I am gonna be sore on Monday

 

I've been really sedentary for the past couple months.  The work I was doing for my job had me tied to the computer more than usual and I was stress eating on top of it.  Something had to change and I hope today was a new beginning, but I know I'll be feeling it on Monday.

After puttering around for a while in the morning, I loaded up Sparky for the first time in a very long time and we headed to Pleasant Grove to hike.  We only did about an hour and a half, but that was enough for both of us today. 

I found some ticks on me afterwards, of course, so I will spray myself more thoroughly next time.  We hiked a section of the horse trails that was new territory for us so that was fun.  We had a pretty good storm pass through here a few days ago and there were quite a few trees and many limbs down, often blocking the trail.  At the end we discovered the Fluvanna Community Garden, which I hadn't known anything about.  There are unused plots in the garden but I'm not sure how to go about signing up for them and I'm really not sure I have the time to do it this year anyway.  Great idea though, and it might give me the incentive to get up there at least a few days each week.

After the hike I made the run out to retrieve the four dogs I had boarded.  After getting them home and situated, I loaded up the canoe and headed to the river for a float trip.  It was late afternoon by the time I started, but the days are long and the river was pretty high so I knew I'd have time. 

It was a beautiful day, although some stray clouds came over once or twice and even produced some thunder.  I was starting out late in the day so I didn't expect to see a lot of wildlife, but there were ducks and geese (both with offspring), and turtles.  The big surprise came when I spotted something downstream that I first thought was a turtle on a bobbing log.  But then the log disappeared entirely.  As I got closer it reappeared and I could tell it was an otter. 

The otter

He teased me, appearing and disappearing several times.  He made a wide berth around my canoe but kept popping his head up occasionally to keep an eye on me.  At one point he started chattering at me, which I took to mean something like "get the heck out of my river, asshole."  I was snapping pictures like crazy but mostly I got water because he was popping up and down quickly.  This one pic shows his head and face fairly well, although it's a bit blurry. 

It was a good trip and good exercise because I paddled most of the way and made the trip in about 2.5 hours.  I'll be sore on Monday but feeling good.