More Cold Hiking

Welp, we have yet another hard freeze warning for tonight.  There will probably be another one Friday and Saturday nights.  Have I mentioned that this is the WORST WINTER EVER??????  No?  Well it is.  What's made it particularly bad is the almost daily wind and the persistence of the cold temperatures.  We went to the gym yesterday, it was so cold.  That's saying something, we hate the gym.  Today it's all we can do to put our clothes on because our pecs and lats hurt so much.  Anyway we did get a hike in today, wearing ear bras and gloves.  Totally sad.

The two vertical arrows are from our last two hikes.  When it warms up a little we want to repeat the right most arrow and see if we can get on top of that ridge.  Today we got on a new to us trail and headed toward the really big rocks, pointed at by the angled arrow on the right.

On the way we saw a jojoba plant who is developing fruit.  This is a female plant.  The male plant has little yellow flowers.  The female has almost no visible flower.  Wikipedia has a good article with pictures.  If you look dead center you can see the immature fruits of the plant. 

What we thought would be a flat trail turned into an uphill trail as we approached the big rocks.  As we left the sheltered valley, the wind picked up and our discomfort increased.  We turned around and went home.  There were still chores to be done.

Again we're covering the tender plants that are not from here!

It was interesting, we saw three adults and one juvenile mule deer when we were hiking.  We later saw them in the back yard of the people hosting happy hour.  They were absolutely brazen, standing in the yard, nibbling at the new growth, and looking at the people in the house.