It’s the first day of summer, and the heat is here, so I’m a bit jealous of that California coastal weather. Here are a couple more photos from Garrapata State Park.

Golden, Colorado has really impressive open space and trails. While I was there for a month for a temporary work assignment, I got to go hiking right out my door almost every day on a mesa that looks into Denver, Boulder and spans the front range of the Rockies, and is home to coyotes, deer and plenty of other wonderful wildlife smells for Bon. These bushes were so delicate and pretty that I had to get a closeup of them, with their sporadic paper circles that shimmered in the light.  Free parks, plenty of open space, well-developed trail systems – Jefferson County offers a lot to its residents. Preserving space and land is something I wish the east coast would learn to at some point.

So, we were walking along the White Oak Canyon trail when it opened up onto a flat bed of rocks below the waterfalls. There in the middle of the main walking area was a group of at least seven people who decided that it would be a great place to sleep. So they covered themselves with their clothes, tossed their backpacks and belongings aside, and dozed off. No one seemed to mind that we were stepping over them, that our dogs were sniffing them, or that we were talking about them. Of course they didn’t, because it’s totally normal to sleep right in the middle of a trail. Right??? I mean, comfy rocks, white noise of people’s conversations. Just perfect.