatcher's Pass, so it's only a matter of time.  The first year that we moved here, I think that we were skiing by now!  

More hiking tomorrow until the snow fills in.