Hey Actifitters,
With the beautiful cold and sunny weather this Sunday, the plan was to visit one of the local parks and we decided on Kensington Metropark, the drive to get there is 30 minutes at most and the 8 miles paved loop around the lake opens lots of walking opportunities and of course fantastic scenery. Of course, laziness and inefficiency made us start once again later than expected but finally we told Le Chat to guard the house and got on our way. I stopped trying to understand what goes on inside Le Chat's head and once again I had no idea why she decided to stay on top of her tiny house, instead of inside. It wasn't super cold, around 20F (-7C) but still, why? Funny Le Chat!
After entering the park, we only found a few parking lots open. The winter season is obviously not the main one in this area. And that's when I got one more proof I'm a dumbass: I forgot Kaia's leash! I used to have a spare one in the car but it somehow disappeared. There's often a lot of distractions in this park, including other dogs, so walking her off-leash was risky, not to mention not legal. I found a long USB cable in the car and used it as a makeshift leash. Not ideal but that will do, we will reduce the amount of walking planned though. No way we were going to just drive back when our first view out of the parking lot was this immaculate snow and beautiful sun!
We quickly took a shortcut following the cross country ski tracks, trying of course not to damage them. I'm more of a downhill skier but we have to go back for cross country skiing soon. That'd be really fun too.
As usual, we tried to go to the water as fast as possible. Well, it's not really water right now, of course everything is frozen.
We didn't have much time, but that's another thing we need to come back for: picnic at one of these tables.
With the lake completely frozen and covered with snow, it's not easy to see where it starts. But like I said a few days ago, it's most likely very safe, it's really frozen!
It's impressive how the main paved trail was perfectly cleaned up, no snow at all.
Of course, you know us and we quickly went off-trail and buried ourselves in snow! Especially Kaia.
Like I said, we didn't want to walk too much because of that makeshift leash, but the bridge is really close from where we were and the views from up there are just awesome! Again, where is the lake?
Normally we keep walking much further, but we just went back to the car and drove to the East Boat launch for the upcoming sunset.
Even when posing, Kaia can't help it, and has to bury her face in the snow!
I probably say that every time we go there, but this is the best spot for sunsets.
We found a nice bench to wait for it, but Kaia was a bit restless and we got walking again. That keeps us from freezing too.
Again, we would normally walk at least to Martindale Beach, but we stopped earlier as the path wasn't so easy to follow.
The final part of the sunset was almost there anyways.
Just like Carpenter Lake Nature Preserve, I know I already used a Kensington Park photo for Around The World contest, but probably not in winter. And I really liked this view. It's where the sailing school normally keeps their boats, but obviously they're all stored for winter at the moment.
We went back to the bench at the East Boat Launch to follow the end of the sunset.
For a minute, I thought even Kaia was absorbed by its beauty.
But clearly another dog passing by was way more important!
The sun quickly finished its descent. Such a great show!
Well, that wasn't the hiking effort I had planned, but in the end it was still a great outing in a beautiful park. Sunset over a frozen lake, that's definitely part of my favorites! And a great way to finish the week. Now back into the workweek routine...
As always, thanks for stopping by and see you tomorrow.
_
