Today, after having whined about how I have this hip problem, I went hiking. I did mention the hip problem is waaay less painful than the other hip problem ever was, right?
I went on a meetup hike, about 4.5 miles, hoofing it like crazy. Which is fine with me because I get pain from walking slowly but not so much from walking fast. Because I am bizarro medical wonder. So I was mostly ok, I think my feet hurt more than my hip - I need proper hiking socks. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, with a lovely breeze and the temperatures were in the mid-70's, so completely perfect weather.
Here are a few photos. I'd like to point out that I took them all on the fly, and sometimes without even looking through the viewfinder because I didn't want to get left behind. (I didn't notice the schmutzes on my lens filter until later, and that has now been fixed.)

Walking through pretty flowers. I particularly like this photo.

The cacti are flowering. There was a large cactus colony that spread out over a particular section of the park next to the trail, and nowhere else.

The falls. They're about 40 feet tall, though of course the perspective makes them look tiny. And the wide angle makes me look like a giraffe. As usual, I have bits of hair flying everywhere. The trail is on the other side of that water, left of the frame. I had to wade a torrent and evade sharks to make it across, all the while holding my camera up out of the water.

A pretty cactus plant. I was told the name of it, but I forgot it. By this time, we'd been hiking for almost 2 1/2 hours, and I wasn't retaining any more information.
If you want to see the whole set (16 photos), you can check out the Wildwood Park Thousand Oaks set on Flickr.


