A Walk at the Park

One of my favorite things to do is take walks and hikes in the many county and state parks in the area. We moved from Sacramento, California in 2007 where I'd lived most of my life. If you've been to Sacramento, you know that it's flat as a pancake and very brown during the summer...so different from the always green, hilly, and mountainous Puget Sound area!

This time of year is especially different from my old stomping grounds. In Sacramento, winter is big storms with heavy rain, maybe an occasional drizzle, and glorious sunshine for days at a time and nary a snowflake in sight.

Last Saturday, we took a walk at the Iron Horse State Park. It's one of our fave parks with extensive trails and paved walkways as well as beautiful scenery all seasons of the year.
It's been pretty cold (highs in the 30's during the day) here lately despite some sunny days and that means fantastic winter tableaus. I love how the frost and residual moisture formed this prehistoric looking flower shaped ice crystal! Yep...that's all ice! Love those spikes!

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The juxtaposition of green and white was too beautiful to pass up! If you look carefully you can see the hundreds of individual crystals all over the leaves.

Rattlesnake Lake is also a great feature of Iron Horse State Park. While walking on the beach, I noticed these ice crystals all over the stones on rocky beach. They were everywhere and made a wonderful crunching sound when stepped on.