April 5: Birthday Hike

Today was my 41st birthday, so I decided to celebrate it in a healthy way - I want to start my year off right this year!  My intrepid children and I decided to go on another hike.  This time we went to Ball's Falls, in Jordan, Ontario.  We took a branch of the Bruce Trail - a hike rated "difficult".  And it definitely was.  I landed on my butt a few times going down steep hills.  I actually sat on my butt on a couple and bumped my way down, hanging onto tree roots like  a monkey.

This hike seemed even tougher than our Gorge hike, although the altitude was only about 100 feet.  The trail wound up and down throughout the entire hike, whereas the Gorge hike was down once and then back up at the end.  We also saw a half a dozen slithery little friends, which thrilled only my 14 year old daughter.

We hiked down to the water for our picnic, which consisted of smoked turkey and Havarti sandwiches on whole wheat panini buns from the bakery.  I brought some fresh pears too but none of us wanted them at the time.  I haven't had any type of "lunch meat" in at least 6 months and couldn't believe how salty it tasted.  Still, after all that climbing around, it was yummy.

Turkey sandwiches:

After lunch we climbed back up to the main trail.  My oldest daughter, our expedition photographer snapped pictures of us relentlessly and also got some really awesome nature shots.

Picture of one of the small waterfalls of Twenty Valley Creek

The Bruce Trail portion of the hike ended with 157 steps up out of the Twenty Valley.  Yep, 157 steps.  I felt slightly less out of breath climbing these than I did ascending the Gorge last week, but all three of us took a little rest at the top.

Finally we walked through the Balls Falls trail, through the historical village to see the Lower Falls. Very serene and beautiful.

We hiked approximately 4-5 kilometers, which isn't really very far.  We were in the woods for about 2 and a half hours.  We were beat afterwards - I think it may have been a little too soon after our last crazy hike.  To celebrate my birthday we went out for ice cream.  I had a splurge of about 800 calories.  (eek)  I had Birthday Cake ice cream, with a cookie dough mix in, in a white chocolate dipped waffle cone.

Delicious!

My goal was to keep calories in check by preparing my own food for most of the day and splurging on dessert.  The other benefit to this strategy is that there are no leftovers around to tempt me for the next week or so!  Although I enjoyed Easter and my birthday treat, I'm really looking forward to getting back on track.  All this sugar and salt makes me feel sluggish, and I want to feel energetic!