Hot hot hot

Took Monday as a day off from running and just tried to get caught back up at work! Tuesday was an early morning run on the cart paths. Very overcast and muggy. But on the plus side, the blackberries on the powerlines were delish! (7.0 miles)

Wednesday, it seemed a bit cooler out there, but I still finished up quite sweaty. Roads in the early morning light. (8.0 miles)

Thurdsay was another day off. Yes, I am very lucky and it seems like I've spent a lot of time out of the office since the end of June but really it will only equal 2 weeks off in total, just split up with a lot of extra long weekends 😂😉😊 The forecast for the late part of the week was not looking great at all, with temps in the 90s and high humidty, so I thought I'd see what I could do before we headed down to MA to visit with Irene and Dana. Started at 6:25 am and it was incredibly heavy out. Looped around Highland Green Road and then out into the Cathance to Head of Tides before returning via the roads. Lots of bugs, so.much.sweat, some neat mushrooms, and some good berry stops. (15.0 miles)

Got a few things done around the house and then around 2:30, we headed south. Temps were in the high 90s down there when we arrived. Man oh man, so toasty!

Ryan and Dana were scheduled to play golf on Friday morning, and I decided to head over to Bradley Palmer to see what kind of miles I could get in before I just flat out overheaded. 75 degrees to start at a little before 8:00 am but high humidity and by the time I finished up a little less than 2 hours later, it was up to high 80s with a feels like temp of 90. 💦💦 Soaked, soupy, steamy, soggy, sweaty and all other similar alliterations apply 😂😂 One deer, many bugs and a lot of poison ivy seen. Had hoped I might be able to manage another 15 to back up Thursday's run, but honestly what I did was enough. (10.0 miles)

Once everyone got home and showered and we all had some lunch, we set out in search of ice cream. Because if this was not a good day for ice cream, I don't know what was! Yum!

Saturday was another scorcher of the day, and I was most definitely tired out from the time outside the past few days, so I chose to skip the run. But even with the heat, we wanted to get off the couch and do something! So we headed over to Maudsley State Park in Newburyport. Dana and Irene had walked there previously but none of the rest of us had. It was a neat spot, and definitely someplace I'd like to go back to to explore a bit more. We wanded out through the open pasture and down to a pond with multiple large snapping turtles and some little painted turtles too, then into a large stretch of pines down along the edge of the Merrimack River, where there were some neat rock outcroppings. All in all, a nice, but very very toasty, walk and even if we all finished sweaty, it was good to get out! (2.3 miles walked)

There was one little baby painted turtle who climbed up onto the back of that big snapper!

Came across a garter snake who had caught a frog

And then a second garter came over and started to tussle with the first snake in a bid to get the frog away. We watched for a while but did not see the final outcome. A neat and unusual sighting!

Along the Merrimack

💗

Back up through the pasture

We did go out to get ice cream again after lunch, and then spent the rest of the afternoon inside, relaxing and playing pool. Fun was had by all, even if the caliber of games was not very high 😂😂 

Probably should have run on Saturday morning because by the time I headed out on Sunday around 7:15 am, it was already almost 80 degrees. Oy vey! So hot. So sweaty. So unnecessary! Wore my pack and tried to take it easy but it really didn't matter. It was just disgusting out there. Found one stretch of sprinklers in the final mile and ran back and forth through them a few times to cool off 😆 Just managed to eek out 50 miles for the week, and given the weather, I'm calling it good! (10.0 miles)

Doesn't it just look like a hot August day?

On the garden front, things are looking quite jungly out there but there are some lovely blooms happening! 🌸

Culver's root and globe thistle gone wild