1/52 Big Tree 2016

I have set myself up for a VERY active year, so we hit the ground running.
Once a month or so, I will post the current tally of miles.  I accepted a challenge to walk 1,000 miles in 2016!  Also to do one hike a week with added challenge via 52 Hikes and of course my own idea to set up a hike on the first day of every month all year.  :)  unless the first is a Monday.  haha

I am excited.  I was doing really well keeping up with my personal goal of 15 miles a week last year. For months.  Then, I didn't get it for a week then 2 weeks, then it quit being on my radar.  Hopefully (how I both overuse and hate that word) I will be more motivated with other folks joining in, even if it's just online in some cases. 1,000 miles in a year is just 20 miles a week, so I KNOW I can do it.

The pics are all Matt's.  I left my SD card in the computer, so I had to use my camera's internal memory to take pics and so far, none of the software I have to pull photos can find them!
UPDATE!  My pics are below these.

The kids and I measured around the tree and then stretched out, keeping our arms and hands in the same way so we could show how big around it was.  Our guess, 26 feet!

I have socks in my inner vest pocket, so I look extra lumpy!  hahahaha

Group shot. I desaturated the next one because that orange seems CRAZY bright.

We didn't get shot at even once, so it worked!

Matt, Kurt, Emma, Elan, Ben T, Melanie, me, Alex T, Alex, Ben
Melissa and Bren!

Several trees near campsites were labeled this way, pretty cool that they bothered and pretty sad that enough people have been injured from setting up camp under dead trees.  I imagine in the dark or the rain, you don't bother looking up, though!

My pics below.  :)

The Big Tree Fire back in October burned more than 2.000 acres of the forest.  It could have been so much worse, this really looks about like it does after a prescribed burn.  There are probably more devastated areas, but this is not as bad as I had feared.

204 trail

those little trees across the trail get harder to hop over the longer the trail!  There were a few that were crotch height that made me realize I need to be stretching WAY more often!  I started on the RM hike Sunday doing squats every 3-4 miles.  It really helped!

Great kick off for the year, I am stoked.  

Ten Yeses

Last month I did a 100 mile challenge and several friends joined in!  3 families actually sent me confirmation they had finished walking all 100 miles, so hurrah!

This month, I wanted to work on my own goal for the year, which was taking more chances to learn or do something new.  So I decided I should say yes whenever I could all month long, even if it was something I was not immediately comfortable with.  I figured something would come up a couple times a week.  Since there are 5 Fridays this month, I went with 10 chances.  No, I am not sure of my logic.

So far, I have accepted a couple invitations, both from photography clubs.  One is a large group and they have their own website where they critique each others work.  This has always caused me anxiety-I was chicken to have total strangers look at my work solely to pick it apart-it's one thing to post a pic on my own site, it's quite another to hold it up to the light of professional evaluation.  One of the reasons I stopped entering contests was because I had started looking at my work from a 'what do they want to see' angle and not a 'I love this' angle.  I want to try to blend the two-what I love with photos that are truly good.  The best way to do that is to have someone who knows the technical side to evaluate your work.

The second is from a new group of just women who want to get together each month and take photo walks.  I have tried to get one of these groups going at least 4 times now.  I get responses, but never participation.  I have yet to go on a photo walk with any of my actual friends.  So, I am joining a group of strangers and hoping that I will get to get better with lots of ideas bouncing around and people trying for different angles and shots. 

So, that's 2 yeses so far and it's only the 4th!